Columbia clnilirrsitP 
 
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 LIBRARY 
 
 THE SELIGMAN LIBRARY OF ECONOMICS 
 PURCHASED BY THE UNIVERSITY 
 
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k 11 
 
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National Self-Protection. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH WHARTON. 
 
 REPRINTED BY PERMISSION FROM THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 THE AMERICAN IRON AND STEEL ASSOCIATION, 
 
 No. 265 South Fourth Street. 
 
 1875 . 
 
PRINTED BY JAMES B. CHANDLER, CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
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NATIONAL SELF-PROTECTION. 
 
 The doctrine of Protection to Home Industry, no matter by 
 what means, grows directly and inevitably from the idea of 
 nationality. 
 
 If all mankind composed an undifferentiated protoplasmic mass, 
 comparable to one of Carlyle’s mud continents, probably no pref¬ 
 erence for one set of associates would be felt, but investigation 
 does not show such a condition ever to have existed: man’s disposi¬ 
 tion to form nations seems always to have prevailed, and there is 
 absolutely no reason to suppose it will ever be eradicated. It is 
 clear that the formation of nations implies the sharp separation of 
 each from all others. 
 
 Each nation is a distinct entity, having its clearly defined di¬ 
 mensions and limits, its own organic law and life, its own pur¬ 
 poses and career, its own resources and modes of action: this sepa¬ 
 rate existence and these attributes it possesses, not because cer¬ 
 tain philosophers so ordain or consent, but because the com¬ 
 ponent individuals of the nation, or the strongest of them, so will 
 and so cohere with a force paramount to all antagonistic forces. 
 
 The nation exists of itself and for itself—not by the grace or 
 for the benefit of any beyond its boundaries. 
 
 The nation’s chief duty is to attend scrupulously to its own wel¬ 
 fare. It is to pursue its own ends by its own means, strenuously 
 perfecting its organic law and enhancing its internal vigor, while 
 also growing outwardly so far as it may do so with prudence and 
 without trenching upon the rights or meddling with the affairs of 
 others. In thus pursuing with diligence its own advancement, it 
 necessarily acts with pure selfishness, tempered as that selfishness 
 may be by enlightened regard for the rights of others. 
 
 Although nations may agree between themselves to unite their 
 efforts permanently for certain purposes, such as the suppression of 
 
4 
 
 piracy, and certain of them may from time to time form temporary 
 alliances for specific objects, these arrangements are always based 
 upon the advantage to be derived by each contracting party. No 
 voluntary and gratuitous bestowal or surrender of an advantage is 
 for a moment thought of, and when a pretence is made of a so- 
 called nobler motive, it may safely be assumed to cover schemes 
 that would not bear the light. 
 
 It cannot be seriously disputed that this exclusive property of 
 each nation in itself, this assiduous caring by each for its own special 
 weal, and this watchful semi-antagonistic attitude of each towards 
 its neighbors, have the same beneficial effect upon each that comes 
 to individuals from each person being perfectly convinced that his 
 fate depends upon his own exertion of his faculties—that his task 
 is to till his own field and mind his own family and business, being 
 well assured that he and his, and not others, shall reap the harvest 
 and enjoy the fruits of diligence and thrift. 
 
 The common sense of all times and peoples has approved the 
 wisdom of thus cleaving fast to one’s own in the nation just as in 
 the family, for the population incapable of steadfast love and loy¬ 
 alty to country becomes debased as surely as the man or woman 
 incapable of steadfast faith in marriage. In either case Free Love 
 leads to ruin. 
 
 Rivalry, perhaps without enmity, and antagonism, perhaps 
 without animosity, constantly animate the nations in their atti¬ 
 tudes toward each other; each standing ready to win from another 
 wealth, population, or territory which the other may be unable to 
 retain. 
 
 The old-fashioned way of gaining population from a neighbor¬ 
 ing country by invading it and carrying off its inhabitants as slaves 
 is no longer practiced by civilized nations, and the acquisition of 
 territory by similar means is perhaps not so frequent as it once 
 was, but the newer style of aggrandizement by winning the wealth 
 of a neighbor through industrial assaults and trade invasions is 
 now in the fullest activity. 
 
 In this modern and highly civilized style of warfare, improved 
 machinery takes the place of improved artillery; the enemy’s 
 forces his industrial population—are driven from their guns by 
 
5 
 
 missiles of textiles and metal wares, and are destroyed in their 
 homes by starvation rather than by bullets in the field. 
 
 It is clear that the patriotism which can sleep through this in¬ 
 dustrial warfare and suffer this trade spoliation, and can only be 
 roused into activity by the danger and passion of flagrant war; 
 which can vote the public money to maintain rarely used armies, 
 navies and forts, but cannot give the slightest aid or comfort to 
 the real and constant defenders of its country's independence—its 
 industrial soldiers,—is a patriotism belonging to periods long gone 
 by, and is of little more present use than a bow and arrow. The 
 spirit of loyalty is forever the same, but it must now learn to 
 promote its country’s welfare by the arts of peace, pursuing its 
 ancient and honorable aim by the new methods. 
 
 One branch, or perhaps the main trunk, of the controversy 
 between Free Trade and Protection begins here, for some moralists 
 count this peaceful patriotism as of doubtful propriety, it being in 
 their opinion not consonant with the spirit of universal philan¬ 
 thropy which ought to rule in Christendom. But against this 
 view stands the patent fact that no less in peace than in war all 
 mankind have knit themselves into nations, and have found self- 
 preservation as necessary for nations as for individuals. Any 
 community holding slip-shod ideas on this point dissolves, and 
 perishes as a body from incompetence to survive. 
 
 Doubtless the most important peaceful means by which a modern 
 nation protects itself, is that of tariff legislation. By tariff 1 laws, 
 which exact in advance from the foreign producer or his merchant 
 a part of the price to be paid for his goods in the protected country, 
 the native producers and their factories are sheltered at their work 
 somewhat as are the crew, engines, and armament of a modern war 
 vessel by its armor. 
 
 Without looking deeply into the history of tariff" laws, we find 
 that import duties were levied for revenue by Greeks and Romans, 
 and that in the middle ages, when Europe was split into countless 
 petty jurisdictions, the same rudeness marked the tariffs of its dif¬ 
 ferent parts as characterized their other legislation, the transporta¬ 
 tion of merchandise being thereby grievously harassed. It was 
 subject not merely to a single payment of uniform, regular and 
 
6 
 
 publicly declared duties on passing the frontier from one great na¬ 
 tion to another, but capricious and complicated charges were made 
 even in passing from one province to another of the same kingdom. 
 
 The abolition of all those internal transit duties and complica¬ 
 tions, and the substitution for them of a single clear law governing 
 a whole great empire—“ the removal of all custom houses to the 
 frontier,” as was done for France by Colbert, in the reign of Louis 
 XIV, was a gain for the solidity of States and for humanity which 
 at this period can with difficulty be appreciated. 
 
 The latest and one of the most beneficent instances of the removal 
 of such internal tariffs is the formation in Germany of the Zoll verein, 
 or Customs-union,* by the numerous states which now compose 
 the German Empire. Upon this point, as on so many others, the 
 United States started where older nations arrived after long efforts ; 
 that is, with perfect free trade between all parts of the great nation, 
 and an absolute cordon of separation from all other nations around 
 its entire frontier in respect to tariff laws as to all other laws. 
 
 It must be observed that only when the common interests of 
 contiguous regions so prevail over their differences as to draw 
 them into political unity, with a common treasury and boundary, 
 may the customs frontier between them be abrogated. 
 
 The provinces of old France were at least semi-independent 
 states, and the abolition of their inter-provincial tariffs was merely 
 an incident of their coalescing into a compact nation. The Zoll- 
 verein was but the precursor of the union of states even more 
 independent, now composing the German Empire. 
 
 Tariffs for entire kingdoms or empires having been thus generally 
 established, each nation has experimented upon revenue tariffs ail'd 
 protective tariffs as the good pleasure or policy of its rulers from 
 time to time dictated—England especially, after having acquired 
 the Protestant industrial refugees of France and Flanders, who 
 brought with them so many valuable arts, having been perhaps 
 more ferociously protective than any other country until about a 
 generation ago. A temporary superiority over all other nations in 
 
 * See Prof Thompson’s Social Science and National Economy, pages 337 to 341, for an account 
 of the Zollverein. 
 
7 
 
 its resources of coal and iron and in the development of its skilled 
 labor then induced its rulers, the manufacturing and trading 
 classes, to make its tariffs much less restrictive, while yet kept 
 in exactly the condition deemed most advantageous for England, 
 (for England at this moment draws a considerable part of her 
 national revenue from import duties upon our tobacco and whisky,) 
 they hoping to tempt other and less developed nations to follow by 
 removing their tariffs upon British manufactures. 
 
 The system of regulating the commerce and influencing the in¬ 
 dustry of a nation by import duties, while at the same time re¬ 
 plenishing its treasury, has grown up by slow degrees to such com¬ 
 pleteness as we now find, covering each nation as the skin covers 
 each animal; it is an integral part of the plan of government in 
 every country that is even slightly raised above barbarism ;* to 
 abandon it would be not merely to renounce an important part of 
 the public revenue, but would also leave to chance or rather to the 
 mercy of rivals and enemies the maintenance of industries neces¬ 
 sary to independence. It would at the same time be an abandon¬ 
 ment, by any nation not already at the head, of all attempt to reach 
 equality with other nations in the difficult but lucrative and con¬ 
 stantly advancing arts of modern civilization. 
 
