It does not seem that they were. Neither of the two countries which have remained faithful to a thoroughgoing Protection any longer needs industrial education. Both of them have long since arrived at that complex state which, according to List, is necessary for the full development of their civilisation and the expansion of their power. Germany and the United States have no longer any cause to fear England. Their commercial fleets are numerous, their warships powerful, and their empires are every day expanding. Were he to return to this world to-day, List, who so energetically emphasised the relative value of the various commercial systems, and the necessity of adapting one’s method to the changing conditions of the times and the character of the nation, but always laid such stress upon the essentially temporary character of the tariffs raised, would perhaps find himself ranged on the side of those who demand a lowering of those barriers in the interest of a more liberal expansion of productive forces. Has he himself not declared that “in a few years the civilised nations of the world, through the perfection of the means of transport, through the influence of material and intellectual ties, will be as united, nay, even more closely knit together, than were the counties of England a hundred years ago”?[599] Even the profound changes in the international economic situation during the last sixty years fail to supply a serious justification for the Protectionist policy of the great commercial nations, and the essential traits of this new _régime_ differ _toto cælo_ from the outlines supplied by List. Far from allowing agriculture to develop naturally, there has arisen the cry for some protection for the farmer, which has served as a pretext for a general reinforcement of tariffs in a great number of cases, notably in France and Germany. The competition of American corn has hindered European agriculture from benefiting by the advancement of industry as List had predicted. Modern tariffs, involving as they do the taxation of both agricultural and industrial products, imply a conception of Protection entirely different from List’s. He would have confined Protection to the most important branches of national production—to those industries from which the other and secondary branches receive their supplies. Only on this ground would he have justified exceptional treatment.[600] It is an essentially vigorous conception, and what he sought of Protection was an energetic stimulant and an agent of progress. But a tariff which indifferently protects every enterprise, which no longer distinguishes between the fertilising and the fertilised industries, and increases all prices at the same time, can have only one effect—a loss for one producer and a gain for another. Their relative positions remain intact. It is no longer a means of stimulating productive energy; it is merely a general instrument of defence against