ABSTRACT
As there could never be a question of putting an import duty on coal, the probable effect of Protection upon the coal trade cannot be estimated from past experience or from what is now often called the Cobdenite point of view, but will be regarded by the trade, favourably or the reverse, according as it will increase or diminish the output and the cost of production. That of course means a catastrophe to the coal trade which would be felt for generations. Artificial disturbances of that equilibrium which has been built up by the energy and sagacity of at least three generations of business men may produce consequences so far-reaching as to be positively disastrous, and it is difficult to think of any industry, hardly excepting the cotton trade, whose ruin or injury would be more widely felt in its indirect effects at home than the mining of coal.