 After all the grievous toils and varied experience of many coun¬ 
 tries in their struggles to attain industrial independence and to 
 share in modern progress, it would hardly be necessary to reiterate 
 the story of those which fail and those which succeed, if the one 
 way to success and the principal way to failure were not persist¬ 
 ently misrepresented by a clique of false teachers as clamorous, as 
 regardless of facts, and as logical as the crowds of sophists whose 
 wordy disputations marked the decadence of Grecian supremacy. 
 
 Assuming for their dogmas an infallibility as absolute as that 
 
 * The most recent testimony that I find as to the universality of the protective system 
 is that of George T. Clark, for twenty years an ironmaster in South Wales. In an article in the 
 London Economist of March 13, 1875, lamenting the condition of the English iron trade, he 
 says: “Unfortunately, foreign countries are all at this time far behind England in their appre¬ 
 ciation of the benefits of free trade. To it a] most gll foreign nations are, at the least, indifferent, 
 and all foreign governments, whether monarchical or democratic, are opposed.” 
 
 At the last meeting of the Cobden Club, the Chairman, Right Hon. W. E Baxter, remarked, 
 “ My friend, Mr. Potter, said that this Cobden Club was the nucleus of Free-Trade sentiment all 
 over the world. Gentlemen, there is no other nucleus.” 
 
claimed by the Pope for his dicta, though unsupported by any of 
 that reverend age and past service to mankind which clothe the 
 Church with dignity, and preaching everywhere the superior claims 
 of their strange creed over the mere bonds of patriotism, so that 
 the revenues, the development, and the existence of States are to 
 perish in order that their fungus, Trade Philanthropy, may fatten 
 for a while upon the decay, these verbose prophets of the new philo¬ 
 sophy have become a nuisance and a source of infection which 
 healthy political organisms can hardly afford to tolerate. 
 
 Since they come forward aiming to overthrow the settled and 
 universal order of national policy, it is for them to show cause for 
 the revolution. 
 
 What are their claims ? I understand them to be— 
 
 1. That, in regard to free interchange of commodities, man has 
 certain natural rights, and that no interference should be tolerated 
 by the individual who wishes to exchange anything he has for 
 anything that another possesses and is willing to give for it. 
 
 2. That this inherent right is the same between individuals of 
 different nations as between those of the same nation ; that hence 
 no restrictions or impositions, should be laid upon international 
 exchanges. 
 
 3. That, by the removal of all barriers to trade, a world-wide 
 and open competition is established, by means of which each coun¬ 
 try and region finally succeeds in defeating all others in the pro¬ 
 duction of certain commodities, by the exchange of which for the 
 similarly cheapest productions of other regions, universal and cheap 
 plenty of all desiderata is to be attained. 
 
 4. That full compliance by all mankind with these rules would 
 result, as obedience to divine law must, in the greater happiness 
 of all mankind; that all nations and individuals so believing should, 
 therefore, strive by all means to cause other nations to adopt the 
 system of free exchanges. 
 
 Descending from these lofty and world-wide considerations, the 
 Free Traders further contend that, 
 
 5. The nation which undertakes to collect revenue by duties upon 
 imported goods takes the most costly and absurd method of tax¬ 
 ing its people, out of whose pockets all that revenue comes. 
 
9 
 
 6. In charging import duty upon foreign products, especially 
 manufactures, the government is paying bounties from the treasury 
 to those natives who are engaged in producing similar commodities, 
 since the amount charged as duty is invariably added by the na¬ 
 tive to what would otherwise be his price. 
 
 7. Thus the government actually takes money out of the pocket 
 of one of its citizens and puts it into the pocket of another—con¬ 
 fiscates one citizen’s property for the benefit of another. 
 
 8. The result is to foster at the public cost industries not suited 
 to the mineral, vegetable or climatic resources of the country, and 
 to force consumers to pay perpetually to the producers of such ar¬ 
 ticles higher prices than they otherwise would have to pay, and 
 that mostly for inferior goods. 
 
 9. The agricultural class is the one principally aggrieved, since 
 its products are usually unprotected while it must consume pro¬ 
 tected goods. 
 
 10. The laboring classes in general, even those employed in the 
 protected manufactures, are plundered by import duties, since by 
 import duties prices of all commodities and necessaries of life are 
 raised, so that the laborer’s wages, even if nominally higher, will not 
 buy so many necessaries and comforts as wages of similar laborers 
 in free trade countries. 
 
 11. General stagnation, destruction of industry, corruption of 
 morals and ruin must end the scene in all protected countries, while 
 free trade countries must attain high prosperity. 
 
 So far as space will permit, I shall now pass in review these sev¬ 
 eral points, referring to them by the above numbers. 
 
 1. “I assume that there are such rights as are called natural, 
 and that these are the inalienable conditions under which indi¬ 
 viduals take part in social life. No one questions the natural 
 right of free exchange.”* The right to property being itself 
 conventional—a product of society and by no means inherent, 
 since possession in the savage state is limited by the power of 
 forcible holding against all comers, it is idle to talk of such an 
 attribute of property as the right of free exchange, belong- 
 
 Prof. J. E. Thorold Rogers. 
 
10 
 
 ing inherently and unconditionally to its owner. Society has in¬ 
 deed consented to and guarantees the exclusive possession of prop¬ 
 erty by an owner, but that exclusive possession has always been 
 accompanied by just such conditions as the community thought 
 expedient to impose, the exclusive possession as well as the con¬ 
 ditions being justified in the last resort not by the convenience of 
 the individual, but by the good of the community. 
 
 Taxes form one of these conditions which all are familiar with, 
 and these are imposed not only on the property once for all, 
 as in excise, or annually as in taxes upon real estate, but very 
 frequently upon sale or conveyance of property, as by stamps, 
 license or otherwise. 
 
 Instead of the right of free exchange being an inherent right or 
 necessary adjunct to the right of property, it would be much more 
 nearly correct to say that an inherent quality of all property is its 
 liability to taxation, and even more so when in the act of being ex¬ 
 changed than when reposing in a settled ownership. 
 
 Freedom of exchange exists to just such degree as the State 
 ordains. Some exchanges or sales it absolutely prohibits as in¬ 
 jurious to the community; others it strictly limits, others it taxes, 
 others it freely permits. All is conventional and by virtue of law, 
 not by natural right. 
 
 2. If exchanges between fellow citizens are conditional and sub¬ 
 ject to law, it will hardly be contended that those between citizens 
 of different nations are less so. Right of property being limited, 
 and subject to the lien of the State, the exchange or sale of that 
 property to foreigners may be absolutely prohibited by the State, 
 and this has in fact frequently been done. Many States forbid the 
 holding of real estate by foreigners, and many have at one time or 
 another prohibited the export of certain sorts of personal property, 
 such as coin or labor-saving machinery. Thus England formerly 
 prohibited the exportation of sheep, under penalty for the first 
 offence, by the Statute of 8th Elizabeth, C. 3, of forfeiture of 
 goods, imprisonment, and cutting off the offender’s left hand. 
 France has so lately as March, 1875, prohibited the export of 
 horses, because Germany wishes to buy and would pay satisfactory 
 prices to French owners. Many other States impose an export 
 
11 
 
 duty on certain sorts of property: e. g., Brazil levies sucli a duty 
 on coffee, and Spain on sugar and cigars. 
 
 These are cases of preventing or burdening the sale of property 
 to foreigners. Familiar instances of limiting the power of acquiring 
 property from foreigners are afforded not only by the general prac¬ 
 tice of imposing import duties, but by actual prohibition when 
 public policy seems to require it, as in the recent instance of Ger¬ 
 many prohibiting importations of American potatoes, the object 
 being to prevent if possible the introduction of the potato bug. 
 France, Spain, Russia and other European countries have also 
 prohibited the importation of American potatoes. 
 
 The English tariff laws abounded until recently in prohibitions 
 upon the importation of such manufactured articles as were 
 thought capable of interfering with her domestic industries. 
 
 The existing French tariff, which is in many respects properly 
 considered a model law, prohibits the importation of white sugar 
 from foreign countries, tobacco for private account, both cast and 
 wrought iron except specified sorts, fine glass and pottery, and 
 numerous other articles, including all unenumerated chemical pro¬ 
 ducts.* 
 
 However abstractly desirable it may seem to some minds that 
 international exchanges of property should be unrestricted, such 
 exchanges can surely not be claimed as an inherent right or as 
 established by custom. 
 
 3. “ Every individual will be richer and happier, when each por¬ 
 tion of the globe devotes itself to the creation of those products 
 
 *Those who believe the invectives which represent our tariff as unequaled in its enormity may 
 be instructed by the following incident: 
 
 Late in the year 1873, I sent to Paris a small invoice of Nickel-Ammonia Sulphate. Shortly 
 after I heard that my customer had died, that the goods had been seized by the French Govern¬ 
 ment for violation of the Customs laws, and that a fine of 600 francs was levied upon the con¬ 
 signee, simply because that substance was not named in the French law; it was therefore not 
 only prohibited but was confiscated. My application to be allowed to take back the goods was 
 refused except on condition of first paying a duty of 36 per cent. Finally, as a favor, the goods 
 were surrendered to mo for sale in France on my paying, in addition to 36 per cent duty, a fine 
 of 406 francs. 
 
 France thus prohibits the entry of goods, no matter how innocent and useful, which her 
 laws do not explicitly name as admissible, and punishes by confiscation the shipper and by fine 
 the receiver of such goods. 
 
12 
 
 for which it has the greatest natural facilities.'*’* What the capa¬ 
 cities of any country are is nowhere fully known, since all are in 
 transition—some developing and advancing, some positively or 
 relatively retrograding. 
 
 One of the most important factors in the capabilities of a coun¬ 
 try, and one which some minds appear unable to appreciate, is the 
 character of its inhabitants. While they remain spirited and in¬ 
 telligent their country does not reach its limit of achievement, or 
 become doomed to industrial and financial subjugation. They 
 refuse to accept their country’s present condition as a finality, but 
 holding fast to that which is good they move onward. 
 
