cle produced in excess, and exported, would
command only the lowest prices of open markets, and the fancied
protection of the law would be void; while everything produced in
deficiency, and of which we required to import a portion to make up the
needful supply, would continue to be protected above the natural price
of the world to any extent of import duty that the law imposed upon the
quantity required to make up the deficiency.

Thus, for example, we export a large portion of the woollen, and the
largest portion of the cotton goods which we manufacture, to all parts
of the world, which we must sell at least as cheap as they can be bought
in any other country. The same articles can only command the same price
in the home market, and though the law imposed an import duty, by way of
pretended protection, to any extent, upon similar foreign goods, it
would not have the effect of raising the price one fraction. On the
other hand, we do not produce as much wool or food as we consume, and
have every year to import large quantities of each to make up the
deficiency. Whatever duty, therefore, is put on the import of the
quantity thus required, will enable the producers at home to maintain
their price so much above the natural level of the world. By this state
of things the country at large is injured in two distinct and prominent
ways:--first,--those articles which we can make in excess, and export,
must ever be the chief means of absorbing the increasing capital and
labour of the country; and the impediment thrown in our way, of
importing those things which we have in deficiency, must necessarily
check our power of extending the demand for the produce of such
increasing labour and capital; and, secondly,--the price of such
articles as we produce in deficiency, will always be maintained much
above the level of the world, to the great disadvantage of the other
great class of producers, the price of whose labour, and whose profits,
will be regulated by competition with those who have food, &c., at the
lowest price.

So much as to the effect on the community at large. We will now shortly
consider the effect on individual interests, which are thought to enjoy
protection, and we believe we can show that there never was a condition
so fraught with mischief and disappointment, with such unmitigated
delusion, deception, and exposure to ruin, than is to be found in every
case where protection operates. We think it can be clearly shown