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• Preface
• The Comedy of Protection
• Book I: Fluctuations In the French Customs Tariff
• Chapter I: Colbertism and Its Effects
• Chapter II: From 1791 to 1814
• Chapter III: The Revenge of the ÉmigrÉs
• Chapter IV: The “feudatories” of the July Government
• Chapter V: Universal Suffrage—rampant Protectionism
• Chapter VI: Cobden and the 1860 Treaty
• Chapter VII: Submission of the Republicans to the Fiscal Policy of Their Adversaries
• Chapter VIII: Results of the 1860 Treaties
• Chapter IX: Economic Reaction of 1881
• Chapter X: Bargain Between Landlords and Manufacturers
• Chapter XI: Tariff Freedom
• Chapter XII: Breach In the Minimum Tariff
• Chapter XIII: Socialism and Dear Bread
• Chapter XIV: Deception
• Chapter XV: The Panacea of Bimetallism
• Chapter XVI: Underselling In Wines
• Chapter XVII: Tariff War Between France and Italy
• Chapter XVIII: Bounties to the Merchant Service
• Chapter XIX: Sugar Bounties
• Chapter XX: Import Bonds
• Chapter XXI: Temporary Admissions
• Chapter XXII: Foreign Trade Between 1860 and 1903—france and England
• Chapter XXIII: Thiers’ Agricultural Forecasts
• Chapter XXIV: Definite Results of the 1860 Treaty
• Chapter XXV: Reaction and the Protectionist Fever
• Book II: Protected and Restricted Industries
• Chapter I: The Postulates of Protection
• Chapter II: Relative Importance of Different Industries
• Chapter III: The Principal Group of Industries In France
• Chapter IV: The Textile Industries
• Chapter V: The Metal Trades
• Chapter VI: Skin and Leather Trade
• Chapter VII: Conclusion
• Book III: Bread and Meat In France
• Chapter I: Claims of the French Landed Proprietors
• Chapter II: Physiological Determination of the Standard Ration
• Chapter III: Bread In France
• Chapter IV: Protection and the Price of Bread
• Chapter V: Meat In France
• Chapter VI: Food In France, According to the Labour Bureau
• Chapter VII: French Agriculture and the Incidence of the Customs—deficiency In Production
• Book IV: The Protectionist Oligarchy
• Chapter I
• Book V: The Work of Death
• Chapter I: Food and Effort
• Chapter II: Nutrition and Evolution
• Chapter III: Nourishment and Mortality
• Chapter IV: Justice and Charity
• Book VI: Mr. Chamberlain’s Programme
• Chapter I: The Protectionist Tradition In England
• Chapter II: Mr. Chamberlain’s Programme
• Chapter III: Mr. Chamberlain’s Statements and the Customs House Returns
• Chapter IV: Export of Manufactures
• Chapter V: Food
• Chapter VI: Mr. Chamberlain and Imperial Unity
• Chapter VII: Arguments For Fiscal Reform
• Chapter VIII: Reasons For Mr. Chamberlain’s Defeat
• Book VII: Protection In the United States
• Chapter I: The American Tariff
• Chapter II: Protectionist Arguments
• Chapter III: Protection and Industrial Advance
• Chapter IV: The Burden of Protection
• Chapter V: Assessment of the Tariff
• Chapter VI: American Trade
• Chapter VII: Conclusions
• Book VIII: German National Economy
• Chapter I: National Political Economy
• Chapter II: Two Contradictory Fiscal Systems
• Chapter III: German Foreign Trade
• Chapter IV: Export Bounties and Cartels
• Chapter V: France and the New Tariff
• Chapter VI: Conclusions
• Book IX: Customs Statistics—the Balance of Trade, and the Balance of Indebtedness
• Chapter I: Customs Statistics
• Chapter II: The Balance of Trade and the Balance of Indebtedness
• Book X: MÉline’s Confession
• Chapter I: Conception—dramatising By M. MÉline
• Book XI: Protectionist Postulates and Economic Realities
• Chapter I: Protectionist Postulates
• Chapter II: Economic Realities
• Book XII: My Immediate Programme
• Chapter I: A Simple Programme
• Chapter II: Taxes On Extra European Goods Imported From a European Country
• Chapter III: The Export of Wines
• Chapter IV: Conditions of Export

CHAPTER III

THE PRINCIPAL GROUP OF INDUSTRIES IN FRANCE

I.—

Numerical Importance.

It is obvious from the preceding table showing the relative importance of different industries that the manufacture of stuffs, linen goods, and articles of clothing forms 20·47 per cent., i.e., more than one-fifth of the total industry of France. Of this industry the raw materials are cloth, cotton yarn and textiles, linen, and silk; it will therefore suffer from the rebound of protective duties on textiles. The first group, comprising the manufacture of stuff, linen, and clothes, employs some 1,340,000: according to the census returns 140,000 cutters; 60,000 readymade clothes makers; 614,000 dressmakers; 75,000 makers of hats and head-dresses, including 45,000 milliners; 23,000 flower and feather makers. Paris is the centre for nearly all these industries, which have the highest standard of wages. Is this due to Protection? We shall see that they are victims of Protection.