 Because France was once dependent upon the tropics for sugar, 
 should she have accepted, as one of the ultimate facts, that nature 
 had imposed upon her this dependence by inakingher soil and climate 
 what they are, or did her ingenious people act wisely by finding 
 a way through toil and self-denial to a splendid independence of 
 sources controlled at the time by her antagonist England ? Because 
 America once produced no cotton, should she have rested content 
 never to produce it, but have gone on winning a few muslins indi¬ 
 rectly and at great cost through the export of wheat and tobacco 
 to England ? Because Bessemer steel was first made successfully 
 in Europe, and the difficulties of producing it in the United States 
 were great, should this country, though urgently needing steel rails, 
 have refrained from attempting to make them, and Illinois have 
 gone on paying to England 300 bushels of wheat for a ton of them, 
 which she can now buy within her own borders for 100 bushels? 
 
 It is curious to note that the philosophers who pretend to em¬ 
 brace the world in their far-seeing theories can never extend their 
 vision beyond the price-current of to-day. 
 
 A small, weak or timid nation yields to foreigners in such matters 
 and patiently buys from them at high prices such meagre supplies 
 as it can afford. A great nation aiming to be self-centred and 
 independent carefully examines its own resources and develops 
 them through struggle and sacrifice if necessary, undeterred by the 
 obstacles raised by those foreigners whose profits are threatened. 
 
 Wayland, p 91. 
 
13 
 
 The claim by another country of possessing superior fitness to 
 conduct a lucrative business is no doubt a legitimate trade device 
 to suppress rivalry, though a shallow one: my own experience, 
 offered here diffidently in preference to that of others taken at 
 second hand, affords several instances of its unsoundness. 
 
 Fifteen years ago, when I was undertaking to introduce the 
 manufacture of spelter or metallic zinc, a French chemist kindly 
 explained to me the impossibility of extracting zinc from the ore 
 I had to deal with (the silicate) ; the New York agent of the largest 
 foreign producer set before me in a very courteous visit the great 
 probability of my failure; even the American consumers were so 
 persuaded thereof that they opposed the import duty, equal to the 
 average of that on other imported goods, which seemed necessary 
 to enable the new industry to survive.* 
 
 When, twelve years ago, I undertook to establish here the manu¬ 
 facture of nickel, similar predictions of loss were made from similar 
 quarters and similar objections to import duty urged. One of my 
 foreign rivals said to me, “You will sink a hundred thousand 
 dollars and then you will give it up and sell us your matte” 
 (concentrated ore.) If I had been unable or unwilling to sink 
 more than a single hundred thousand he would have been quite 
 right.| 
 
 These two enterprises, as useful to the country as the capture of 
 two frigates in time of war, both succeeded, and the industries are 
 thoroughly naturalized. In each case the protection of an average 
 rate of import duty was denied, or delayed for years and until the 
 battle was already won; but, for lack of that protection, won at a 
 sacrifice of wearisome toil and of capital which it is not reasonable 
 
 * See American Journal of Science and Art, 1871, cii. p. 168. 
 
 -f- It is a curious incident that Germany, which gives its name to the principal alloy of 
 nickel, and whose miners and chemists first discovered jpd investigated it, is now paying for nickel 
 to make its coins nearly doable the price paid by the United States for its coin nickel, which 
 was mainly purchased during the period when my establishment was fighting with foreigners 
 for its life, and when free traders in Congress were fond of asserting or insinuating that the 
 Mint was being bled for the benefit of a Pennsylvanian. The very important German-silver in¬ 
 dustry of this country, which was at first almost hostile, would for several years past have been 
 unable to procure an adequate supply of nickel but for the existence of my works, which have 
 during that time supplied our German-silver manufactories at as low an average price as has 
 been paid by their rivals in England or on the Continent. 
 
14 
 
 for a nation to exact as a condition of bringing into it needful 
 \ industries. 
 
 When, eight years ago, an iron company in which I am a director 
 thought of making Bessemer steel, we were deterred by the asser¬ 
 tion of English experts that ores containing as much as .03 per cent, 
 of phosphorus were unfit for that manufacture. Ores containing 
 less phosphorus were not cheaply obtainable here, and we hesitated, 
 but the average of nine analyses of highly approved English Besse¬ 
 mer rails, costing about $120 gold per ton, laid down in a railroad 
 in front of our works, showed us nearly double that percentage of 
 phosphorus, and we have since found English steel rails containing 
 as much as .115 per cent. We determined to make our own ex¬ 
 perience, and are now selling steel rails better than the English at 
 about $65, gold, per ton, though indeed without profit. 
 
 These instances could be corroborated by many others, illustrat¬ 
 ing how grossly short-sighted would be the national policy that 
 would discourage a desirable industry, because it seemed at the 
 moment difficult or pecuniarily unpromising of immediate gain.* 
 
 Given the natural resources or conditions (and if not apparent 
 they must be sought), the absolute condition of national prosperity 
 is that the nation shall conquer as rapidly as possible from nature 
 and from man whatever is needful to fortify and perfect itself. 
 Its citizens are to remember that if one of these necessary achieve¬ 
 ments seems difficult or even nearly impossible, the highest func¬ 
 tion of man is to render nature subservient to his will. The man 
 who does not in some line of action accomplish something that 
 without him seemed impossible, though of course counted in the 
 census, is otherwise not indispensable. 
 
 But the nation dependent upon others is never certain of being 
 able to satisfy its wants, for it cannot always, even by the power of 
 money, control the action of those nations from whom its supplies 
 are drawn. 
 
 England was grievously tried when its cotton receipts were di¬ 
 minished during our civil war, and it finds even yet no escape from 
 the false position of having engaged so large a fraction of its popu- 
 
 * Sec Bcntliam’s letter to Adam Smith on Projects in Arts for a defonso of Projectors. 
 
15 
 
 lation in the business of cotton manufacture, which is so greatly at 
 the mercy of foreign accident or policy. 
 
 At this moment the United States are in the precarious position 
 of requiring from abroad $92,000,000 worth annually of sugar and 
 molasses, all of which might be produced at home with the greatest 
 advantage to our agriculture as well as to our balance of trade. 
 To naturalize the beet sugar culture seems indeed to be the most 
 important achievement now demanded of us. 
 
 Turning from the consideration of those first products which are 
 sometimes called raw materials to that of manufactured goods, it 
 is first to be observed that each live population has its own tastes 
 and requirements, which are sure to be better satisfied by its own 
 manufacturers than by foreigners who cannot so accurately or 
 promptly know what is wanted. When a nation sinks to accepting 
 its tastes from abroad, of course the dictator of taste can probably 
 best supply what is needed to gratify it, and can to a great extent 
 be the dictator of price also. This is one great source of France’s 
 constant prosperity, for Colbert truly said that the fashions of 
 France were worth to her as much as were the mines of Peru to Spain. 
 
 The combats between the industries of different countries which 
 are approved by philanthropic Free Traders as the appointed means 
 for determining the survival of the fittest are often of the most 
 dreadful character. 
 
 The undefended artisans of India or of Turkey engaged in a 
 hopeless contest with the hurrying machinery and the mercantile 
 facilities of England were simply doomed to extermination ; driven 
 from their own occupation and unable to find another, they perished 
 by myriads as certainly as would a naked horde under the artillery 
 of a modern fort. The cunning brain and the nimble dexterous 
 fingers, which produced for many ages fabrics superior to any known 
 elsewhere, went down in bitter defeat and ruin before the industrial 
 weapons of Europe. Legislative interference to defend them while 
 learning the new arts might have saved their lives, and have saved 
 to their countries the treasure which England henceforth drains 
 away for her cheaper (if also inferior) goods, but such interference 
 English policy was able to prevent; her trade philanthropy rules, 
 and “order reigns in Warsaw.” 
 
16 
 
 But in these wars of conquest which England constantly wages, 
 her own combatants also suffer, for the condition of her success is 
 that her goods shall be cheapest, and when her antagonist has 
 resources and courage her industrial armies are made to endure 
 the extreme of toil and penury. Particularly when assailing the 
 fortress of a protected or partially protected country like the United 
 States must the assaulting army suffer, even though skillfully guided 
 to attack the weakest points at the most favorable and unguarded 
 moments. My readers are probably too familiar with the pictures, 
 of English pauperism, and of the misery which struggles to escape 
 that Malebolge, to require a rehearsal of them here, but they may 
 profitably remember that it is for declining to compete openly 
 with her in experimenting how far the laboring classes may be 
 degraded without extinction that philanthropic England up¬ 
 braids us. 
 
 The desperate strikes, and the trades-unions, of England are but 
 the inevitable mutiny of human nature against insufferable oppres¬ 
 sion. That those methods of warfare against employers should 
 have spread to this country is an instance of the propagation of 
 evil like the spread of disease from a foul neighborhood to a 
 cleanly one. 
 
