so interwoven with British policy, and had borne such rich and valuable fruits, that it would be hard work to break it down if, indeed, it could be accomplished at all. His only hope of success lay in the probability of his being able to convince the British manufacturers themselves,who had derived special benefits from protection, that free trade furnished the only method by which their interests could be maintained and their establishments saved from destruction. He appealed to their interests, and, in order to strengthen the cause in which he was so earnestly enlisted, he made his appeal in such methods as he designed should also reach the cotton growers of the United States. The plan involved an alliance between the British manufacturers and the American producers of cotton, the central feature of which should be a common warfare upon American manufactures. The argument addressed to the first—that is, the British manufacturers — was this: that as the cheapness of their fabrics had been caused and could only be maintained by the depressed and pauper rate of wages paid to their laborers, therefore as free trade would keep wages down almost to the starvation point, they would be able, by means of it, to undersell all rival manufacturers, especially those of the United States, where wages were higher, and thus continue to monopolize the markets of the world. And to the producers of cotton in the United States, the special argument was addressed that it would be to their interest to buy their fabrics from British manufacturers on account of their low prices, and rely upon the British market for the sale

of their cotton;- in other words, that it was their duty to sell in the dearest and buy in the cheapest markets, no matter what other considerations were involved.

In one of his Parliamentary speeches Mr. Huskisson said:

"To bring this subject more particularly before the House, I will begin with our greatest manufacture, that of cotton. It will not be denied that, in this manufacture, we are superior to all other countries; and that, by the cheapness and quality of our goods, we undersell our competitors in all the markets of the world, which are open alike to us and to them. I do not except the markets of the East Indies (the first seat of the manufacture), of which it may be said to be the staple, where the raw material is grown, and where labor is cheaper than in any other country, and from which England and Europe were, for a long time, supplied with cotton goods. Now, however, large quantities of British cottons are sold in India at prices lower than can be produced by the native manufacturers. If any possible doubt could remain, that this manufacture has nothing to apprehend from competition anywhere, and, least of all, from a competition in our own home market, it must vanish when I state to the committee," etc.

There is no special reference here to the United States, but it is evident that Mr. Huskisson intended to include every country from which competition could possibly come. His controlling idea was that, as against it, from any part of the world, Great Britain was prepared, by reason of the cheapness of her cotton goods, for which she was indebted to the low rates of wages paid by her manufacturers. Therefore he intended that his argument should reach the cotton-growers of the United States, because he supposed they would permit their interests to be appealed to by the low prices of cotton goods. And in this-unfortunately for the cotton-growers themselves - he was not mistaken.

It so turned out, in a short time, that the arguments of the free-trade party in England and the opponents of protection in the United States, were substantially the same

that, in fact, the former dictated the opinion of the lat ter almost entirely. They acted conjointly, in the United States and England, each furnishing aid to the other, in the effort to bring the people of this country to the point of acknowledging that all their past experience was misleading; that they had not understood their true interests; that Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and a host of other eminent statesmen, were mere political empirics, who did not comprehend the true character of the Constitution, or the structure of the Government, or the necessities of the public welfare; and that the only true friends of this country were those who desired to destroy the measures which had produced prosperity, and substitute for them such as British interests and cupidity should prescribe.

Those familiar with the free-trade arguments employed in this country will, by comparing them with such as have been used in England, have no difficulty in detecting their resemblance—which has frequently amounted almost to identity of thought and language. Only a single example of this bearing upon the point we are now considering -is practicable. An article was inserted in the Encyclopedia Britannica-a standard work of national character --which was intended as responsive to our protective legislation, more particularly that embodied in our tariff law of 1824. It appeared soon after Mr. Monroe's recommen