We are a world within ourselves, and every interruption of our foreign relations will only tend more rapidly to develop our internal resources. Our present troubles, like all human things, must at length pass away, and happy will he be who comes out of them with a strong heart and a clear conscience. The great processes of production and consumption must still go on, and while they are kept up, the merchant must always find employ

ment.

Business is a mighty, ever-flowing stream, and if its natural channels become obstructed, it will find another, and soon wear a smooth passage where at first all seems rough and rugged.

The hope of the patriot is, that the lessons of the last few years will not soon be forgotten. There is no teaching like that of bitter experience. Our nation is yet in its youth. It is now forming the chart of its future voyage on the sea of existence. It is to be hoped that it will set a beaconlight on the rocks on which it has wellnigh been wrecked. Things must at length settle down, a calm must succeed such elemental war, and we have every reason to hope that we shall have a season of prosperity as lasting and tranquil as our sufferings have been violent and protracted.

ART. III.-REMARKS ON "FREE TRADE."

THE article entitled "Free Trade," in the number of the Merchants' Magazine for March, seems to require some notice at the hands of the advocates of discriminating duties, of whom I am one. Embodying, as it does, all the plausible but often delusive commonplaces by which the interests of British manufacturers have hitherto been sustained in our own country, at the expense of the welfare of American farmers and artisans, it would be difficult to touch every point on which observation is desirable, without extending this article to an unacceptable length. Instead of answering it in detail, therefore, I shall endeavor to grapple with its principles, and show wherein they are at variance with the true interests of the country.

The writer wholly misstates, and, probably, misconceives the principles and views of the advocates of the protective policy. To prevent a recurrence of this misapprehension, let me briefly set forth the grounds on which we stand.

I. We who advocate protection maintain, that many a branch of industry for which the country is admirably adapted, may yet, in its infancy, and in the absence of information or experience with regard to it, and of proper implements and facilities for its prosecution, afford an inadequate reward of itself to those who engage in it, exposed to an unequal competition with the long-established, vastly productive, and prosperous rival interests of older countries. We hold that, in such cases, the government may often confer a vast benefit on the whole nation by extending to the struggling infant its fostering, protecting aid, by means of a discriminating duty on the importation of the foreign article. We insist that, though in such case the cost to the domestic consumer may for a short time be enhanced, yet it will very soon be reduced below the price at which it had

hitherto been afforded, and thus a positive saving, even in the narrowest view of the question, be effected.

Need I illustrate this general proposition? Who, that understands the origin of the silk culture of France-long since the discovery of America— and its growth under the fostering influence of high protecting duties, until it now needs them no longer, can ask for demonstration? Nay, the origin of the cotton culture in this country is substantially, and that of the cotton manufacture is directly, in point. Each was unprofitable at the outset, and only sustained by duties on the foreign competitor, or the still more stringent protection of embargoes and war. Yet, now both culture and manufacture may safely defy the world to compete with them on perfectly equal terms-taking into account the relative cost of labor in this and other countries.

Is the applicability of this principle exhausted? By no means. I firmly believe it might as well be applied to the culture and manufacture of silk now as to those of cotton forty years ago, and that a discriminating duty on imported silk, sufficient to induce our people to embark with energy in the home production, would diminish the actual cost of the silks worn in this country, even within ten years. Do not recorded facts justify this expectation? But

II. We contend that the high, invidious protecting duties of the nations with which we principally trade, and of nearly all the countries of the civilized world, absolutely constrain us to take care of our own producing interests. We assert that, waiving the question of the policy of protecting duties per se, in the actual condition of things, and in view of the legisla tion and policy of other nations, we must stand by our own producers, or permit them to be trampled under the ruthless feet of British and French interests.

Let us illustrate this point. We now take some thirty millions' worth per annum of the silks, wines, and spirits of France, at very low rates of duty. She takes in return our cotton at a low rate, because she must do so or ruin her manufacturers by exposing them to a disadvantageous competition with those of other nations; but nearly all our staples are taxed exorbitantly on entering her ports; tobacco about a thousand per cent, and most other American products so high as to form a virtual prohibition. The effect of this need not be stated.