 Again, the effort to make goods cheap—to undersell at all events— 
 has been the fruitful source of degradation in quality, of dishonest 
 work, and of commercial swindling. “Cheap and nasty” is an En¬ 
 glish phrase; “shoddy” is an Euglish term, for England invented 
 the tearing up of old rags to spin and weave into shoddy cloth ; 
 railroad iron made of mill cinder is an English production; and, 
 in short, the old English pride in solid good quality is in danger 
 of disappearing from all branches of their industry.* 
 
 *Carlyle says, writing to Sir J. Whitworth, in January, 1874, concerning the latter’s inten¬ 
 tion to pay to his work people a bonus in addition to wages : 
 
 “ A sadder object than either that of the coal strike or any conceivable strike is the fact 
 that, loosely speaking, all England has decided that the profitablest way is to do its work ill, 
 slimly, swiftly and mendaciously. What a contrast between now and, say only a hundred years 
 ago! At that latter date, or still more conspicuously for ages before that, all England awoke to 
 its work with an invocation to the Eternal Maker to bless them in their day’s labor, and to help 
 them to do it well Now all England, shopkeepers, workmen, all manner of competing laborers, 
 awaken, as if with an unspoken but heartfelt prayer to Beelzebub—Ob, help us, thou great lord 
 
17 
 
 Supposing, however, the war to have been fought out, and the 
 industries to have been at last apportioned among the nations, 
 each nation having been defeated upon certain points and having 
 retained certain others—this one not allowed to make clothing 
 from its own cotton or wool, and that one not permitted to make 
 railroads or ships from its own ores and forests—would the pros¬ 
 perity and happiness of all be promoted? Would a saving of 
 human labor result? Answer 1. The conquering country in these 
 contests conquers not merely on one point, but on most or all, and 
 takes for itself the most profitable industries, leaving only the ruder 
 and less remunerative to the defeated, whose prosperity and aspi¬ 
 rations for development naturally perish or are postponed. One 
 overfed and many needy do not constitute a happy world. 
 Answer 2. Instead of saving human labor, a vast expenditure of 
 quite unnecessary effort would be required to carry back and forward 
 the materials and products; as when America sends cotton and 
 corn to England, taking back in payment a fraction of the product 
 as cotton cloth, or when Australia sends thither wool, taking in 
 payment a fraction in woolen cloth. 
 
 4. “Every means should be taken to circulate Free-Trade publi¬ 
 cations and promote Free-Trade measures in other countries.”* 
 Each nation and people has its own prosperity to look after, and 
 has very little occasion or right to meddle in the affairs of others 
 who know better what they want. To a Manchester philanthropist, 
 with his moral pocket-handkerchiefs and his relentless extermina¬ 
 tion of the simple habits and industries of weaker people—nay con¬ 
 sequently of the people themselves—this may be heretical doctrine. 
 We will look, however, at the practical working of English inter¬ 
 ference to promote free commercial intercourse in a few of its most 
 
 of shoddy, adulteration and malfeasance, to do our work with a maximum of slimness, swiftness, 
 profit and mendacity, for the Devil’s sake, amen!” 
 
 An American merchant, writing June 1, 1875, from Manchester, England, to the New York / 
 Evening Post, says concerning the exportation of cotton drills to India and China: “ Favorite / 
 American stamps and brands have often been affixed to English goods, with the intention of | 
 deceiving the buyer in Bombay, Calcutta, or Shanghai. 
 
 “ But besides the brands having been dishonestly copied, these goods have been dishonestly j 
 made! Little by little the quantity of sizing used has been increased, until the proportion has i 
 become no less than 30, 35 and even more than 40 per cent, of the weight of the piece,” 
 
 * Right Hon. W. E. Baxter at the last Cobden Club dinner. 
 
 2 
 
18 
 
 conspicuous instances, and here, instead of affecting original research, 
 I shall simply extract from the most recent repository of facts, viz., 
 Prof. R. E. Thompson’s “Social Science and National Economy:’’ 
 
 India. —By 1833 not a single piece of cloth was exported from India, and 
 for the ruin inflicted on its artisans Lord William Bentinck, the Governor 
 General, could find “no parallel in the annals of commerce-” English 
 writers tell of “ the enormous and undeniable falling off in the commercial 
 activity of India; the decay of those flourishing marts with which the whole 
 coast was once studded; . . . the contraction, and in great measure the ruin 
 of trade; the neglect of public works; the depreciation of agricultural pro¬ 
 duce;” which last “is observed to be a marked feature of our rule. . . • The 
 numerous local markets created by the existence of the native princes,” and 
 by the wide existence of a class that had other means of subsistence than 
 farming, “ and which, by serving as centres of money circulation, enhanced 
 the value of produce on the spot, disappeared.” “ The trade of India is so 
 trifling, as compared with its agriculture, that the trading classes, except the 
 village bankers” or usurers, “form a very small item” (J. M. Ludlow). 
 
 In fine, there is nothing left in India save an impoverished agriculture and 
 a lifeless trade. The Hindoo cotton-grower produces the raw material to 
 clothe his countrymen ; but it reaches them by way of Calcutta and Man¬ 
 chester ; the skill of his wonderful manufactures is being lost. (P. 323; see 
 also pp. 321 to 329-) 
 
 Two European countries enjoy the unhappy distinction of illustrating the 
 miseries inflicted upon nations industrially weaker when they engage in free 
 competition with those that are stronger. (P. 346.) 
 
 Portugal. —In 1703, after the death of Ericeira, Portugal negotiated the 
 Methuen Treaty with England, by which Portuguese wines were admitted 
 into England at lower rates than those of France, and English goods into 
 Portugal at the old rates of duty. The aristocracy, who were large wine¬ 
 growers, were chiefly interested in the new arrangement. “ Their own fab¬ 
 rics,” says the British Merchantman, “were perfectly ruined, and we exported 
 £100,000 value in the single article of cloths the very year after the treaty. 
 The Court was pestered with remonstrances from their manufacturers; . . . . 
 but the thing was passed, the treaty was ratified, and all their looms were 
 ruined.” One of the first effects was such a drain of silver from Portugal that 
 “ there was left very little for their necessary occasions,” and this was fol¬ 
 lowed by a drain of gold. Exchange stood at fifteen per cent, against Portu¬ 
 gal, and her export of coin to England rose to £1,500,000 a year. Goods 
 were not paid for in goods, as Free Traders allege. 
 
 Her people were reduced to the monotony of a single occupation; the 
 amount of their productive labor was vastly diminished; their power of asso¬ 
 ciation and mutual helpfulness was destroyed. (P. 346.) 
 
19 
 
 Nor has England gained as much as Portugal has lost; the country is too 
 poor to be a good customer. The Portuguese demand for English goods is 
 now of no importance, and has no effect on the English market. The country 
 is a sucked orange, a thing to be got rid of—“ a burden and a curse to Eng¬ 
 land,” Mr. Cobden says. (P.348.) 
 
 Turkey. —Turkey, Mr. Cobden thinks, is also “ a burden and a curse ” to 
 the commercially powerful nation with which she has long enjoyed free trade. 
 Turkey was once a burden to nobody; was one of the chief commercial na¬ 
 tions of the world. “Greece and Asia Minor furnished us with their manu¬ 
 factured products, together with those of India, long after their conquest by 
 the Turks, and up to the period when the industry of Europe reached its de¬ 
 velopment. To-day their manufactures have all but disappeared, and those 
 unhappy countries have nothing but farm products.” (Constant.) P. 348. 
 
 “Trade degenerated into pedlary, enterprise into swindling, banking into 
 usury, policy into intrigue, lands untilled, forests wasted, mineral treasures 
 unexplored, roads, harbors, bridges, every class of public works utterly ne¬ 
 glected and falling into ruin, pastoral life with nothing of the Abel about it, 
 agriculture that Cain himself and metallurgy that his workman-son might 
 have been ashamed of; in public life, universal venality and corruption; in 
 social life, ignorance and bigotry; and in private life, immorality of every 
 kind; not ‘something’ but everything 'rotten in the State of’ Turkey. Such 
 is the picture” drawn by Dr. Lennep. (P. 350. See pp. 348 to 353.) 
 
 The majority of modern wars have been undertaken, not for national honor 
 or pride, but for the sake of trade,—“ the fair, white-winged peace-maker.” 
 The communities most at war with the rest of the world have generally been 
 those in which the spirit of trade predominated—Tyre, Carthage, Venice, 
 England, &c. A great English military historian and general, Sir W. Na¬ 
 pier, lays it down as a rule that the traders have begun the wars and the 
 soldiers have ended them.—P. 240. 
 
 The utter indifference of the trade spirit to others’ misery is well 
 exemplified by the forcing of opium into China, even by war, 
 despite the efforts of the Chinese government to save its people 
 from that poison. Only a hundred years have elapsed since the 
 East India Company first introduced opium into China, and now 
 the vice of opium-smoking pervades all classes, producing untold 
 physical distress and a demoralization which saps the national life. 
 
 With such results before us, “ the interference theory of govern¬ 
 ment,” by which I mean the interference of trade propagandists of 
 one nation in the commercial policy of other nations, can hardly 
 be defended, and they surely afford no indication of the near ap¬ 
 proach of that millennium promised by the Free Traders as the 
 
20 
 
 consequence of their doctrines. Instead of the greatest happiness 
 of the greatest number, Free Trade produces but too certainly the 
 ruin of multitudes for the gain of a few—those few happening to 
 be the Manchester prophets of the universal brotherhood of 
 man. 
 
 5. The chief part of the revenue collected for import duties comes 
 from the pockets of foreigners and not from citizens. To that ex¬ 
 tent it is a clear gain to the nation collecting it, as if it were fished 
 out of the sea at merely the cost of collection. Indeed it is more 
 than this, for, while the rival is thus forced to pay tribute, he is at 
 the same time deterred from throwing in so great a quantity of his 
 goods, disturbing home labor and drawing away so much money as 
 he otherwise would. 
 
 The collateral convenience, that no individual is obliged to pay 
 the impost who chooses to abstain from using the goods, belongs 
 equally to that class of internal revenue known as excise, and 
 need not be dwelt upon here. To the extent that import duty is paid 
 by citizens it closely resembles excise. 
 
