X.
HOME TRADE AND INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION.
Protective tariffs used to facilitate international competition—Natio7ial
monopolies—The colonial theory—Struggles of English statesmen to
create a sole market—The South Sea Scheme—The American War
of Independence—Free trade and competition—The unions with
Scotland and Ireland—Reputations for commercial integrity.
Whatever may be said about competition for the home market
among home producers, in which the home producer has two
great natural advantages—saving in the cost of freight, and a more
ready and rapid interpretation of demand—there is no question
that competition rules absolutely in the foreign market. So great
is the superiority conferred on the home producer by these advan-
tages, that I am accustomed, and with justice, to call them a
natural protection. They are in fact equivalent to a considerable
duty imposed for protectionist purposes, and they cannot be
annulled. In the colonial trade the manufacturers of Great
Britain have also an advantage. They stand, to be sure, on the
same natural level with the producers of other nations in the
matter of freight, in those countries, at least, that can compete
with Great Britain in the carrying trade. But the British trader
has in some degree the second advantage. He is better able to
interpret demand than his foreign rival is. He has another ad-
HOME TRADE AND INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION.
Protective tariffs used to facilitate international competition—Natio7ial
monopolies—The colonial theory—Struggles of English statesmen to
create a sole market—The South Sea Scheme—The American War
of Independence—Free trade and competition—The unions with
Scotland and Ireland—Reputations for commercial integrity.
Whatever may be said about competition for the home market
among home producers, in which the home producer has two
great natural advantages—saving in the cost of freight, and a more
ready and rapid interpretation of demand—there is no question
that competition rules absolutely in the foreign market. So great
is the superiority conferred on the home producer by these advan-
tages, that I am accustomed, and with justice, to call them a
natural protection. They are in fact equivalent to a considerable
duty imposed for protectionist purposes, and they cannot be
annulled. In the colonial trade the manufacturers of Great
Britain have also an advantage. They stand, to be sure, on the
same natural level with the producers of other nations in the
matter of freight, in those countries, at least, that can compete
with Great Britain in the carrying trade. But the British trader
has in some degree the second advantage. He is better able to
interpret demand than his foreign rival is. He has another ad-