II.—

Clothes and Underclothes.

The export of clothes and underclothes stands ninth in the total of French exports. The following are the figures reckoned on an annual average over the three years preceding the 1892 tariff:—

The tariff came into operation on February 1, 1892. Passing over this and the following year to allow for the disturbances caused by a change in system, we find:—

That is, during the period following the 1892 tariff there was a fall, relative to the preceding period, of 18 per cent., and even in the second period a fall of 10 per cent.; that the excess of the average of the three years 1900-02 over the average of 1889-91 was not due to, but in spite of, Protection; and 1903 shows a return to the figures of 1894-96.

III.—

Protection and Linen Goods.

Looking at the exports in detail, we find the following figures for made-up linen goods:—

And this fall in our exports is not solely due to their exclusion by foreign Customs tariffs, but in part to our own tariff. In the article on Linens in the “Dictionary of Commerce,” M. Julien Hayem, a great wholesale linen manufacturer, says, “The duties which burden cotton textiles are practically prohibitive in the case of linen-drapery and shirt-making. The price of material, which is 41/4 or 51/2 or less in England or Switzerland, is doubled or trebled by the effect of the duty.” The Customs Controller, whose fate it is to put into operation a Protectionist tariff of a great number of items, has to make it arbitrary and irritating for fear of being accused of Free Trade leanings. “And the result?” asks M. Hayem. “It is practically impossible for any French manufacturer to introduce any of the really new materials which are fashionable in foreign markets. Should he do in spite of the exorbitant duties, he is faced with two almost equally irritating consequences: the home consumer has to pay a much higher price than is paid for the same goods abroad; abroad the manufacturer is at a great disadvantage compared to his foreign competitors. Unable to do anything, he sees orders escape him while for lack of raw material he has to keep his workmen in idleness.”

And the yarn industry was in just the same position. The French weavers of Little Armentières and Cholet declared that they could not produce linens equal to the Irish; even enormous duties on Irish linen did not encourage French manufacturers, but, as M. Julien Hayem asserts, “they extinguished the linen-drapery manufacturer for which linen was the raw material.” These quotations sufficiently demonstrate that protection to cotton and linen did not raise wages in the linen-drapery business; they suffered from it.

IV.—

Men’s Clothes.

That the 1892 tariff did not increase the export of men’s clothes is proved by two tables; thus export

diminished because the French maker was handicapped by the dearness of his raw materials, in competition with a low cost of production.

V.—

Women’s Garments.

In the case of women’s garments the lady’s travelling trunk is a secret means of exportation, as was proved at the time of the Exhibitions of 1889 and 1900; in the latter, according to the Custom House returns, although the showrooms had been very busy, the dress exports went down 25 per cent. The export of silk dresses, which had risen considerably, fell 57 per cent. in 1903 on the preceding years; and in 1904 it continued to fall. The rise was not due to Protection, but to an increase in the wealth of other nations which caused an increased expenditure on articles of feminine elegance, which the Parisian shops were better fitted than any others in the world to meet. Then came a change in fashion; perhaps it will change again and the export of silk dresses rise again. But our shops must sell at high prices because all the materials that they use are burdened by Protection. Far from helping, it hampers them; far from raising wages, it lowers them, because in the net cost the share taken by Protection is subtracted from wages.

VI.—

Eloquence of the Prices.

I call attention to the following prices. Cotton textiles, unbleached, dyed, or printed, were rated for export at 1s. 7d. to 1s. 101/2. per lb; linen textiles from 1s. 3d. to 3s. 3d. These cotton and linen fabrics, when made up into shirts, collars, and manufactured goods, were rated at 32s. 5d., the difference being the price of the taste and skill of the maker, and the labour of the men and women who executed his design.

The export price of silks was in 1903, plain silk, 27s. 3d. a yard; figured or broché, 32s.; mixtures of silk and cotton, 14s. 3d. plain and 16s. 4d. figured. Silk dresses came at £15 11s. 6d; the difference in price is in the style, and the greater part of this difference between cost of material and cost of the finished garment goes in wages.

VII.—

Millinery and Artificial Flowers.

This manufacture employs some 100,000 persons; and it stands tenth in the list of French exports at £54,400,000. Dependent altogether on the protected industries, it pays duty on the flour used for making paste, on the wire on which the flowers are fixed which are made of dutiable paper. In the Seine Department there is a falling off in the number of employés; 18,207 in 1896, it was only 16,865 in 1901. From the above statistics the conclusion can be drawn that Protection, restricting the choice of materials, injures these industries. They need free scope, and their expansion is hindered by Protection to those textiles on which they depend.