 This branch of the subject, though much insisted on by some 
 writers, seems to call for no further consideration, since it is obvious 
 enough that, if the foreigner pays the duty by receiving for his 
 goods after payment of duty no more than he would have got if no 
 duty were exacted, he contributes the whole amount of the duty to 
 support his customer’s government, and a more satisfactory way of 
 replenishing the Treasury could hardly be imagined. 
 
 6, 7 and 8. Who pays the duty? Dr. Wayland says: (Political 
 Economy, p. 392,) “ A tax, or as it is called a duty, is laid by this 
 country on various goods imported from abroad immediately on 
 their arrival. This duty is paid by the merchant who receives them ; 
 and he adds this duty to the cost of the goods when he sells them 
 to the next purchaser. Thus the price of the product is raised, by 
 this amount, when it comes into the hands of the consumer. If 
 broadcloth pay a duty of two dollars a yard, he who buys a yard 
 of broadcloth pays two dollars a yard more for it than he would 
 pay if there were no duty to be paid. If coal be taxed two dollars 
 a ton, as it is at present, every consumer of foreign coal pays two 
 dollars a ton more than he would pay if no such tax were exacted. 
 
21 
 
 The effect of this tax is also to keep the price of all other coal two 
 dollars a ton higher than it would otherwise be.” 
 
 X being the value of a certain quantity of foreign goods in New 
 York free of duty, and the duty being 50 per cent, ad valorem, 
 then to find the selling price of the goods, x+%=l ix; but y repre¬ 
 sents a similar quantity and quality of domestic goods, then to find 
 the selling price of those goods, as y=x, y-\-^=llx. 
 
 This charming little equation would be quite free from blemish 
 if men would only consent to be as fixed and rigid as x and y. 
 But they are operated on by factors unknown to algebra, and shift 
 about under change of circumstance with a freedom and an elas¬ 
 ticity that are bewildering to the pedagogical mind. 
 
 Much of the practical gist of the whole question lies, however, 
 just here, for though it is undoubtedly true that the government may 
 for public benefit bestow upon one class of men the money drawn by 
 direct taxation from another class, or from all, as in the familiar 
 case of maintaining armies and civil officers ; and though some of 
 the tasks demanded for the more perfect security or development 
 of the State may be so difficult and unremunerative that bounties 
 may be offered with perfect propriety to those citizens who although 
 not in the employment of the State will undertake them, as in the 
 case of rewards for killing dangerous animals; and though even J. 
 Stuart Mill says, concerning the introduction of new manufac¬ 
 tures, “a protective duty, continued a reasonable time, will some¬ 
 times be the least inconvenient mode in which a country can tax 
 itself for the support of an experiment;” and though it is also true 
 that, when import duties are levied upon foreign goods, every citi¬ 
 zen is free to engage in the production at home of similar goods, 
 thus passing at pleasure out of the class whose property is con¬ 
 fiscated into the class receiving the benefit of the confiscation, 
 and many are sure to do so if more than the average reward for 
 labor is probable, yet the natural feeling of scrutinizing uneasiness 
 under taxation cannot fail to be aroused if a citizen find himself 
 obliged to pay permanently to his neighbor a higher price than 
 the same commodity could be got for from the foreigner. 
 
 “ The duty collected on imported goods,” says the Free Trader, 
 “ is added to the price which the consumer would otherwise pay for 
 
22 
 
 those goods. Also all domestic goods of similar nature are to the 
 same extent charged dearer to the consumer. The nation pays 
 to the producers of those domestic goods a bounty equal to the 
 rate of import duty reckoned upon the entire mass of the do¬ 
 mestic goods.” 
 
 Mr. Burchard of Illinois, working upon these axioms, figures up 
 a list of articles with the bounty paid to each person engaged in 
 producing them, from which I extract.* 
 
 Articles. 
 Cotton goods, 
 Silk “ . 
 Woolen “ . 
 
 Value of domestic Duty, 
 
 production, 1870 per cent. 
 
 . $165,000,000 40 
 
 . 30 000,000 60 
 
 . 176,000,000 69 
 
 Increased cost. 
 
 $51,241,000 
 
 11,250,000 
 
 50,286,000 
 
 Persons Ann. bounty 
 employed, per capita. 
 
 171,000 $300 
 
 16,000 703 
 
 120,000 419 
 
 If the absurdity of this position is not apparent upon the mere 
 inspection of it in this form, it will become apparent when other 
 articles are inserted in place of those selected by Mr. Burchard, viz.: 
 
 Articles. 
 
 Domestic 
 
 production 
 
 Duty. Increased cost. 
 
 Persons 
 
 employed. 
 
 Ann. bounty 
 per capita. 
 
 Crude petroleum, 1 
 gallons, . . . J 
 
 181,263,505 
 
 per gall. $36,252,701 
 
 4,487 
 
 $8,079 
 
 Oats, bushels, . . 
 
 282,107,157 
 
 p“bu, 28 2l °. 715 
 
 150,000f 
 
 188 
 
 Potatoes, bushels . 
 
 143,337,473 
 
 p»bt. 21 ’ 500620 
 
 150,000f 
 
 143 
 
 No idiot has ever imagined that these duties produce the slight¬ 
 est effect upon the market prices of our enormous products of these 
 articles. 
 
 Crude petroleum, for instance, frequently sells at 3 cents to 5 
 cents per gallon, yet Wayland, trained to know that the greater 
 contains the less, here makes the less contain the greater, for by 
 his rule that price of 3 to 5 cents must somehow include the 20 
 cents per gallon import duty. 
 
 Oats and potatoes come to us from Canada, but her people know 
 perfectly well that the whole of the duty upon these articles, as 
 upon all of her products sent to this country for sale, comes out 
 of their pockets, and they want a reciprocity treaty to relieve 
 them of that contribution to our treasury. 
 
 * The data and calculations are Mr. Burchard’s—not mine. 
 
 t As about 6,000,000 persons are reported by the census of 1870 to be engaged in farming, it 
 maybe nearly fair to estimate one-twentieth as engaged in raising oats and potatoes—or say the 
 full time of 150,000 persons at each crop. 
 
23 
 
 But take merchandise of another class—say Bessemer steel rails, 
 as they have been particularly discussed in this regard. 
 
 Mr. Marshall, of Illinois, in his speech of June 6, 1870, upon 
 the then pending tariff bill, says, “ But the great outrage of this 
 bill is in the proposed duty on steel rails.” After rehearsing the 
 great advantages of steel rails over iron in safety and durability, 
 he proceeds: “Legislation interposes to deprive us of these bene¬ 
 fits.If Government would withhold its interference, and the 
 
 laws of trade were left free to operate, we would have this fine 
 
 Bessemer steel rail for all our new roads.The present duty on 
 
 steel rails is 45 per cent, ad valorem.The bill before us, instead 
 
 of reducing or abolishing this duty, actually proposes to increase it 
 to $33.60 in gold per ton, increasing the cost thereof of course to 
 that amount.a robbery, Mr. Speaker, of such gigantic propor¬ 
 
 tions that it is amazing that any one would dare to champion it.” 
 
 Mr. Marshall I believe to be an honest man, but he quotes Mr. 
 Wells in this speech, and had apparently been misguided. Against 
 his invective I will set an extract from the Report of the Secretary 
 of the Iron and Steel Association for 1871. He speaks of the 
 huge profits derived by English railroad-iron makers from increased 
 prices charged to our railroads, after breaking down our rolling 
 mills by forcing down the market in periods of low tariff, and con¬ 
 tinues (pp. 9 and 10): 
 
 “ A more recent illustration of the principle in question is found in the his¬ 
 tory of the production and prices of steel rails. In 1864, just before the com¬ 
 pletion of the first Bessemer steel works in this country, the price of English 
 steel rails in New York and Philadelphia was $162 in gold. In 1865 two 
 works were in operation here, and foreign rails were lowered to $120. Two 
 years later, in 1867, a third works started, and two or three new companies 
 were organized to further extend the manufacture, and foreign rails fell to 
 $110, gold, per ton. In 1869 the capacity of our works was equal to the 
 American demand, nearly $5,000,000 had been invested in the business, and 
 foreign rails were put down to $80, gold, per ton. At that price they could 
 not be made here, and the business was threatened with destruction. Ninety- 
 five intelligent consumers of steel rails, alarmed at the prospect of being 
 placed at the mercy of foreign makers, appealed to Congress to save our man¬ 
 ufacturers by increasing the duty on imported rails. This was done, our 
 works responded with renewed vigor to the increasing home demand, the price 
 rose to a point at which a moderate profit could be made (about $105 per ton), 
 
24 
 
 and has since fluctuated but little. There can scarcely he a doubt that, had 
 Congress not acted promptly in the premises, our works would have been 
 closed, the capital invested in them sunk, their skilled labor driven into some 
 other occupation, and the business so disorganized that, before resumption of 
 operations could have taken place, American consumers would have suffered 
 as severely as in the two instances previously given.” 
 
 To this I need only add that maintenance of the duty at li cts. 
 per lb. caused still other Bessemer works to be erected in this 
 country, including two in Mr. Marshall’s own State of Illinois, and 
 all the blessings of abundant and cheap steel rails which he wrongly 
 imagined were to come through Free Trade have come from the 
 opposite policy of Protection, for the best steel rails are now selling 
 at $75 currency, or about $65 gold per ton, a lower price than that 
 of iron rails two years ago, but little higher than steel rails could 
 be landed here now from England duty free, and doubtless $25 
 per ton lower than they could be had duty free if our works had 
 not by Protection been called into existence. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that the foreigner pays the duty in this 
 case and in all similar cases. 
 
 The writer of “ What to do with the Surplus ” in the Atlantic 
 for January, 1870, wished to abolish the duty on pig iron because 
 it was a tax “ to secure higher profits to the manufacturers by re¬ 
 stricting the amount available for consumption within the country 
 to the capacity of the Pennsylvanian and a few other scattered fur¬ 
 naces,” and because it prevented this country from building iron 
 bridges and iron ships. 
 
