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England can undersell India in muslins and printed goods, manufactured in Lancashire or Lanarkshire, out of cotton which grew on the banks of the Ganges; for England though younger in years compared to India, is old in civilization, wealth, and power.
The jealousy and unkindness of the prohibitory duty on the export of woollens is exposed by the able author of the "Groans of Ireland," who says: "It is certain that on the coasts of Spain, and Portugal, and the Mediterranean, in the stuffs, etc., which we send them, we, under all the difficulties of a clandestine trade, undersell the French eight per cent., and it is as certain that the French undersell the English as much it has been said eleven per cent."
The result was that the United States, despite the high wages paid here, led the world in bicycle making and flooded all countries with this utilitarian article. Our great locomotive factories had developed on similar lines. Europeans had always marveled that Americans could build these costly articles so cheaply that they could undersell European makers.
Once more, these people, whom there is no pleasing, venture to doubt whether the glory which rests upon being able to undersell all the rest of the world, is a very safe kind of glory whether we may not purchase it too dear; especially if we allow education, which ought to be directed to the making of men, to be diverted into a process of manufacturing human tools, wonderfully adroit in the exercise of some technical industry, but good for nothing else.
The special prices granted by the publishers enabled me to undersell the wholesalers, and by securing their adoption as regular text-books by school boards, I made more money than ever before in my life, sometimes from $25 to $100 per day, consequently the firm finding I was filling the markets and my own pockets so that they had no sales at regular prices, hired me at a liberal salary as representative of all their publications.
The appearance of my place and the crudity of my office facilities, so far from militating against my progress, helped to accelerate it. Skeptical buyers who had doubted my ability to undersell the old-established houses became convinced of it when they inspected my primitive-looking establishment. The place became far too small for me.
This people had many ancient rules befitting a fine corporation, and among them were the following: "Never do a job for a stranger; sleep in your own bed when you can; be at home in good time on a Saturday; never work harder than you need; throw your fish away rather than undersell it; answer no question, but ask another; spend all your money among your friends; and above all, never let any stranger come a-nigh your proper fishing ground, nor land any fish at Springhaven."
They are thus enabled to undersell the fair trader and drive him from the market. In fact the operation of this system has already driven from the pursuits of honorable commerce many of that class of regular and conscientious merchants whose character throughout the world is the pride of our country. The remedy for these evils, is to be found in specific duties, so far as this may be practicable.
The bill refuses power to impose protective duties, but Ireland would commence by conceding bounties to Irish manufacturers, who would there and then be able to undersell English traders. No use going further into the thing, there is not a good point in it for either country. No use flogging a dead horse. There never will be any Home Rule, and there's no use in discussing it.
Whereas, by the operation of the present law of nature, that the rich state can always undersell the poor one in maufactures, and the poor one always undersell the rich one in subsistence, those dangers are removed, a check is provided to the undue multiplication of the species in particular situations, and the dispersion of mankind over the globe a vital object in the system of nature is secured, from the very necessities and difficulties in which, in the progress of society, the old and wealthy community becomes involved.
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