gations of individuals, each of whom acts according to his individual interest, in place of being, as Mr. Wells assumes, units actuated by a common purpose, and asking, before they buy a yard of calico, whether a half-pound of copper regulus will be taken in barter. If a Chilian merchant can buy a salable bale of Fall River cloths cheaper than a similar bale from Manchester, he will not reject it because the Fall River mill cannot buy Chilian copper. He knows that the copper will be sold to Swansea, and that the resulting bill of exchange on London will settle his debt at Fall River as readily as at Manchester. He knows, moreover, that if he patriotically refuses to buy the Fall River goods, his competitor across the street will do so and will undersell him. All this is the A B C of trade, and no pathetic groaning over the 55,000,000 yards of cotton supplied by England, in comparison with the 5,000,000 yards supplied by the United States in 1874, will get rid of it."

Again, Mr. Wells' attention was called to the fact that the removal of restrictions on trade, which restrictions are occasioned by the imposition of duties, did not in fact tend to make countries buy of the United States, even though the United States was their best customer. Thus, in 1876, as an instance, the United States bought of Brazil coffee and India rubber, on which no duties were levied, to the amount of $44,000,000, and sent in turn only $7,500,000 of her own products. This state of affairs Mr. Wells ascribes to the absence of shipping facilities on the part of the United States, which absence he accounts for by reason of the same mistaken fiscal and commercial policy he had been speaking against.

Free-traders deny that protection tends to keep up the price of labor. Germany and France demand high duties in order to protect their ill-paid laborers from competition

with the better paid labor of England.

Therefore, low wages do not enable a country to compete with another country. As to this country, such are the advantages of combined capital and labor that the workmen are capable of a larger output than in other countries, and this enables the employer to afford them better wages. The general high rate of wages with us is due to the productiveness of labor, or, in other words, to the energy and efficiency of our laborers, the extended use of machinery and our great natural resources.

Prof. Taussig lays down the doctrine that it is wrong to limit duties to articles which can be produced in this country. Many of such articles, such as wool, iron and silks, are in the nature of raw material and enter into the manufacture of other articles. Tea, coffee and sugar are entered free of duty. A duty on these would have no such effect as a duty on iron, namely, that of turning the industry of the country into unproductive channels. If revenue must be raised by duties on imports, those duties should fall on articles not produced in this country, just as the internal taxes fall on tobacco and spirits.

During the thirty years that the English corn laws were in existence the prosperity of the farmer continually declined. Farm labor suffered in proportion. Artisans and laborers in manufactories were reduced to penury. The peace of the country, and even the existence of the ment, were threatened.

govern.

Sir Robert Peel, who had changed from Protection to Free-trade and had championed the repeal of the Corn Laws, said on retiring from power: "I shall surrender power severely censured by those who, from no interested motives, adhere to Protection, considering it essential to the welfare and interests of the country. I shall leave a

name execrated by every monopolist who, from less honorable motives, clamors for Protection, because it conduces to his own individual benefit. But, it may be, that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of good will in the abodes of those whose lot is to labor, and to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows, when they shall recruit their strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened with a sense of injustice."

The entire doctrine of Free-trade was confirmed by resolution in the British House of Commons in 1852, and the Protectionists gave up the battle.

In the United States, from 1824 to 1833, the demands of Protectionists threatened the peace of the nation, just as their demands did in England.

At the time of the adoption of the compromise tariff of 1833, President Jackson said in his message of that year: "Those who take an enlarged view of the condition of our country must be satisfied that the policy of Protection must be ultimately limited to those articles of domestic manufacture which are indispensable to our safety in time of war. Within this scope, on a reasonable scale, it is recommended by every consideration of patriotism and duty, which will always, doubtless, secure for it a liberal support; but beyond this object we have already seen the operation of the system productive of discontent. In some sections of the Union its influence is deprecated as tending to concentrate wealth in few hands and as creating those germs of dependence and vice which in other countries have characterized the existence of monopolies and proved so destructive of liberty and the public good. A large proportion of the public in one section of the Union declares it not only inexpedient on these grounds, but as disturbing the equal

relations of capital by legislation and therefore unconstitutional and unjust."

Said Senator Rowan, of Kentucky, in 1828: "It is in vain that Protection is called the 'American System.' Names do not alter things. There is but one American system, and that is delineated in the State and Federal Constitutions. It is the system of equal rights secured by the Constitution-a system which instead of subjecting the labor of some to taxation with a view to enrich others, secures to all the proceeds of their labor, exempt from taxation except for the support of the protecting powers of the government."

As chairman of the "Committee on Manufactures" in 1832, John Quincy Adams said:-" The doctrine that duties of import seem to cheapen the price of the article on which they are levied, seems to conflict with the first dictates of common sense. The duty constitutes a part of the price of the whole mass of the article in the market. It is substantially paid upon the article of domestic manufacture, as well as upon that of foreign production. Upon one it is a bounty, upon the other a burden, and the repeal of the tax must operate as an equivalent reduction of the price of the article whether foreign or domestic . . . . . We say so long as the importation continues, the duty must be paid by the purchaser of the article."

In 1846 George M. Dallas said: "This exercise of the taxing (tariff) power was originally intended to be temporary. The design was to foster feeble infant manufactures, especially such as were essential for the defence of the country in time of war. In this design the people have persevered until these saplings have taken root, become vigorous, expanded and powerful, and are prepared to enter with confidence the field of fair, free and universal competition."

Protection is responsible for the eviis resulting from a violation of law known as smuggling. This practice, or crime, is as baneful and disastrous to the honest tradesmen as the competition of free-trade is healthful and beneficial.

Taking the two decades, 1840 to 1850, and 1850 to 1860, and regarding the first as a period which was most affected by the high tariff of 1842, and the last as most affected by the free-trade tariff of 1846, the contrast is in favor of the last decade. During the non-protective period cotton manufactures increased 130 per cent., woollen manufactures increased 62 per cent., and mostly between 1857 and 1860, when the cheaper grades of wool were admitted free. The year 1860 saw the manufacture of 913,000 tons of pig-iron at good prices, or 100,000 tons more than any previous year. In 1860 the aggregate of our exports showed an increase of 200 per cent. in ten years. The decade between 1850 and 1860 showed an increase of agricultural productions of 100 per cent. over the previous decade. In 1860 our total exports were $400,000,000, of $43,500,000 more than any previous year; and our imports were $362,000,000, a much larger amount than any previous year. We consumed far more sugar, tea and coffee, per capita, during the free-trade tariff decade than the previous one, and also more than between the years of 1860 and 1868, years of protection. Farms increased in value 103 per cent. between 1850 and 1860. Farm products increased from 75 to 100 per cent. The products of all our manufactures was $553,000,000 in 1850; in 1860, it was $1,009,000,000. From 1840 to 1850 the real and personal property in the United States increased 80 per cent.; between 1850 and 1860 it increased 126 per cent. At no time prior to 1850-1860 had the capital of the nation increased so fast, and nothing demonstrates so forcibly the success of free-trade principles in the United