 He spoke too soon; henceforth he should prophesy only after 
 the fact. 
 
 Encouraged by the duty, ironmasters improved their furnaces 
 and built others in not one but a dozen States, in consequence of 
 which there is now a surplus production, and pig iron is cheap 
 enough to please the most fastidious, and to make us expect that 
 other wail of the “still vex’t” Free Traders: “You have diverted 
 the industry of the country from its proper channels into some¬ 
 thing unremunerative.” 
 
 In such alternations of distress do the American Free Trade 
 apostles pass their querulous lives. 
 
 Like the chorus of a Greek tragedy, on the stage but taking no 
 
25 
 
 part in the action, they observe the struggle of their countrymen 
 for independence in some needful industry, and they sing 
 “ Oh! Impious, to scale the heavens ye essay ! Great Cheap-John ye defy!” 
 
 But when success crowns the arduous strife, and the prize is won, 
 the chorus strikes in with : 
 
 “ Misguided men I Potatoes, and much hay these efforts might have yielded.” 
 
 If there be something feeble in this anti-climax, the apostles 
 do not seem to perceive it. 
 
 Iron bridges are now made in this country so cheaply as well as 
 abundantly, that our builders take contracts for erecting them in 
 Canada, and iron shipbuilding has become in Pennsylvania an es¬ 
 tablished industry, producing vessels, superior according to the 
 highest European authority to the best English vessels, and which 
 compete successfully under our own flag with the most firmly es¬ 
 tablished English lines. 
 
 Sydney Smith once said that he would go out of his way at any 
 time to kick a sheep, and our Free Traders have so long and safely 
 followed his noble example in their treatment of laborious, patient, 
 steadfast Pennsylvania—the backbone of the nation—that any¬ 
 thing like a defense of its iron producers seems to them presump¬ 
 tuous. But how puerile is the clamor against “pig iron monopo¬ 
 lists” by men who are perfectly welcome to engage in the pig iron 
 business if they have the needful capital and pluck? 
 
 The beet sugar manufacture of France is another most conspic¬ 
 uous instance of the cheapening of a product at home by import 
 duties upon its foreign rival, but the story is so hackneyed that 
 I hesitate to repeat it here. It is, in fact, less an illustration of 
 the question of “who pays the duty,” than an example of the 
 legitimate final result of a steady protective policy, viz: complete 
 independence of foreigners for an article of prime necessity, the 
 entire cost of which is saved to the nation, and profitable employ¬ 
 ment of the most permanent kind given to a large fraction of the 
 people in thus supplying their own want. In brief, foreign sugars 
 were from 1816 to 1883 subjected to duties of 5 to 8 cts. per lb., 
 from 1833 to 1840 to duties of 2\ to 5f cts. per lb., and from 
 1840 to 1860 to duties of 1 to S J 2 cts. per lb. In April, 1866, the 
 
26 
 
 price of beet sugar in France was 4f cts. per lb., though from being 
 protected it had passed into the condition of being heavily taxed, 
 and of being, in fact, one of the principal sources of internal reve¬ 
 nue.* An excess over home consumption being now produced in 
 France, Belgium and Holland, those countries now pay export 
 bounties upon it, and it is exported in great quantities to England, 
 competing there with tropical sugar so vigorously as to cause most 
 serious alarm to the English refiners of colonial sugars, a deputa¬ 
 tion of whom lately declared in an interview with Lord Derby 
 that the “enormous increase” in the sugar-producing power of 
 France “would, if it continued, swamp the West Indies.” 
 
 The real effect of import duty on prices is about this: 
 
 In the case of articles produced only abroad, the duty is usually 
 but not always added to the price, for, when there is no supply 
 except through the custom house, either the duty must be paid, or 
 the article be dispensed with. Now the fear of this latter event 
 often causes the foreigner to pay the whole or a part of the duty by 
 abating his price. 
 
 For instance, while coffee was subject to import duty here, the 
 price in Brazil was decidedly lower than when that duty was abol¬ 
 ished, the Brazilians having apparently preferred to abate their 
 price rather than have their market curtailed by a higher price 
 here. In 1870, when our import duty upon coffee was 5 cents per 
 lb., the price of coffee at Rio was 9 cents per lb., and our importa¬ 
 tions from Brazil only were 224,235,000 lbs.; in 1874, our import 
 duty having been meantime abolished, the price at Rio was 20 
 cents per lb., and our importations were 199,073,280 lbs.f 
 
 In the case of articles produced both at home and abroad, home 
 competition, which is at first made possible by the duty preventing 
 foreigners from crushing it in the bud through temporary lowering 
 of prices,J or even by its causing an absolutely higher price, soon 
 forces the foreigner to abate his price or totally lose his market. 
 Later, it constantly obliges the foreigner to accept not what he 
 
 * See E. B. Grant on Beet Sugar. 
 
 fThe following table exhibits the annual imports of coffee and tea from 1871 to 1874, inclu¬ 
 sive, with the total value thereof, and the average price per pound in the countries of their 
 production: 
 
27 
 
 would wish to charge, but what the home producer is willing or 
 able to sell at. Finally, in many cases, after quite driving the for¬ 
 eigner out of the field, domestic establishments competing among 
 themselves force prices down to a lower point than foreigners could 
 deliver at free of duty, even though they too have meantime im¬ 
 proved and cheapened their processes. This result has almost been 
 attained, as has been said, in the case of Bessemer steel rails, and 
 has been fully attained in the case of divers other articles. 
 
 Why then in such cases do American producers desire the reten¬ 
 tion of the duty? I might say for the same reason that makes 
 a man prefer to keep his house roof sound even in fair weather, 
 but will rather say : 
 
 First. In order that they may not in times of storm see their pros¬ 
 perity destroyed by vicissitudes growing out of the policy or acci¬ 
 dents of other nations—as little would the public interest brook 
 their being so destroyed. 
 
 Second. In order that, having assurance of a certain measure of 
 defense from foreign assaults, they may confidently enlarge their 
 
 Statement of imports of Tea and Coffee during the four fiscal years (ended June 30,) 1871 to 
 1874, inclusive. 
 
 Fiscal Tears 
 
 ended June 30. 
 
 Coffee. 
 
 Average cost 
 
 Tea. 
 
 Average cost 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Aggregate 
 
 of shipment 
 
 per pound 
 
 of shipment. 
 
 Pounds j 
 
 Aggregate 
 cost at place 
 of shipment. 
 
 per pound 
 at place 
 of shipment. 
 
 1871. 
 
 317,992,048 
 
 $30,992,869 
 
 9.74 cents. 
 
 51,364,919 1 
 
 $17,254,617 
 
 33.60 cents. 
 
 1872. 
 
 298,805,946 
 
 37,942,225 
 
 12.69 “ 
 
 63,811,003 1 
 
 22,943,575 
 
 36 00 “ 
 
 1873. 
 
 293,297,271 
 
 44,109,671 
 
 15.00 “ 
 
 64,815,136 
 
 24,466,170 
 
 37.74 “ 
 
 1874. 
 
 285,171,512 
 
 55,048,967 
 
 19.34 “ 
 
 55,811,605 
 
 21,112,234 
 
 37.82 “ 
 
 This record of foreign prices for coffee tends strongly to the conclusion, making dne allowance 
 for the effect of short crops on prices, that the duty repealed hy the act of 1872 was added to 
 the selling price abroad, with no advantage to consumers here, while the country, as a whole, 
 has paid more than before for the entire stock. The repeal of the duty on tea caused little or 
 no reduction of prices to consumers here, but an increase of prices abroad. 
 
 Report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1874. 
 
 Jin a preamble and joint resolution relative to the plate glass industry of New Albany, 
 Indiana, which was passed by the Legislature of Indiana, February 23, 1875, occurs the follow¬ 
 ing:—“And whereas, the foreign manufacturers of polished plate glass have united, and pub¬ 
 licly say:— We have had a long and profitable trade in America; we can afford, and will sell 
 polished plate glass for years at a loss rather than yield this trade to American manufacturers .” 
 
28 
 
 operations and by means of those larger operations derive adequate 
 profits even at lower prices. It is notorious that most of the gains 
 of successful manufacturers go into extensions and improvements 
 of their mills and factories, by which they afterwards serve the 
 public cheaper. 
 
 My limits forbid the further prosecution of this interesting 
 branch of the subject. It has been treated at some length by John 
 L. Hayes, in his “ Protection a Boon to Consumers,” but it should 
 be taken up afresh, and elaborated by the light of recent facts. 
 
 9. A purely agricultural nation can hardly exist at the present 
 day, and those nations which most nearly approach that character 
 are the most miserable. Our own Southern States were held as 
 nearly as possible in this condition under the slave regime, and 
 fell so far behind the current of the age that many years must pass 
 before they can come up to the front. Of the plight of Turkey 
 and India, after the extinction of their manufactures, enough has 
 been said, and we all know the story of Ireland’s wretchedness 
 since the deliberate destruction by England of her manufactures:* 
 let us rather look at Egypt, that ancient granary of the world, and 
 at present almost a purely agricultural country. 
 
 How she fares in this modern era of commercial and industrial 
 strife is well shown in the following abstracts from a valuable paper 
 by Alex. Delmar, communicated to the American Philosophical 
 Society, Oct. 2, 1874. 
 
