This is, however, not the place to state the whole case as between protection and free trade. Chiefly it is to our point here to emphasise the fact that the advocates of a protective tariff belong mainly to the capitalist class; and that they will plead for a protective tariff on the ground of national prosperity, and that national pride and prejudice will be invoked in support of the argument. They will be careful to abstain from calling undue attention to the point that a protective tariff will discriminate in favour of the classes that are already sufficiently prosperous, and their popular argument will have much to say about the high wages of the worker. “Make the foreigner pay” was the battlecry of the Chamberlainite fiscal reformer in England; and what the foreigner pays we all enjoy together. It sounds fair enough; until it is seen that by no chance whatsoever does the foreigner pay anything. He may lose something in the diminution of his trade; but he pays nothing. The payment is made by the domestic consumer in the higher prices which immediately prevail in respect of “protected” commodities; and this higher price brings an advantage to whom? To the worker? Not at all, if the capitalist can help it. Will the worker get higher wages? Only if he is strong enough to demand it. The empty hypocrisy of this talk about national prosperity should be evident from the fact that the very people who are interested in high prices are those who are equally interested in lowering wages. The increase of the wage rate during the war has not automatically or proportionately followed the rise in prices; it has always to be wrested by main force from those whose interest lies in keeping prices high and wages low. Under a protectionist régime, wages are rarely high enough to compensate for the higher cost of living, and the more dependent a country is upon importation from abroad, the truer is this statement. It is only in countries like the United States of America where the natural resources are large and more or less easily available that protection can effect any substantial appearance of social prosperity, and even in these cases it is scarcely doubtful that the general prosperity would be greatly increased by the removal of a protective tariff. The dividends upon invested capital would no doubt be lower; but the general level of material well-being would be appreciably raised.