=The Argument for Protective Tariffs.=—Why should American industry be given protection by tariff duties against foreign competition? The answer to this question was first given by Alexander Hamilton in his famous _Report on Manufactures_ (1790) and it has been elaborated by many writers since Hamilton’s time. [Sidenote: 1. It develops young industries.] The chief arguments in favor of protection are that it helps home industry, develops a home market, raises wages and keeps them high, provides employment for a country’s own workmen, and makes a country independent of others. Protection, it is claimed, helps new industries or “infant industries” to get on their feet. These new industries, if not shielded against the pressure of foreign competition in their early stages would be unable to make headway, but if given adequate protection for a time they ultimately get well established and add to the nation’s industrial strength. This industrial growth, it is argued, helps the farmer by creating a home market for his agricultural produce. The growth of industry creates large cities and these centers of population form the farmer’s best market. [Sidenote: 2. It keeps wages up.] Those who favor the policy of protection also argue that if high duties were not imposed upon imports from other countries, the wages of the American workman would fall and many would be out of employment. Until recent years the general rate of wages in European countries has been much lower than in the United States, but since the World War the disparity has not been so great. The lower wages of labor in Europe have enabled goods to be produced more cheaply there than in America, and were it not for the protective tariff, the United States would be flooded with these products of underpaid European workers. In the end the American scale of wages would be forced down to the same level—so the protectionists argue. [Sidenote: 3. It promotes an all-around economic development.] Finally, there is the nationalist argument for protection. To be strong and independent a country ought to have an all-around economic development. Its people ought not to devote their entire energies to agriculture alone. All branches of economic life ought to be fostered together. A country should aim to provide, so far as possible, for all its own needs; it should not be dependent on other countries for its food supply, its manufactured goods, or its shipping. It is difficult for a country to reach this condition of affairs in any case, and even a near approach to it can only be achieved by the artificial nurture of the weaker economic activities, which is what the protective tariff endeavors to supply. [Sidenote: The case against protection:]