FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION 255

economically, and can realise a living profit at a low price
for the commodity produced.
Hence, in considering the desirability of adopting this
method, of encouraging infant industries by means of import
duties, attention must be directed to such points as the
following: Is the country really well adapted for the carrying
on of the industry, if it were once established? that is to say,
is the actual neglect of the resources concerned due to their
real lack of promise, or to the magnitude of the preliminary
obstacles to be overcome in order to develop them? There
is the possibility that the capital and labour of the country
may be diverted to enterprises which can by no possibility
ever become worth carrying on for the sake of the profits
they can yield of themselves. Hence, the suitability or
necessity to the country of the industry, to which it is
proposed to apply a protective tariff, needs to be assured if
the interference with the freedom of enterprise is to be
justified. Further, when the industry has secured a firm
foothold, and is able to offer a reasonable prospect of profit
without the import duty, the removal of the duty needs to be
assured. This is a matter not easily secured, for vested
interests grow up in connection with such a duty, and the
industry may have attracted to itself more men and capital
than can find profitable employment in it after the removal
of the duty. In this latter case, whether reliance on the
permanence of fiscal arrangements was reasonable or not, it
will be made the basis of resistance to removal of duties,
Should there be numerous industries in which such
vested interests have grown up, during the operation of a
protective tariff system, the opposition to the reduction or
abandonment of any part of the system is likely to have the
support, not merely of those directly affected at the moment,
but also of any whose interests lie, or may in the future lie,
in the continuance of duties after they have ceased to be
necessary.
These are not unimportant considerations, when applied
to cases where the final gain, from the growth of an industry
with tariff aid, is not very great compared with the burdens
which must be placed on the community as the price of that