The eminent Italian Political Economist, Luigi Cossa, warns the student of this difficulty; but free-trading “fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”
He says:—
“It is needful to hold ourselves aloof equally from the so-called Doctrinaires who refuse the assistance of practice, and from the Empiricists who obstinately close their eyes to the light of theory.
The Pure science explains phenomena and determines laws; the Applied science gives guiding principles, which practice brings into conformity with the innumerable varieties of individual cases.”[15]
Mill also says:—
“One of the peculiarities of modern times,—the separation of theory from practice,—of the studies of the closet from the outward business of the world,—has given a wrong bias to the ideas and feelings both of the student and of the man of business.[16] ... There is almost always room for a modest doubt as to our practical conclusions.”
Let us take an example of pure and applied science.
You, my Friend, quote an axiom of Pure Political Economy when you say:—
“It is unjust to tax all for the benefit of one class” So far I quite agree with you;—it is to your application of the axiom that I object, when you go on to say—“therefore protection in any shape is wrong.” Your application of pure science to the complex question of free trade is quite incorrect.
I say “it is just and expedient to tax all for the benefit of all.” I hold that the employment of home and colonial labour, and the development of home and colonial produce and industries, is for the benefit of the community as a whole; and that, consequently, protection, if carried only to the extent necessary to secure this, and no further, is just and expedient.