Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 edition. Excerpt: ... was exclusively designed for purposes of raising revenue would be built on very different lines from a tariff whose primary aim was to afford to domestic industries a shelter from foreign competition. It is just here that the difficulty arises in treating customs duties from a financial standpoint exclusively. The financial interest and the industrial interest (assuming that the latter is to be subserved by a protective policy) are, if not hopelessly divergent, at least in the first instance, by no means in complete accord; and whether the public is benefited the more by making one interest subservient to the other, or by striking a rough compromise between the two, is a question of practical policy which cannot be decided on financial grounds alone. Upon the issue of protection itself it is hardly safe to assume that there will be any general agreement for many years to come. But there is little ground for debate upon the lesser issue that there is no necessary connection between the revenue yielded by a tariff which accords the desired degree of protection, and the revenue which a tariff is capable of yielding if constructed exclusively with reference to revenue. The protectionist may logically concede the fact and yet contend either that the ( hampering of the fiscal machine is of relatively little moment, or, even if great in itself, is more than offset by 'the far more exceeding and eternal weight' of gain which the policy of protection brings in its wake. On the other hand, it is true that to one who is not convinced of the utility of the protective policy this crippling of the arm of the fisc is an additional grievance which he lays up against the protective system. But that is a matter which we need not pursue here. What is much...