So in our intercourse with Great Britain. That country is kind enough to send us ship-loads of treatises and reports, showing the incomparable excellence and policy of free trade; but she taxes our productions an average of fifty per cent on their cost, while we tax hers twenty. The inevitable consequence is a continual and increasing indebtedness on our part, and a haughty commercial ascendancy on hers. Our merchants and banks often stand at her mercy; a turn of the screw in the Bank of England bowls them all down in a trice, and fills the whole land with disaster. The price which our great staples shall bear, and the extent to which our internal improvements shall be prosecuted, are kindly settled for us in London. Now, I am well aware that other influences enter into and modify this state of things; but the fundamental evil consists in our buying more of our stepmother than we sell to her, under the operation of her higher rates of duty.

A recent writer on India, who had no reference to the question I am now discussing, corroborates these statements entirely. He is consider

ing the poverty, misery, and decline of India, and tracing their causes. The primary and greatest he unhesitatingly declares to be the discriminating duties of England, by which country her trade is mainly monopolized. He says that the average impost on British goods sold in India is about five per cent; on the productions of India exported to England, nearly or quite one hundred per cent. Under the operation of this monstrous inequality, India is drained of her specie, and impoverished day by day. No country, he bluntly, but with obvious truth, observes, could withstand the ruinous influences of such a disparity. But the simple man had no knowledge of our American "free trade" theorists. They would have told him, that poor, depressed India had only to receive the products of other nations free of duty, and let her own products take care of themselves, and all would go on swimmingly with her. Alas! that logic could not feed the hungry and clothe the naked!-what an excellent thing it would be!

I will try to bring this matter home to the understanding of my opponent, if the self-complacency with which he retails the dicta of Mr. Condy Raguet will permit him to believe that a protectionist can reason. I will take the case of two islands, which, isolated from the rest of the world, have been accustomed to trade largely with each other. One of them produces grain in great abundance; the other has a soil primarily adapted to grazing, and its surplus products are cattle and butter. But the former, for reasons of its own, imposes a duty of fifty per cent on all imports, and now cattle can be reared on her soil much cheaper than they can be imported. She takes no more from abroad. But the cattle-raising isle, unheeding the change in her neighbor's policy, or profoundly enamored of that system of political economy which assumes the designation, "free trade," still buys her grain where she can buy cheapest-that is, abroad. What will be the necessary result? Who does not see that all the specie and other movables of the "free trade" settlement, will be drained away to pay the constantly increasing balance of trade in favor of its "protecting" rival?

"Well," says 'Free Trade,' "this will regulate itself in the end." Yes, truly! when the whole generation of traders and purchasers in the devoted island shall have been swept down by a disastrous revulsion, and two thirds of their property has gone to pay a part of their debts in the "protecting" isle, and the other third to satisfy law expenses, probably prices will have fallen so low here that any thing is produced cheaper than it can be imported. For a time, therefore, she does not run in debt, and her condition appears more tolerable than it has been. But this is merely the effect of an unnatural and temporary depression of prices; they will rise on the first appearance of prosperity, and the whole tragedy be enacted over again. (See the history of the United States, passim.)

