FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION 261

too, has not reduced the level of wages, in countries practising
it, to that of low-wage competitors. Wages in England
stand at a relatively high level, in spite of the unchecked
admission of the products of countries with lower wage-rates.
What such competition does stimulate is the rendering of
labour cheap, but that is able to be done on a large scale
by improvements in organisation and the introduction of
efficient machinery. In fact, cheap labour and high wages
are quite consistent. Products are not necessarily cheap
because made by labour which earns low wages. Whether
they are so or not depends on the nature of the product, and
on the economy of organisation of the industry which pro-Juces
 it.
High nominal wages are said to necessitate protection
for their maintenance. In so far as the preceding statements
and arguments do not cover this contention, it may be admitted
 that the abandonment of protection would reduce
wages in some employments faster than it would reduce the
cost of living. Perhaps this effect might be felt widely for a
time. But the reduction of prices which would be effected,
and which, when felt in some lines, operated as the cause
tending to depress wages, would extend to lines where it
would affect the purchasing power of wages, and thus tend
to maintain real wages, though nominal wages were reduced.
 The redistribution of industrial resources, following
on the readjustment of relative values consequent on the
abandonment of protective import duties, would involve a
readjustment of wage-levels, so that some industries would
experience a fall, others a rise, in real wages. The question
at issue is whether the high nominal wages of specially
favoured industries are worth the cost to the community
which they involve.
It will be seen that the strength of the case for protection
's found in the desirability of developing some national
resources not yet fully, if at all, exploited, and which will
become a source of net wealth to the community when
developed. However presented, in fact, the really sound
economic arguments for protection are various presentations
of the case for aiding infant industries, and unborn infants