his must throw as many men out of jobs
as we helped into jobs by raising the tariff. But the view easy to
take is the short view, and the ulterior consequences seem to the
popular mind to be vain imaginings.

Sec. 10. #Exports and exhaustion of the soil#. It has been ingeniously
argued that a tariff may keep some of the natural agricultural
resources of a new country from becoming quickly exhausted. The export
of food takes out of the soil and out of the country fertile qualities
never to be returned. The shipment of several hundred million dollars
of food products year after year represented a tremendous drain from
the soil of the United States, but this has now largely ceased.
The assumption, however, that the use of the food in this country
preserves the fertility of our own fields is in the main mistaken. The
fertile material in the food for human consumption hauled to a town
five miles away from the field is almost as entirely lost as if it
were shipped to Europe. Engineering skill has as yet succeeded in
returning economically to the fields from which it comes hardly a
fraction as much fertile organic matter as that which flows into the
sewers, that is dumped into river and ocean, and that is buried in
heaps at the borders of our own cities. Artificial fertilizers are
increasingly used, to be sure, but they are obtained in other ways.
On the other hand, the increased use of iron, coal, and timber, as a
result of encouraging manufacturers, has very effectually hastened the
exhaustion of the natural resources of the country.

Sec. 11. #Protection as a monopoly measure#. It has rightly been observed
that a new country has a limited potential monopoly in certain kinds
of products and that a tariff may make it effective. The rapid opening
up of America with its rich natural resources greatly benefited
the average consumer in Western Europe, altho it caused a loss to a
special class of landowners.[10] Whether the citizens of the older
or of the newer country shall reap the greater benefit in the trade
depends on the reciprocal demand for the two classes of goods, as was
seen in discussing the equation of international demand. A wide margin
of advantage may go to one party and a narrow margin to the citizen
of the more favored land. To put it concretely: America, having great
natural resources for agriculture, might continue to trade food for
manufactured goods even tho England reaped most of the benefits of the
trade.