"It was said that our manufactures were all loaded with heavy taxes. It was certainly true, but with that disadvantage they had always been able to triumph over the Irish in their own markets, paying an additional ten per cent. on the importation to Ireland, and all the charges. But the low price of labour was mentioned. Would that enable them to undersell us? Manufacturers thought otherwise--there were great obstacles to the planting of any manufacture. It would require time for arts and capital, and the capital would not increase without the demand also, and in an established manufacture improvement was so rapid as to bid defiance to rivalship."[153] The Irish Parliament, in wishing to protect their infant manufactures, were strictly within the lines of modern economic science. Thus Mr. John Stuart Mill speaks of the wisdom of protecting duties in countries whose conditions are similar to those of Ireland as described by Mr. Pitt:-- "The only case in which, on mere principles of political economy, protecting duties can be defensible, is when they are imposed temporarily (especially in a young and rising nation) in the hopes of naturalising a foreign industry in itself perfectly suitable to the circumstances of the country. The superiority of one country over another in a branch of production often arises only from having begun it sooner. There may be no inherent advantage on one part or disadvantage on the other, but only a present superiority of acquired skill and experience. A country which has this skill and experience yet to acquire may in other respects be better adapted to the production than those that were earlier in the field; and, besides, it is a just remark of Mr. Rae that nothing has a greater tendency to promote improvements in any branch of production than its trial under a new set of conditions. But it cannot be expected that individuals should at their own risk, or rather to their certain loss, introduce a new manufacture and bear the burthen of carrying it on until the producers have been educated up to the level of those with whom the processes are traditional. A protecting duty continued for a reasonable time will sometimes be the least inconvenient mode in which the nation can tax itself for the support of such an experiment. But the protection should be confined to cases in which there is good ground of assurance that the industry which it fosters will, after a time, be able to dispense with it, nor should the domestic producers ever be allowed to expect that it will be continued to them beyond the time necessary for a fair trial of what they are capable of accomplishing."[154] The Irish manufactures, which had revived by the protecting care of the Irish Parliament, died when that safeguard was removed.