ABSTRACT
The Royal Commission on Trade affords excellent material for framing jocular answers to questions on the subject of bounties. The stupids have been soundly beaten often in time, and the people can count confidently upon another victory over them and their complete defeat in their latest movement. Monopoly and protection always discourage improvement and generally strangle the industry they pretend to foster, and a sharp free competition is the necessary condition of health and vigour. The league and its followers are idiotically blind to the fact that if the people impose import duties they themselves will have to pay them with heavy additions, and the foreigners. In all the abominations of the American tariff there is not one so heavy as England’s duty on American tobacco, and the people doubt much if the league can find any in the tariffs of France, or Spain, or Germany, any item so excessive as our duties upon their cheap wines and spirits.
