But either way, a universal Free Trade would bring nations to the death-grapple at once, and if inaugurated to-morrow would so quickly alter the industrial map, that many of them, prosperous and dignified to-day, would within a decade or two be reduced to mere geographical expressions; and only the few nations supreme in those lines of work which are complementary to each other, would survive to bulk themselves out in the world's admiration and esteem. On the other hand, if none of the nations are willing thus to 'try a fall' with all and sundry at close quarters and at short notice, their best policy is to trust to Protection to preserve and develop their own instruments of production; doing the best they can for themselves meanwhile by 'treaties of commerce' and the like, - just as the nations in the military ages used to do when uncertain of the issue of war, by mutual diplomatic combinations carefully calculated to preserve what they called 'the balance of power,' - until the time shall arrive, if ever, when they think they can step into the arena again, and contest the palm of supremacy on their own account by proposing a regime of universal Free Trade. Now this is precisely what the stage of civilization in which we are living theoretically demands as the best existing policy for nations; and practically it is just what the nations are now doing.

But this policy is not so much the result of economic penetration on their part, as of sharp and bitter experience. Led astray by the prestige and authority of the writings of Adam Smith, and by the universal consensus of the long file of succeeding academic economists, they allowed the success of England under her Free Trade regime to dazzle and blind their sight, and determined that they, too, would see what they could do by keeping their ports free. One nation after another accordingly, undeterred by the failure of its predecessors, tried the experiment in turn, but their incipient manufactures were so promptly wiped out by the influx of English goods driving their own out of the market, that they were fain to put up their tariff barriers again at the earliest possible moment. And indeed until this hour, and as I write, so great is the essential supremacy of England in so many and so various departments of industry, so great is her potential capacity - from her manifold natural resources in so many different lines of industry, ranging from the coarsest to the finest grades and qualities in each kind, - that were a universal Free Trade between the nations proclaimed to-morrow, many of their furnace fires would be blown out, and their workshops, factories, and mills would have to close down again, as they were obliged to do during the last century.

The nations know it, and pile up their tariff barriers higher and ever higher accordingly. So that the question now becomes; - how would the account have stood between Free Trade and Protection to-day, so far as the existing amount of wealth in the world is concerned, had the nations persisted in a policy of Free Trade instead of Protection? The answer, I think, cannot be doubtful For had they done so, with English industry standing over them, like a conqueror with drawn sword, and ready to spring on them, the immense potentialities of wealth lying latent in America, Germany, France, Belgium, Russia, and the rest, all of which have since reached such imposing dimensions, would have lain undeveloped, and as unable as paralytics to make a move towards realizing themselves in actuality. And the reason is quite simple. For in a regime of Free Trade, the quotations of the world-market price of any article determine and limit the number of competitors in any and every nation who can enter the arena to compete, as a world-championship does in sport; and not an acre of land dare be cultivated, or a mill, or factory, or mine, be opened, however much potential wealth may be latent in them, unless its proprietor sees his way to enter this world-market as a producer at the current market price, while this regime lasts.

In protected nations, on the contrary, the market, although more restricted, is, like the purely national sport championships, open to a greater number of competitors; and those nations who were daunted under Free Trade, can now pluck up courage and make a beginning at least in opening up those resources and utilizing those instruments of production which would otherwise have lain undeveloped and unused. If the area of competition is still further restricted, the competitors will still further increase in numbers, and, as a consequence, still more natural resources will be opened up, until you get down to the village cabbage garden, which might have remained a piece of uncultivated common, had not the cheaper produce of a neighbouring town, owing to distance and expense of carriage, been prevented from competing with it in the village market. Now the fact that statically, or at any given point of time in the revolution of the wheel, the production is limited, restricted, and determined by market price, and neither by actually existing money capital, nor yet by the potentialities of wealth everywhere lying in men's brains or in the soil under their feet - or in other words that the production of wealth is limited by 'exchange value' and not, as it should be, by 'utility value' - has the most far reaching consequences in practice.

Of all the false and misleading doctrines of the orthodox Economists which we have passed under review, there is none which is more far-reaching in its effects than this, where after throwing down their distinction between 'value in use 'and' value in exchange' they have left it there, without making any attempt to relate the two to each other in such a way that the one can be subordinated to the other for the practical end which the science of Political Economy has in view. And as this end is clearly the production of the greatest possible amount of wealth for the world as a whole and for each nation in it, or in other words the greatest amount of 'use values'; and as we have just seen that the 'use values' are restricted rather than helped by the mechanism of the market, which makes price, or 'exchange values,' the measure of production of wealth; it is evident, is it not, that unless some practical policy can be devised which will give to 'use value' the control over market or 'exchange value,' the production of the wealth of the world will be hampered and hindered rather than increased.