After the protective system has been at first reactionary, then 
conservative, it finally becomes conservative-progressive. It will 
suffice to point out the contradiction lurking in this theory, which at 
first sight appears to have something seductive, practical and rational 
to it. A strange contradiction! The system of protective tariffs 


The Protectionists, the Free Traders and the Working Class 281 


places in the hands of the capital of one country the weapons which 
enable it to defy the capital of other countries; it increases the 
strength of this capital in opposition to foreign capital, and at the 
same time it deludes itself that the very same means will make that 
same capital small and weak in opposition to the working class. In the 
last analysis that would mean appealing to the philanthropy of capi- 
tal, as though capital as such could be a philanthropist. In general, 
social reforms can never be brought about by the weakness of the 
strong; they must and will be called to life by the strength of the 
weak. 

Incidentally, we have no need to detain ourselves with this matter. 
From the moment the protectionists concede that social reforms 
have no place in their system and are not a result of it, and that they 
form a special question—from this moment on they have already 
abandoned the social question. I shall accordingly leave the 
protectionists aside and speak of Free Trade in its relationship to the 
condition of the working class.