 The dominion of man over nature is so feeble in that country, that im¬ 
 mense tracts of once fertile land are now abandoned for want of power to 
 command the needful means to hold them in cultivation. “One-half the 
 Delta is said to be uncultivated.” “Part of the lower territory, now being 
 reclaimed by the Suez Canal Company, was known in ancient times as the 
 fruitful land of Goshen.” Though the area of Egypt is nearly 593 million 
 acres, and its population but 8,442,000, the cultivated land is but ^ of an acre 
 per capita, which is but one-half the ratio in Great Britain, one-fourth that of 
 France, and one-twelfth that of the United States. 
 
 The misery of the inhabitants may be partly inferred from this, when it is 
 further remembered that the product per acre is less in Egypt than in the 
 other countries named, and that of the product a much smaller proportion is 
 consumed by its cultivators. So little are the field laborers able to defend 
 
 For Ireland see Thompson, pp. 309 to 321. 
 
29 
 
 themselves, and so fixed is the Khedive’s fondness for foreign trade, that they 
 are obliged to cultivate such crops as he considers best for export, looking to 
 his own interest as chief land owner and tax recipient. 
 
 ^ Wages in 1873 were for: 
 
 Field laborers, ....... per diem, 7 to 15 cts. 
 
 Unskilled laborers in salt works or factories, . “ 15 to 40 cts. 
 
 Mechanics, viz.: masons, carpenters, blacksmiths, &c., 60 to 100 cts. 
 
 While in the United States 15 persons out of 100 produce abundant food 
 for all, in Egypt at least three times as many are needed to produce a vastly 
 inferior supply. 
 
 The peasant has usually nothing but dates and dourra for food. His “home 
 is far less comfortable than that of some wild animals—for instance the beaver. 
 It is of the same character as the latter—a mud hut—and teems with vermin. 
 Great numbers of the people live in the ancient tombs, with darkness and the 
 bats. The dress of the people (about the frontier between Egypt proper and 
 Nubia) consists of a piece of leather about six inches wide cut in strings and 
 tied about their loins.” “The rate of interest ranges between 10 per cent, on 
 the most desirable Government securities to 60 and even 100 per cent, on fair 
 commercial risks.” When the peasantry get any coin they usually bury it. 
 
 The most antiquated tools are used; the crops, in spite of the Nile mud, 
 are but meagre—wheat for instance 11J bushels per acre, and other things in 
 proportion. The total export of wheat has seldom been as much as 5,000,000 
 bushels in a year, mainly of course to England. 
 
 Yet the population has great natural aptitude. The young Arabs are of 
 quick intellect and easily learn. “They show considerable dexterity.” 
 “The young Egyptians show great skill and often surpass their masters 
 in cleverness.” 
 
 This doleful picture is of a country once the proudest of the 
 world, and of a people whose ancestors were conquerors of many 
 nations, but they are destitute of the machinery of modern civiliza¬ 
 tion and industrial warfare. The few factories in the land belong 
 to the Khedive, and no opportunity exists for the people to attempt 
 industrial advancement. 
 
 The inhabitants of our prairie-land Egypt, more fertile than its 
 prototype, and almost as destitute of manufactures, should ponder 
 upon these results. They are, fortunately for themselves, politi¬ 
 cally wedded to the manufacturers of New England and the Mid¬ 
 dle States, who stand between them and England, and are bet¬ 
 ter customers for their grain and better purveyors of wares and tex¬ 
 tiles ; being so by virtue of that protective policy against which our 
 
30 
 
 Egyptians chafe. Without such defense, how many generations 
 would elapse before British philanthropists would take out of the 
 land everything worth having? And how could the dwellers on 
 those rich plains, unsupported by the metals, the manufactures and 
 the arts of their compatriots, resist any form of subjection or indig¬ 
 nity which foreigners might choose to impose upon them? 
 
 That foreign traders should seek to seduce those regions from 
 their fidelity may be comprehensible, but what shall we say of 
 the domestic treason which tries to delude the Western farmers 
 into believing that their real friend and ally is the English manu¬ 
 facturer, and their real enemy the Massachusetts mill owner or the 
 Pennsylvania ironmaster.* 
 
 A vivid picture of the poverty of a purely agricultural commu¬ 
 nity in a fertile land is given in the first chapters of Lamon’s Life 
 of Lincoln, describing the parents and the early home of his sub¬ 
 ject—the lack of comforts, the long rides to the inefficient mill, 
 the general rudeness of the Pigeon Creek district of Indiana so 
 recently as 1825. One of the neighbors narrating her recollec¬ 
 tions says (p. 42), “I must tell you that the first treat I ever 
 received in old Mr. Linkern’s house, that was our President’s 
 father’s house, was a plate of potatoes, washed and pared very 
 nicely, and handed round. It was something new to me, for I had 
 never seen a raw potato eaten before.” 
 
 It is everywhere the same where farming is the only business. 
 Hog and hominy may be plenty,f but it is written that “ man 
 
 * It is remarkable that while the Pennsylvania pig iron monopolist has always aided in the 
 Westward and Southward march of the iron industry, rejoicing in the success of a varied indus¬ 
 try in any part of our Country, the Free Trade teacher Wayland says, p. 92, “ Could not one of 
 our old States supply one of the new States with manufactures cheaper than the new State 
 could produce them itself?” Also that such Free Trade sentiment as exists in New England 
 among practical men grows mainly from the belief that European competition will be less 
 dangerous to New Englaud than that which Protection is developing in the South and West. 
 
 fNot even food is always plenty in a country devoted exclusively to agriculture. Persia is 
 such a country, yet has lately suffered the destruction of a large part of her population by 
 famine. Last year a terrible famine was only averted in agricultural India by the efforts 
 of England in sending great quantities of food to the threatened districts, in total disregard of 
 the laws of “ unrestricted commercial intercourse.” The Levant Herald of Constantinople, de¬ 
 scribing a famine which occurred last year in some of the most fertile Asiatic provinces of Tur¬ 
 key, says that in July alone “ upon the most moderate estimate of deaths from actual starvation 
 and the diseases resulting from insufficient food, they cannot fall short of 150,000 in number.” 
 
31 
 
 shall not live by bread alone,” and the mere food producer, 
 unaided by those who can satisfy his other cravings, sinks into 
 meanness as well as penury. General Jackson, writing to Dr. 
 Coleman, said: “Common sense points out at once the remedy. 
 Draw from agriculture the superabundant labor and employ it in 
 mechanism and manufactures, thereby creating a home market for 
 your breadstuff’s, and distributing labor to a most profitable ac¬ 
 count.” 
 
 Having been myself a farm laborer for three years, and remem¬ 
 bering well the long summer days, and the labor that goes to make 
 a bushel of wheat, remembering also the feeling of mingled respect 
 and envy with which I regarded the apparently easy lives and 
 large profits of paper-mill owners and boiler-iron makers near 
 by, I appreciate the farmer’s misgiving as to whether it is quite a 
 fair deal between him and the manufacturer, but I know that succes¬ 
 sive owners of those iron works have since then failed, and that only 
 the best of the paper mills-succeeded, while the farmers have held 
 on steadily, and the old names still hold the old places, better 
 schools having been set up, more industries established, and the 
 whole region advanced in comfort and prosperity. 
 
 This advance of the arts and industries; the home market, the 
 neighboring saw and grist mill, mechanics, teachers, implement 
 factory and woolen mill, a varied industry and varied opportuni¬ 
 ties, are the farmer’s needs. For them he could well afford, if need 
 were, to pay temporarily higher for some few of his necessities, 
 while his neighbors are learning to make them, especially as they, 
 meantime, are paying him better for his crops; but shortly, as we 
 have seen, his neighbors sell to him cheaper than the stranger, and 
 if they seem to him prosperous beyond their share, they have shown 
 to him or to his son the way to go and do likewise. 
 
 The farmer, however, enjoys more perhaps of the paternal and 
 protective care of his government ?han any other citizen of this 
 country. Not only are all of his products which are liable to 
 foreign competition in our markets directly protected by import 
 duties, but vast sums have been paid by the government to protect 
 
 The Irish famine, though less recent, is another instance. These things do 
 countries of diversified industry. 
 
 occur in the 
 
32 
 
 from Indians the farmers of those Western States which have suc¬ 
 cessively been upon the frontier, while by selling millions of acres 
 of lands to settlers at a nominal price, government has actually 
 bestowed upon farmers the chief part of the capital needed in 
 their business. 
 
 It is belittling as well as falsifying the question to insist that the 
 farmer should mutiny against his neighbor and his government be¬ 
 cause that neighbor aided by the government is supplying his wants 
 at prices lower indeed than they were formerly supplied by the for¬ 
 eigner, but at prices higher perhaps than the baffled foreigner now 
 protests that he would supply them, if permitted. Without descend¬ 
 ing to confute the Free Trader’s details as to the robbery inflicted on 
 the farmers by the grasping manufacturers (that is by the domestic 
 ones, for the gains of foreign manufacturers never hurt the feelings 
 of your Free Trader), I will close this part of the argument by 
 some quotations. 
 
 Wavland says, p. 95 : “Let the productiveness of labor in any 
 department be ever so great, where labor and capital are free, com¬ 
 petition will always reduce profit in one department to the same 
 average per cent, that it affords in other departments.” 
 
 In the discussion, February 12, 1875, of the Tax and Tariff bill, 
 then before the House of Representatives, Mr. Parker, of Missouri, 
 said: “ I believe that the true solution of this question of getting the 
 full value for the products of the farmer depends in the end .... 
 in placing the farmer side by side with the consumer.” 
 
 Mr. Dobbins, a practical farmer from New Jersey, said, in the 
 same debate: “ I have been an observer, sir, as well as a practical 
 man, and I have invariably found that, under a low tariff or the 
 Free Trade system, the practical bearing of it was general devas¬ 
 tation and want. The business interests of the country have 
 generally suffered and suffered materially. And, sir, I believe 
 that our interests are mutual; that when the great manufactur¬ 
 ing interests of the country are prosperous, then all are pros¬ 
 perous.” 
 
