than the average rate to some new industry which it would have started.
This would have disturbed the natural order. It would necessarily have
embarrassed some interests to help the protected ones. The loss in the
most favorable view would have been equal to the gain, and besides trade
would inevitably have been annoyed by the obstruction of its natural
channels.

The worst feature of this kind of diversified industry is that the
protected ones never willingly give up the government aid. They scare at
competition as a child at a ghost. As soon as the markets seem against
them, they rush to Congress for further help. They are never content
with the protection they have; they are always eager for more. In this
dependence upon the government bounty the persons protected learn to
distrust themselves; and protection therefore inevitably destroys that
manly, sturdy spirit of individuality and independence which should
characterize the successful American business man.

Thirdly, it is said that protection gives increased employment to labor
and enhances the wages of workingmen. For a long time no position was
more strenuously insisted upon by the advocates of the protective system
than that the wages of labor would be increased under it. At this point
in the discussion I shall only undertake to show that it is impossible
that protection should produce this result. What determines the amount
of wages paid? Some maintain that it is the amount of the wage fund
existing at the time that the labor is done. Under this theory it is
claimed that, at any given time, there is a certain amount of capital to
be applied to the payment of wages, as certain and fixed as though its
amount had been determined in advance. Others maintain that the amount
of wages is fixed by what the laborer makes, or, in other words, by the
product of his work, and that, therefore, his wage is determined by the