Chapter VI: Skin and Leather Trade, Chapter VII: Conclusion

This group employs about 335,000 persons—tanning and leather-dressing, 48,000; boot-making, 220,000; saddlery, 54,000; gloves, 20,000. All industries employing leather feel the effect of Customs duties varying from 8s. to £5 on prepared skins. Between 1888-1890 our average export of shoes was 45,600 cwt. at £2,560,000; it fell between 1901-1903 to 30,000 cwt. at £680,000. Our average export of gloves was worth £2,096,000 from 1880-1890; between 1901-1903 it fell to below £1,400,000. The duties on the goods which serve as raw materials for our finished manufactures compel us to sell dear and export dear.

Every year from 1900-1903 France has imported about 12,000,000 tons of coal, 6,800,000 coming from England. The duty of 1s. per ton on coal affects all the industries which use it. The result of the close connection between the clothing and textile trades, between the manufacture of iron and steel goods and the mining industry, between the manufacture of leather goods and the tanning trade, is that all these trades, employing a large number of hands, trades in which labour is relatively the most important element in the value of the product, are affected by the protective duties obtained by the industries supplying their raw material, industries which represent a much smaller number of workmen, and are for the most part concentrated in the hands of a few big firms. Our inquiry enables us to say that from the point of view of consumers and of the makers of semi-manufactured goods Protection means the profit of a few at the expense of everybody; it is at the same time clear that it leads to over-production and unemployment and organises commercial crises.

A protective tariff does not prevent necessaries from coming into a country, but it raises the price of all similar goods on the market and the cost price of all the products into which they enter, penalising all production and all exportation. The statistics in cotton and iron show that it cannot possibly increase normal exportation. A rise in the export of protected goods means the liquidation of debts.