FROM THE PREPARATORY MATERIALS
1) have never protected small industry, only machine industry. Example: the school of List in Germany. Gulich.[3]
2) If we believe what the protectionists say, they merely preserve the status quo. Protection will never effect sales of the protected product on foreign markets. Hence reactionary.(1)
3) The last consolation of the protectionists is that the country is not exploited by foreign but by domestic capitalists.
4) It is said, indeed, that internal reforms must first be made before one can think of free trade.(2) The power to reform the position of the classes is not ascribed to the protective system itself. But they say it would be foolish to reform international relations before domestic relations have been reformed. But what is the protective system? It is proof that the class which carries it into effect has power in its hands. Therefore, given the protective system [...] the capitalists will not concede anything. Moreover, gentlemen, great social and historical reforms are never made by concessions, by the generosity of the ruling classes, but only through the nécessité des choses. They must therefore be forced through. It is therefore ridiculous to believe that in a country where the protective system prevails [...] [...] [...] the relations between capital and labour are reformed in any way. I shall say no more of the protectionists [...] of the question.../
Written about September 18, 1847 First published in Marx/Engels, Gesamtausgabe, I. Abteilung, Bd. 6, Berlin, 1932
Endnotes
[324] 326 France, Russia, Austria and Prussia) held with intervals in 1830 and 1831, they col-luded, at the expense of Belgium, with the powers supporting Holland. As a result the Belgians had to accept the unfavourable terms of the agreement with the Dutch King (finally signed in May 1833) and cede part of their territory to him.
[3] The Jacobin revolutionary government headed by Robespierre fell as a result of the coup of 9-10 Thermidor (July 27-28), 1794. 5 8 12 ing an armed uprising of the plebeian masses against the bourgeois regime of the Directory and establishing a revolutionary dictatorship as a transitional stage to "pure democracy" and "egalitarian communism". The conspiracy was disclosed in May 1796. At the end of May 1797 its leaders were executed.