Allow me one more illustration, to bring the matter more directly home to commercial readers. I will take the case of navigation. We of this country are willing to admit the ships of all nations to our ports on terms of perfect equality with our own. Very good. But all nations are not willing to reciprocate. Many impose a heavy discriminating tax on the foreign to favor their own vessels. Now, let us suppose that Great Britain were to tax all goods, imported in foreign vessels, five per cent. more than when imported in her own ships, while we made no distinction. Does not every merchant know that our vessels would be driven wholly out

of the carrying-trade between the two countries-that it would be entirely monopolized by our rival? What, then, is to be done? "Countervail the exaction," says Protection, "and your rival will soon be glad to meet you on a footing of perfect equality." But what says Free Trade? She stands with her fingers in her mouth, mumbling over her eternal commonplaces, her specious flimsinesses, about "the laws of trade," "regulating itself," and capital and industry seeking, if uncontrolled, the most profitable employment. Yes, most sapient maxim-vender! but why will you not see that the proper channel has been dammed by the policy of a rival nation, and that her interests must be touched before she will free it? Your schoolboy flippancies do not reach the practical question, or reach it to make against you. Preach "free trade" to Great Britain to eternity, and she will give you back precept for precept, and all the time consult her own interests in defiance of the whole of them. Counteraction is the only argument that will reach her practical course; and that is the method we have tried by unanimous consent in regard to navigation. We have tried it, too, with entire success. The principle and the act cover the whole ground of protection.

III. Protection contends, that the simple facts, that an article, if produced in this country, is sold at a certain price, while its foreign counterpart is sold at a lower price, do not by any means prove that the imported is, in truth and essence, the cheaper. I have plainly illustrated this proposition in a former number of the Magazine; and, as it is one of the strong points of the case, I marvel that my opponent does not deem it worthy at least a notice. He never alludes to it, but constantly takes it for granted that, if a certain broadcloth, of our own manufacture, costs five dollars a yard, while an equally good British article can be purchased for four dollars, it is demonstrated that the foreign is one fourth cheaper than the domestic article. Now, so far is this from being a self-evident truth, that we of the protective school question its general soundness, while in many instances we assume to know that it is contradicted by facts. And, for a first illustration, I will repeat in substance one before used, which my opponent has kept clear of.

The town of Londonderry, New Hampshire, is strictly agricultural, and in 1820 used broadcloths of British manufacture. It now uses mainly the manufactures of the neighboring town of Lowell, which has since sprung up under the auspices of the protective system. I believe thesc cloths are even nominally as cheap as they were in 1820, or would be now, if we had no tariff, and no domestic manufacture; but no matter: I will assume that she then bought 1,000 yards of the British article at $4, and now buys a similar amount at $5. Here, says "Free Trade," is a clear loss of $1000 every year to Londonderry from the protective system. Stop, Theory, and let Fact say a word. The comparative account is truly given as follows:

Here the town has paid twenty-five per cent more nominally than she would have done in the absence of a tariff, while she has really obtained her cloths seventy per cent cheaper than "free trade" would have afforded them. Protection has created a market for her productions in her neighborhood, rendering many of them twice as valuable as they before were, or otherwise would have been. I have endeavored to state the prices in each case fairly, according to my knowledge and recollection. But no error in the items can affect the principle, that a community may buy its goods at a nominally lower price, yet really pay a great deal more for them than under a different policy. I beg "Free Trade" to consider this aspect of the general question. The wheat-growers of Genesee, and the lumbermen of Champlain, have understood it well these many years: they know that the country must so shape its policy as to provide a ready and steady market for its surplus products: the question is not, with them, how many dollars will buy a given amount of cloth-but, how much lumber or flour will procure such amount; and, having solved that question, they stand up for protection with their whole souls. Yet, here are political economists who do not deem it necessary to ask any question beyond-" Can the desired goods be purchased with the fewest dollars of Birmingham or Lowell?"-and having answered that in favor of Birmingham, they decide that we should buy our cloths of her,--passing over the collateral problem of "How, and in what, shall we pay?" as of no moment whatever. Is not the oversight deplorable?

I press the question home on "Free Trade," and I ask him to answer categorically "Are we to do nothing in counteraction of foreign policy inimical to our interests?" Suppose all the nations of the earth should impose prohibitory duties on our productions, shall we still receive theirs on the most favorable terms? And does not this policy provoke imposition? I abhor war, and would avoid it whenever possible but if England invade us, shall we not repel her? If she confiscate and burn our ships,