COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE AND PROTECTION 195 
such as handsome silks and chinaware; and again in certain sorts 
of minute and delicate mechanical devices.! The Swiss have 
shown an aptitude for labor-saving appliances and machinery 
greater than that of most of their neighbors. Germany, where 
handicraft methods of production seemed deeper rooted than in 
any other of the modern nations, shifted to the machine process 
in the latter part of the nineteenth century with surprising rapidity 
and success. Great Britain had the start in the machine methods 
and long maintained a preéminent position. While she cannot 
be said to have lost headway, still less to have moved backward, 
her position relatively to other countries ceased by the close of 
the nineteenth century to be that of unquestioned leadership. 
These differences and shifts have been the occasion for vaunting 
and vainglory, for national jealousy and recrimination. To the 
objective mind of science, they present questions of the greatest 
interest and of the greatest complexity. How are they to be 
explained? Are they based on the inheritance of racial traits, 
of which the explanation is to be found in biology? Or are they 
historical phenomena, quite unrelated to any physical or biological 
laws, originating perhaps thru the impetus of powerful personalities, 
persisting chiefly by imitation and habit? Political factors cer- 
tainly have their influence. The free breath of democracy, the 
open road to every talent, unquestionably have been factors in 
the economic development of the United States, and of Switzerland 
also. Many and various questions arise. 
It is beyond the scope of the present volume to consider these 
additional complexities. Like others on which our inquiry touches, 
they offer a fruitful field for further investigation. I know no 
more inviting set of topics for the right kind of economic history — 
! Lord Lauderdale in a note to his Inquiry into the Nature of Public Wealth 
(2nd ed. 1818), p. 335, pointed out that even in the eighteenth century there was a 
well-developed difference in the character of French and English manufactures. 
The French excelled in fine cloths, rich silks, cambries and fine linens, looking-glass, 
china, jewelry, and silversmith work. The English excelled in lower-priced cloths, 
silk ribbons and mixed goods, linens less fine, common glass, pottery and earthen- 
ware, hardware. Lauderdale ascribes the difference to the different distribution 
of wealth in the two countries. The greater massing of large fortunes and excessive 
luxury in France caused a demand for luxuries and so a perfecting of their manu- 
facture; the more even distribution of wealth in England caused common articles 
to be in demand.