 10. When we remember that English Free Trade economists hold 
 the normal rate of wages to be that which just suffices to prevent 
 the extinction of the laborers, and that English employers have 
 
33 
 
 usually followed with perfect obedience the rule of conduct thus 
 laid down*—when we contrast the degraded working people and 
 the.swarming paupers thence resulting, with the well-nourished, 
 well-clad, well-housed and well-taught American working people, 
 the hardihood of the Free Trade tenet now under review is most 
 amazing. From the labor expended in the endeavor to prove it 
 (labor which is apt to take the form of calculations as to the quan¬ 
 tity of luxuries unused by laborers, such as wines, silks, and Brus¬ 
 sels carpets, that could be procured here or in Europe by a month’s 
 work), I suppose there must be some who are expected to credit this 
 proposition, but if such intellects exist it were vain to argue with 
 them, for “ gegen die Dummheit Icaempfen die Goetter selbst ver- 
 gebens.” (Against stupidity even the gods contend in vain.) 
 
 Let it suffice to point to the enormous and rarely checked emi¬ 
 gration from Great Britain to this country, to the similar immigra¬ 
 tion from Canada, to the huge deposits in our savings banks, and 
 payments for life insurance, and to the streets of comfortable 
 houses owned by working people in American manufacturing 
 places. 
 
 Supposing the ratio of inevitable outlay to possible earning to 
 be as large here as in England, which is by no means the case, it is 
 clear that the amounts of both being larger in the protected 
 country, the absolute saving and consequent power of attaining 
 competence must be greater here. 
 
 11. The revolt of our ancestors against Great Britain a century 
 ago having been caused in part by their determination not 
 to submit to Free Trade plunder and the suppression of their 
 infant manufactures, and the policy of this country having 
 been ever since protective of our manufacturers, the general 
 result.of our hundred years of independence is fairly to be brought 
 into court to testify whether degradation or advancement is the fruit 
 of such a policy. Let those who prate of the prosperity arising from 
 Free Trade produce a Free-Trade country showing attainments 
 comparable to ours, or hold their peace for shame. 
 
 That our progress might have been yet greater is most true, for 
 
 * See Report of Abm. S. Hewitt, Commissioner to Paris Exhibition of 1867, on the Iron and 
 Steel Industry. 
 
 3 
 
 / 
 
34 
 
 our policy has vacillated in the degree of protection established at 
 different periods, and in a similar degree has our growth been 
 accelerated or retarded, as has been sufficiently demonstrated by 
 Henry C. Carey. 
 
 The depressed condition of many of our industries at this mo¬ 
 ment under a sufficiently high tariff does not invalidate this argu¬ 
 ment, since the depression is world-wide and is quite as marked in 
 Free-Trade England as in Protected America, having in fact pro¬ 
 duced more distress and bankruptcies there than here. 
 
 A Free Trader, writing from Melbourne, Australia, says:—“I 
 have only to add that at present our prosperity is something won¬ 
 derful. We defy all economical laws by protective tariffs and inconsis¬ 
 tent land legislation, and the revenue shows no sign of decrease.”* 
 
 We have seen in the instances mentioned above, of Turkey, India 
 and Portugal, what prosperity attends the practice of Free Trade. 
 Lack of space forbids the introduction of further examples. 
 
 It must not be understood that, because the rightfulness and 
 expediency of National Self-Protection by means of import duties 
 levied upon foreign goods are shown, everything that goes by the 
 name of tariff must be defended. In nothing is it easier to show 
 stupidity than in the framing of a tariff law, while to build up a 
 judicious and harmonious one is a most difficult task, as Mr. Morrill 
 or Mr. Dawes would probably be willing to testify. 
 
 Having touched upon this subject in my essay on International 
 Industrial Competition,! p. 26, et seq., I will now only add that, 
 of all modes of tariff legislation, that by commercial treaties, 
 which would deprive us for long terms of the power to regulate 
 our finances in accordance with our own interest, is evidently the 
 most dangerous and the least fitted to our circumstances, besides 
 being unconstitutional, since such treaties are in violation of the 
 exclusive privilege of originating revenue legislation, which be¬ 
 longs to the House of Representatives.! 
 
 * New York Nation, April 29, 1875. 
 
 f Published by Henry Carey Baird, Philadelphia. 
 
 J An attempt to fasten upon us a commercial treaty is simply an attempt to get the better of 
 us in a bargain, and though such treaties are usually urged by Free Traders, they are in viola¬ 
 tion of the principles of Free Trade, as is thus shown by the “Melbourne Age:” 
 
 “The Free Traders of England do not yet quite understand their own principles. If they ever 
 
 \ 
 
35 
 
 To conclude: National Self-Protection versus Free Trade - is no 
 debating club topic, resultless whichever \yay decided, but is a most 
 serious question fraught with earnest verities and consequences. 
 That Americans accustomed to look sharply to the main chance 
 will in the future as in the past generally decide this great question 
 aright, cannot be doubted, though Mr. Cobden’s calm British affec¬ 
 tation of superior wisdom and virtue may impose upon the indiffer¬ 
 ent with an overbearing assumption of absolute right for the Free 
 Trade doctrines which his own nation dares not practice; though 
 Mr. Mill’s logical cobwebs may be spun all round and round the 
 little parlor which British trade obligingly invites the world to 
 enter; even though Mr. D. A. Wells’s formidable statistics may 
 demonstrate how disastrously tariffs affect the American laborer 
 by making a family of parents and four children almost twice as 
 costly to maintain as a family of parents and six children.* 
 
 The ultra-marinism (if I may coin the word) of an English 
 clique will as time passes be more clearly seen for what it is, a sort 
 of mercenary counterfeit of the ultramontanism which troubles 
 Europe. Like that, it assumes to act across State lines, aiming to 
 control State policy for its own ends and in foreign interests. Like 
 that, while deluding its adherents and dictating their creed, it so flat¬ 
 ters them with its condescending approval that they think them¬ 
 selves the salt of the earth. Like that, it foments discord between 
 the citizens of a single government by insidiously asserting or sug¬ 
 gesting that one class is oppressed by another, and that it is the 
 friend of the oppressed. Like that, it assumes a sort of apostolic 
 character and authority, offering to enlighten and comfort a be- 
 
 did, the secret is lost to them. They are still clamorous for commercial treaties, which shall 
 secure advantages to English commerce, without' inquiring too curiously into their effects on 
 Free Trade with the rest of the world. ■* * * * They do not see that the principles of Free 
 Trade demand the abrogation of all commercial treaties, and that the making of a bargain with 
 any other country for the remission, imposition, alteration, or continuance of any impost on 
 either side is objectionable per se." 
 
 After showing how England has been hampered in her European policy by her Free Trade 
 proffegandism, the “ Age ” continues: 
 
 “The result of it all will be that England will be taunted with the decay of her influence as a 
 European power, whereas she is only unsuccessful in the management of her hobby-horse. We 
 look in vain for evidences of success in any quarter for the spread of the Manchester confession 
 of faith.” 
 
 * See hi 0 report for 1868 as Revenue Commissioner; also Kelley’s Speeches, pp. 271 and 272. 
 
36 
 
 nighted and wicked world—for the slight consideration of universal 
 mastery. Like that, it interferes between the civil government and 
 the citizen, and strikes at the root of civil order; weakening the 
 bonds of allegiance by proclaiming the iniquity of certain exac¬ 
 tions, and insinuating sotto voce that the evasion (as by smug¬ 
 gling) of those exactions, rightful though they be, and neces¬ 
 sary to the existence of the State, is but a slight and condonable 
 offense which may even be secretly applauded. Like that, it would 
 undermine the autonomy of States by setting up quite outside of 
 the nation—and if in hostility with its most vital and cherished 
 purposes, no matter—a false object of veneration and almost of 
 worship, for which, and not for the national will, obedience is 
 claimed. Like that, it aims to control the education of the young, 
 to train up the new generations in its sophisms by which patriotism 
 is to be sneered away and abolished as an antiquated and injurious 
 delusion, and by thus rearing up a race of myrmidons to strengthen 
 itself as imperium in imperio. Like that, but inferior since it in¬ 
 vokes only the love of gain or at best a hypocritical philanthropy 
 instead of a catholic religion as the justification for its intermed¬ 
 dling, its schemes will come to naught, and it will be spurned by 
 the sober judgment of America. 
 
 If some of my expressions appear to be dictated by acerbity 
 towards England, it is not because of ill will towards that people 
 from whom by inheritance and by example we have derived so 
 much, and many of whose individuals are among the most estimable 
 of mankind, but because the pertinacity and insolence of her 
 propagandists obliges me to expose the mere selfishness of the 
 trading class by which she is at present governed, in order that 
 t we may not be overborne by their pretensions of superior intelli¬ 
 gence and righteousness. 
 
 Let England by all means take for herself such course as she 
 thinks likely to promote her interest. It is her right, and though 
 we, seeing the unbalanced and distorted development which she 
 has reached in attempting the industrial and financial subjugation 
 of other nations, and observing the destructive incursions of Bel¬ 
 gian iron workers and other foreign manufacturers into her unde¬ 
 fended home market, may indulge the hope of her mending her 
 
37 
 
 ways before it is too late for her self-preservation, we refrain from 
 fomenting disturbances among her people by insisting on their 
 adopting our policy. 
 
 We shall take for ourselves, without asking her leave, the same 
 privilege of consulting our own interests and doing our own think¬ 
 ing. We shall grow in strength and in national completeness and 
 independence, despite the groans and growls of the Cobden Club, 
 after England shall have distinctly failed in grasping at universal 
 domination through trade. We decline to be her victim or her 
 dupe.