disadvantages.

In all cases industry has been forced

into an artificial channel; but the result has been solid and prodigious prosperity.'

"BUY IN THE CHEAPEST MARKET."

A tariff stands in the way of this, we are told, and is therefore, at best, only a necessary evil to be got out of the way as soon as possible. A witty Irishman in this country was telling how cheap goods were in his old home, and how much he could buy there for a sixpence. "Why did you come here then ?" he was asked. "And shure, where could I get the sixpence at home ?" was his quick reply. He burst the bubble of cheapest market." Free trade fails to put the sixpences into people's pockets.

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THE PURCHASE OF FOREIGN ARTICLES, IF CHEAPER THAN THOSE AT HOME, SO MUCH CLEAR GAIN.”

Adam Smith, the apostle of free trade, says:

"The capital employed in purchasing in one part of a country in order to sell in another part, the produce of the industry of that country, generally replaces by such operation two distinct capitals that had both been employed in its agriculture or manufactures, and thus enables them to continue that employment.

“The capital used in buying foreign goods for domestic consumption, when the purchase is made by the produce of domestic industry, replaces also two distinct capitals, but one of them only supports domestic industry; the other supports foreign industry, and therefore foreign trade will give but one-half the encouragement to the industry or protective labor of a country that domestic or internal trade does."

We must bear in mind that a nation, whether it buy abroad or produce at home, can have no more than it produces. The development of its home producing

power is therefore the only true test of its prosperity, and-Adam Smith being our witness-the importation of articles we can and do make or produce lessens that development one-half.

If we can make a roll of cloth, for instance, for $50, and buy it in England for $45, the buyer may gain five dollars, but the nation will really lose $50 which it might use at home, and England will gain that much, and the buyer of the cloth will soon find his ability to purchase decrease, and so will lose in the long run.

We must also bear in mind that there is no discrete degree, no clear line of separation, between producer and consumer. Every producer consumes, every maker is also a buyer; and every consumer produces, or lives on the income of producers. They stand or fall together.

Interdependent, their interest is one.

"THE BALANCE OF TRADE' THEORY FALLACIOUS—AN EXCESS OF IMPORTS OVER EXPORTS PROOF OF

GROWTH IN WEALTH."

A statement like this, for instance, will illustrate the free trade method of showing the fallacy of our export and import reports: A cargo of wheat goes out from. New York to Liverpool valued at $50,000, and that makes so much in our official statement of exports; but the American owner sells it in England for $60,000, and gains $10,000, which is added wealth to this country, but makes no official show in Government reports. Or he may invest all his $60,000 in woolens to be imported, and that sum increases our report of total imports, showing in the transaction an excess of $10,000 on the import side, but really representing no added debt abroad. but profit on exports instead. Doubtless

such transactions sometimes occur and partially with this result, but the drawbacks are serious. A large part of our exports are bought here by foreigners or their agents, and the profits go to them. Had the supposed American cargo of wheat been exchanged for domestic woolens, all the gains would have remained at home; but in the supposed case, the foreign maker of woolens gets his profits there, and pays his costs of making, wages, &c., there. The goods imported into this country are heavily undervalued in many of our Custom House invoices, on which they pay duty, and really sold at much higher rates; and such undervaluation overbalances the occasional cases like that supposed above. British shipping gets $100,000,000 yearly freight on our exports, to their profit, and that immense profit of theirs to our loss-makes no show in our official statements. No protectionist would lay an embargo on international trade, but would recognize its use and necessity; but when we find a nation buying more than it sells for any considerable time—that is, with imports greater than exports—that nation is growing poor. The fact that such adverse "balance of trade" is always looked upon with alarm, and spoken of in financial circles with grave apprehension, tells the whole story.

CHAPTER IX.

PROTECTION AND THE FARMERS.

Many farmers are told, and honestly believe, that only the manufacturer has protective duties, while the farm products are open to free trade. The present tariff

laws impose the following direct protective duties on agricultural products: Rice cleaned, 2 cents per pound; wheat, 20 cents per bushel; wheat flour, 20 per cent.; Indian corn, 10 cents per bushel; oats, 10 cents per bushel; rye, 10 cents per bushel; barley, 10 cents per bushel; butter, 4 cents per pound; cheese, 4 cents per pound; potatoes, 15 cents per bushel; tobacco, unmanufactured, 35 cents per pound; sugar, from 1 to 3 cents per pound; live animals, 20 per cent.; those for breeding purposes are admitted free to benefit the farmers; beef and pork, 1 cent per pound; wool, from 2 to 10 and 12 cents per pound; and hay, $2.00 per ton. These duties, and others on lesser products, tend to keep out foreign competitors, especially on our northern borders, and leave our home market almost exclusively free for our own farmers.

From 1789 to 1842 an import duty of three cents per pound was placed on cotton, and only removed when utterly useless. It was needed for a time to encourage the growth of that great staple.

The last appeal of the Cobden Club-the Mongredien Western Farmer tract, sent over here by car-loads-is like all the rest from that quarter. Its real meaning

(which they do not give) is: Let England be the workshop of the Western world, and you our granary. You grow the food and raw material and let us work it up and send the product back to you at our own price, and so get the lion's share of the profits.

On the opening page of this tract we are told, "He (the Western farmer) is heavily taxed to support unprofitable manufactures in the Eastern States," and the charges are rung on Western farmer and Eastern manufacturer. The large manufactures of the West are ignored. The benefits of the home market are also cast into convenient darkness.

But the farmer is learning that mills and factories at his door are his natural allies. He learned it long ago in the East. Mr. Greeley tells a story that will illustrate this. "A farmer near Canaan, Connecticut, had always opposed protection as enriching the manufacturer at the expense of his own class. In 1842 he contracted for clearing 100 acres of his woodland at $10 per acre and what could be made from the wood. Before the job was finished the tariff of that year was passed, a furnace for making pig iron from charcoal was put up in his neighborhood, and its owners paid him $20 per acre for the wood on two hundred acres of like woodland. Here was a difference of $6,000 to him between iron made at home and imported (and a home market for all he raised, from cabbages to cattle, besides) The country

is thickly dotted with cases like this."

In 1858 the yearly profit of British cotton manufactures was estimated at $188,000,000, and the total value of our cotton crop at $184,000,000.

Every cotton mill in the South keeps a part of that profit at home, saves transportation, pays better prices