PROTECTION AND THE UNEMPLOYED.
LTO TUB EDITOIc OP THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,--,--Several of your correspondents have used the following argument, and I have not seen any direct answer in your pages. We import millions worth of goods that could be made in this country, and we invest many millions abroad. Why not keep some of these millions at home, and so find work for our numerous unemployed? The answer, or rather one aufficient answer, is that there is no large increasing number of unemployed ; and even if there were, the fact that we should have to pay higher for the home-made commodity would mean that we should have less to spend on some existing home manufacture, which would correspondingly suffer. Besides, to assume that a Protective duty would keep capital at home, and not cause the transfer of capital already invested at home to the protected industry, seems to me to beg the question. As to the number of unemployed, there is the following evidence. The number of able-bodied paupers does not increase, in spite of the increase of popula- tion, and the number of emigrants decreases. Both would increase if employment was growing scarcer. I write in the hope that you may give your attention to this argument and dispose of it for a time.—I am, Sir, &c., F. E. CAIRNES.
KiRester House, .Raheny, Co. Dublin.
[Our correspondent has so neatly disposed of the extra- employment -through - Protection argument that we have nothing to add.—ED. Spectator.]
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