Page:The New Protectionism.djvu/32

Similarly with Sheffield cutlery, with Northampton boots, or with any other local or national industry. It is easy to show how a tariff can do good to each of them, taken separately. "But," argues the Protectionist, "a policy which can be shown to be good for each must surely be good for all." This, of course, is the central fallacy. If the Bradford weaver gets Protection and nobody else, he stands to gain. But if all the other British trades, local and national, engaged in making articles he needs in his trade — e.g., wool, coal, machinery, dyes, etc. — or articles of food, clothing, furniture, etc., on which he spends his wages, also get Protection, each duty to protect those other trades filches from him a bit of the gain he stood to make if the Bradford woollen trade were alone protected. A general tariff protecting all British trades equally would thus be found to make so many deductions from the value of the special Protection enjoyed by the woollen trade, as to convert it from a gain into a loss. The higher prices of woollens