list2-第47节
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where the Government is unable to provide any remedy for its
interruption; we often see manufacturers continuing to produce at
an actual loss。 They want to avert; in expectation of better times;
the irrecoverable injury which they would suffer from a stoppage of
their works。
By free competition it is often hoped to oblige the competitor
to discontinue work which has compelled the manufacturer or
merchant to sell his products under their legitimate price and
often at an actual loss。 The object is not merely to prevent the
interruption of our own industry; but also to force others to
discontinue theirs in the hope later on of being able by better
prices to recoup the losses which have been suffered。
In any case striving after monopoly forms part of the very
nature of manufacturing industry。 This circumstance tends to
justify and not to discredit a protective policy; for this
striving; when restricted in its operation to the home market;
tends to promote cheaper prices and improvements in the art of
production; and thus increases the national prosperity; while the
same thing; in case it presses from without with overwhelming force
on the internal industry; will occasion the interruption of work
and downfall of the internal national industry。
The circumstance that there are no limits to manufacturing
production (especially since it has been so extraordinarily aided
and promoted by machinery) except the limits of the capital which
it possesses and its means of effecting sales; enables that
particular nation whose manufacturing industry has continued for a
century; which has accumulated immense capitals; extended its
commerce all over the world; dominated the money market by means of
large institutions of credit (whose operations are able to depress
the prices of fabrics and to induce merchants to export); to
declare a war of extermination against the manufacturers of all
other countries。 Under such circumstances it is quite impossible
that in other nations; 'in the natural course of things' (as Adam
Smith expresses himself); merely in consequence of their progress
in agriculture; immense manufactures and works should be
established; or that those manufactures which have originated in
consequence of the commercial interruptions caused by war should be
able; 'in the natural course of things;' to continue to maintain
themselves。 The reason for this is the same as that why a child or
a boy in wrestling with a strong man can scarcely be victorious or
even offer steady resistance。 The manufactories which constitute
the commercial and industrial supremacy (of England) have a
thousand advantages over the newly born or half…grown manufactories
of other nations。 The former; for instance; can obtain skilled and
experienced workmen in the greatest number and at the cheapest
wages; the best technical men and foremen; the most perfect and the
cheapest machinery; the greatest benefit in buying and selling
advantageously; further; the cheapest means of transport; as
respects raw materials and also in respect of transporting goods
when sold; more extended credit for the manufacturers with banks
and money institutions at the lowest rates of interest; greater
commercial experience; better tools; buildings; arrangements;
connections; such as can only be acquired and established in the
course of generations; an enormous home market; and; what is
equally good; a colonial market equally enormous。 Hence under all
circumstances the English manufacturers can feel certainty as to
the sale of large quantities of manufactured products by vigorous
efforts; and consequently possess a guarantee for the continuance
of their business and abundant means to sell on credit for years to
come in the future; if it is required to acquire the control of a
foreign market。 If we enumerate and consider these advantages one
after another; we may easily be convinced that in competition with
such a power it is simply foolish to rest our hopes on the
operation of 'the natural course of things' under free competition;
where; as in our case; workmen and technical men have in the first
place yet to be trained; where the manufacture of machinery and
proper means of transport are merely in course of erection; where
even the home market is not secured to the manufacturer not to
mention any important export market; where the credit that the
manufacturer can obtain is under the most fortunate circumstances
limited to the lowest point; where no man can be certain even for
a day that; in consequence of English commercial crises and bank
operations; masses of foreign goods may not be thrown on the home
market at prices which scarcely recoup the value of the raw
materials of which they are made; and which bring to a stand for
years the progress of our own manufacturing industries。
It would be in vain for such nations to resign themselves to a
state of perpetual subordination to the English manufacturing
supremacy; and content themselves with the modest determination to
supply it with what it may not be able to produce for itself or to
procure elsewhere。 Even by this subordination they will find no
permanent benefit。 What benefit is it to the people of the United
States; for instance; that they sacrifice the welfare of their
finest and most cultivated states; the states of free labour; and
perhaps their entire future national greatness; for the advantage
of supplying England with raw cotton? Do they thereby restrict the
endeavours of England to procure this material from other districts
of the world? In vain would the Germans be content to obtain their
requirements of manufactured goods from England in exchange for
their fine sheep's wool; they would by such a policy hardly prevent
Australia from flooding all Europe with fine wool in the course of
the next twenty years。
Such a condition of dependence appears still more deplorable
when we consider that such nations lose in times of war their means
of selling their agricultural products; and thereby the means of
purchasing the manufacturing products of the foreigner。 At such
times all economical considerations and systems are thrust into the
background。 It is the principle of self…maintenance; of
self…defence; which counsels the nations to work up their
agricultural products themselves; and to dispense with the
manufactured goods of the enemy。 Whatever losses may be involved in
adopting such a war…prohibitive system; cannot be taken into
account during such a state of things。 However great the exertions
and the sacrifices may have been by which the agricultural nation
during the time of war has called into existence manufactures and
works; the competition of the manufacturing supremacy which sets in
on the recurrence of peace will again destroy all these creations
of the times of necessity。 In short; it is an eternal alternation
of erecting and destroying; of prosperity and calamity which those
nations have to undergo who do not strive to insure; through
realisation of their national division of labour and through the
confederation of their own powers of production; the benefits of
the continuation of their own industries from generation to
generation。
Chapter 25
The Manufacturing Power and the Inducement to Production and
Consumption
In society man is not merely productive owing to the
circumstance that he directly brings forth products or creates
powers of production; but he also becomes productive by creating
inducements to production and to consumption; or to the formation
of productive powers。
The artist by his works acts in the first place on the
ennobling and refinement of the human spirit and on the productive
power of society; but inasmuch as the enjoyment of art presupposes
the possession of those material means whereby it must be
purchased; the artist also offers inducements to material
production and to thrift。
Books and newspapers act on the mental and material production
by giving information; but their acquisition costs money; and so
far the enjoyment which they afford is also an inducement to
material production。
The education of youth ennobles society; but what great
exertions do parents make to obtain the means of giving their
children a good education!
What immense performances in both mental and material
production arise out of the e