If protectionism has kept them out of it, you can scarcely blame it. But even without such keen competition, the Americans are justified, by the writings of your sacred shastras, as may be seen by the following quotation: “The capital, therefore, employed in the _Home trade_ of any country will generally give encouragement and support to a greater quantity of productive labour in that country, and increase the value of its annual produce, more than an equal capital employed in the _Foreign trade_ of consumption; and the capital employed in this latter trade has, in both these respects, a _still greater advantage over an equal capital engaged in the Carrying trade_.”[51] So you see that the authority of your own sacred writings is favourable to the policy of our American cousins in this respect. FOOTNOTE: [51] ‘Wealth of Nations,’ by Adam Smith, Bk. II. Chap. V. CHAPTER XV. ADVERSE PROSPERITY. I have a few words to say about high wages and prosperity, before I quit the subject. Although the rise of wages is, in fact, to some extent, the work of protection, I am not proud of it; for trades unionism is protection of an extreme character, generally narrow in its aims, not sufficiently far-seeing, and consequently sometimes mischievous in its results. The raising of wages within reasonable bounds is desirable; but, in a Free Trade country, it is apt to be attended with serious consequences in raising the cost of the manufactured article, when competing against the manufacture of foreign countries, where wages are lower and hours of work longer. It is said by Free Trade advocates, that although the cost of provisions has not sensibly increased, yet _wages are 50 per cent. higher, and hours of labour 20 per cent. less_, than they were forty years ago. From the political economist’s point of view, this appears to be a decrease of national wealth. Mill says:-- “Saving enriches, and spending impoverishes, the community along with the individual. Society at large is richer by what it expends in _maintaining and aiding productive labour_, but poorer by what it expends in its enjoyments.”[52] Now if a stalwart race could have existed, and have done 20 per cent. more work on the lower rate of wages,--although, doubtless, some improvement in the condition of workmen was desirable,--50 per cent. appears to be a large margin, when we consider that the price of provisions is said to be unaltered. The British workman is proverbially extravagant and improvident. High wages encourage extravagance, whilst surplus cash furnishes the means, and short hours the leisure, for gratifying a taste for drink. Setting aside for the moment the serious evils of intemperance, we have practically, with high wages, the causes that lead to the impoverishment of a community.