products of their industry, and taxing foreign products which they cannot produce or compete with. Two tariff. schedules might be framed for a country, both aiming to raise the same sum for revenue, yet the one might be a benefit and the other a fearful injury. The how is more important than the how much, and a tariff for revenue: only is the danger and calamity to be avoided. A few years ago Professor Perry gave his " revenue tariff " scheme as follows:

"I would throw off at a stroke ninety per cent. of all the articles taxed in our present tariff. I would remit the duties on the rest to that point at which the most revenue would come in, with the least interference with the industries of the people."

By duties on fifteen or twenty articles he proposed to raise a revenue of $150,000,000 yearly, and said :

"Why, last year we realized on tea and coffee, sugar and molasses, wines and spirits, tobacco and snuff-four classified articles-$63,595,000."

To impose high duties on such articles as we do not and cannot produce or manufacture, and low duties, if any, on our iron, woolens, cotton, etc., is his scheme. and that of other free trade revenue reformers. It is the British scheme, and it is a fine device to take the tax from the products of British manufacturers imported into this country and levy it on the comforts and necessaries of the American farmer and workingman. It is a premium or discrimination in favor of foreign manufacturers and foreign pauper wages, and against our own. manufacturers and farmers and better paid workmen. For a time more revenue might be raised, but soon disaster and loss of revenue would follow. Frame the tariff with fit duties for protection and revenue on such articles as we can make or produce, and admit foreign

products-tea, coffee, etc.-which we cannot produce, free of duty, and the sure revenue is easily raised amidst permanent prosperity. The facts of our history verify this statement.

AD VALOREM DUTIES NOT BEST.

Sometimes such duties may be necessary, but usually specific rates are best-so much per yard or pound, etc.or most honest and not easily evaded. A late report of Mr. Martin, a special treasury agent, says:

"Since the passage of the act of June 22, 1874, commonly called the 'Anti-Moiety Act,' the undervaluation of all kinds of imported merchandise has steadily increased from year to year until at the present time its proportions are enormous. The reports from agents sent abroad to examine into the subject show that nearly all classes of goods paying ad valorem duties exported from various countries to the United States are undervalued. More particularly is this the case with goods consigned by the foreign manufacturers to their agents in this country. The practice of consigning goods has grown to such proportions that there has been absolutely no foreign market value for many articles imported, as there are no sales of such goods in the open market, the American merchants being compelled to purchase from the agent of the manufacturer to whom goods are consigned. Investigation has shown that upon the advice of the agent foreign manufacturers often invoice consigned goods far below the cost of production. It is estimated that less than 40 per cent. of the 60 per cent. ad valorem duty on silk is collected in consequence of the undervaluation of that article.

Velvets, plushes, laces, embroideries, edgings and like articles have been reported as systematically undervalued by the foreign manufacturers, many of whom openly admit that they invoice their goods to this country at lower values than they do to other countries."

Iron and steel are undervalued in like manner. The low rates at which these goods are invoiced do not bene

fit the American customer, for the consignee advances his price to their real value. The larger part of the importing in New York is done through these agents, almost always foreigners. An Englishman or a German will rent a small chamber on Broadway and sell goods by sample; he pays no taxes, is not a citizen, has no interest for us, and is a free trader of course. The regular importing merchant, who would do a more honorable business, suffers from the number of these agencies.

HOW LONG SHALL PROTECTIVE DUTIES LAST?

In England they lasted for centuries, and a strong feeling is growing there in opposition to the present free trade policy. In other European countries such duties exist to-day. Evidently we are not near their end in this new country. They are not evils to be put aside, or burthens to be cast off as soon as possible, but benefits to be maintained so long as necessary. Suppose all wars ended and all national debts paid (and this happy consummation is in the distance) the necessity for new industries, to meet the growing and complex wants of a civilization higher than we can imagine, would exist. Either by protective duties, or by some system inspired by the same idea, nations would still encourage their own producers.

This book is not an effort either to maintain or to change existing duties, but to uphold and illustrate the idea of protection as the inspiring soul of tariff legislation.

The aim is to put within reach of all a manual or compendium of an American policy of protection to home industry.

CHAPTER II.

WHAT IS PROTECTION? WHAT IS FREE TRADE?

Protection to home industry is a practical fact; it is the policy of almost every civilized nation, and is as firmly established among these nations to-day as ever. It is not a relic of barbarism, but an inspiring and guiding element in our highest industrial civilization.

Free trade is a theory, its practice unknown in any civilized land. Only savages are absolutely free traders, and they have no trade.

The idea of protection is that each government should encourage the industry and skill of its people, and the development of the natural resources of its territory, and that, to this end customs-duties on foreign imports should be so levied as to prevent the free importation of such articles as can be made, or produced, at home, and also to furnish needed government revenue. Duties thus levied, it is claimed, so encourage and protect home manufactures, and home labor and skill, that those manufactures grow solid, the workman gets varied employ, and the common good is advanced.

It is indeed difficult to find, in any country, great industries which have grown up under free trade.

PROTECTION NOT PROHIBITION OR A PANACEA,

Instead of building up a "Chinese wall," our national experience shows that a large and healthy foreign trade -both exports and imports-grows up with protective duties, which help to solid wealth at home as safe basis

for domestic and foreign commerce.

Our tariff regu

lates, but does not prevent, imports; it invigorates and fructifies our home domain steadily and constantly, while every approach to free trade gives us the deluge and then the dearth.

Protection is not a panacea, good against crop failures, bad business management or extravagance, but a powerful element in the conservation and development of national resources and of personal skill and power. There can be no inflexible standard of duties; rates good for one country may be too high or too low for another, and each nation must consider its rates of interest, and wages and revenue needs, and so shape its tariff as to give its people fair scope for competition with others.

Free trade is absolutely unrestricted international intercourse; free exports and imports without custom houses. It does not exist outside of savage lands. Great Britain, its professed apostle and propagandist, has, as will be shown, but a deceptive and fragmentary approach to this theory. It has been styled "A Science based on Assumptions," and its advocates abound in metaphysical theories, and in strange notions that truth can be got out of abstruse assertions unsustained by facts. Plainly enough, if political economy is to be of any value, we want the light of facts and experience as a guide to correct ideas. More historic truths and careful statements touching industry and trade-figures, dates, causes and results-can be found in a single volume of Henry C. Carey than in a score of standard free trade books. Rich in assertion and unsustained theory, but poor in facts, must be the verdict as to free trade writers.

M. Chevalier, an able French statesman, well said:

F