of feudal isolation, still lingers with tenacious hold on many minds, and with power to sway the policy of states, our own free Republic especially, against the principles of sound economy. It is that which is known as the theory of protection, carried out in the enactment of protective tariffs. The limits of this work do not admit of an extended discussion of this theory. We cannot, however, do less than to attempt a concise statement of the question as it now agitates the public mind, in the light of those first principles of our science which we have been studying.

The Theory of Protection distinctly stated is, that, in order to promote home industry, the importation of certain articles, from countries where they can be produced cheaper than at home, should be prohibited or restricted by heavy duties.

In direct opposition to this,—

The Theory of Free Trade affirms that a nation's wealth and prosperity are best promoted by maintaining the utmost freedom for the exchange of all commodities among its own people, and with the people of other countries.

The mere statement of the principles suggests two conflicting economic systems. In practical legislation two corresponding policies have been in conflict through all the history of our nation. There seems no place for compromise: truth and wisdom must lie on one side or the other.

In the discussion of each department of our science, freedom appears as the natural law of industry

and trade. But on the face of it the theory of protection involves an interference with freedom; an interference which affects all of the four departments, production, consumption, distribution, and exchange, though applied most directly to the lastnamed. Is it not plain, then, that the presumption is against the theory, that the burden of proof is laid over upon its advocates? What are the arguments urged to sustain it? We can notice only the three most important and plausible. It is said, —

1. Protection is necessary to secure that variety of industry and that balance of different industries which are essential to a people's prosperity. This is the broad proposition which underlies and includes all arguments for the system. In form the argument is logical. It gives for a major premise the affirmation that a varied and balanced industry is essential to a people's prosperity. The minor premise is that protection is a necessary means to varied and balanced industry. If the premises are admitted, the conclusion is sound: a protective policy must favor a people's prosperity.

The truth of the major premise cannot be questioned. On the other hand, it is worthy to be presented in full force, resolved into several particulars, as a kind of summary of economic principles.

a. Every country has a great variety of resources, and the development of all its resources conduces to its greatest wealth.

b. Among the population of every country there is a corresponding diversity of native talent, and

labor is most effective when every one has scope for doing that for which he is best fitted.

c. The actual wants of men are equally diverse, and the highest happiness of a people depends on the degree in which these varied wants are provided for.

d. A diversity of occupations makes a home-market for all sorts of products, saving cost of transportation, favoring division of labor, and binding all classes together by ties of mutual helpfulness and common interests.

e. Varied industry favors the social and moral advancement of a people, quickening and broadening minds, enlarging hearts, and impelling to noblest action in the lines of rectitude and benevolence.

These statements will be readily accepted by all candid minds. As bearing on the question under consideration, they need but a single qualification. It does not follow that a people must hasten by all means to develop every source of wealth existing among them, or maintain at all hazards every possible form of industry. The people of Barbadoes have ample facilities for raising table-vegetables, but they have greater advantages for raising sugar. Hence it may be good policy for them to produce mainly sugar, and get the other provisions from other countries, where the cost of raising them is greater, perhaps, than it would be on their own soil. Many such cases do exist, but they are exceptions which prove the rule.

The real issue is joined on the second or minor premise, protection is necessary to secure diversi

fled industry. This proposition is met by a flat denial, and the positive affirmation that there is a better and surer way of reaching that result. Where no interference or obstruction is allowed, there comes a spontaneous development which is safe and constant, because it is in accordance with nature's law. This thought may be unfolded in a few distinct, yet connected, propositions.

a. There is a natural growth of human industry, the laws of which are as fixed and certain as those which pertain to the growth of a tree.

b. Free competition is the healthy stimulus to that growth.

c. Under the natural law of development, industry will be applied to the several native resources of a country as fast as the increase of labor and capital will warrant.

d. Men's instinct for accumulation, following diverse individual capacities, tastes, and predilections, is the safest guide to determine the order in which labor and capital shall be applied to those various resources. Under it, whatever promises a profit will be undertaken as soon as it can be without sacrificing a greater profit elsewhere.

e. The attempt to force labor and capital into certain employments before their time deranges the order of nature, and produces re-actions which hinder the desired result.

f. At any stage of this development, if exchange is free, foreign products are purchased with the fruits of a people's most effective labor, that is, with those articles which they can then produce to the best

advantage; which they can best afford to part with, because they are obtained at the least cost. By all such advantageous trade, capital, the prime element of varied industry, is increased, and labor is sustained.

g. When, by this natural progress, a people come to take up a new industry for which they have natural advantages and God-given capacity, no foreign competition can crush it; for, even in its infancy, it is charged with the nation's life and strength.

h. An industry which is not indigenous, which has no natural advantages, or which is prematurely set up and fostered by artificial means, can have only a sickly, uncertain life, and is supported at a wasteful expenditure of a nation's resources.

The strong reason urged on the other side to prove that protection is necessary is thus presented:

"Foreign competition crushes out the home production of all but the rudest and coarsest articles of manufacture, and prevents the establishment of a varied industry, unless the government interfere, as the personification of the nation and its co-ordinating power, to restore the equilibrium by discouraging imports."

If the question is raised, how foreign competition is able to do this, the answer must be that the foreign country has either superior natural resources, or more abundant capital, or laborers in greater numbers, and better skilled for the work to be done, or possibly all these advantages combined. If this be so, it may be asked again, how can government interference, discouraging imports, counterbalance