Iii.—: Effect of Protection.

Leaving drink out of account, though it is also affected by the Customs, let us now examine the effects of Protection on food.

Then deducting the Customs duties from the price of food:—

The effect of the duties on wages is in inverse ratio to the amount of wages: for the labourer with low wages privation is inevitable.

Of course the duty does not always produce its full effect; but even so it involves a more than equivalent rise in the price of other articles. M. des Essars made a list of prices of 46 articles from the catalogues of two great grocery stores in London and Paris. Supposing the buyer to have purchased a unit in each case, he would have spent 109 fr. 95 in Paris and 84 fr. ·09 in London—i.e., exactly 30·78 per cent. more in Paris than in London. In the French prices 11 fr. 34 must be allowed for Customs duties, only 1 fr. 57 in the English. The net difference between the prices is, then, 19 per cent. to the disadvantage of Paris.

Of course in the 30·78 per cent. of difference between London and Paris prices there is more than the 11·66 per cent. of duty to allow for; but the effect of Protection is, by hampering commerce and forcing goods from the protected into the free markets, to compel dealers to advance the duty, on which they take their profit, as they do on the price of the goods themselves.

A comparison of the prices of bread and meat in France and other countries shows the extent of the burden imposed by our fiscal system.