a substitute for our former practice of protecting and cherishing our own industry, and depending on homemade goods for our use and consumption—thus keeping our money at home. We are advised, especially by those who are in the interests of England, to do away with those restrictions that hamper trade. England, having protected her industry until she fears no competition from us in what constitutes the great source of her wealth, opens her ports and invites us to free trade, which means, only, freedom to send our produce, when she cannot buy it elsewhere, and take in return her iron, cloth, and other articles which issue from her great laboratory of wealth. She offers us a dangerous gift. "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," (I fear the Greeks when they approach us with gifts,) was the warning of Laocoon to the Trojans, when the Greeks proffered the gift of a wooden horse filled with armed men. His counsel was not listened to, but the sons of Troy, pleased and delighted with the gift, set themselves to work, and soon the fatal horse ascended the Trojan walls, though four times the clash of arms was heard to issue from its hollow sides; and so fraud accomplished what force had failed to do. We may find the gift of free trade somewhat like that of the Trojan horse. We have warning, if we will listen to it. The clash of arms comes to us from the hollow sides of free trade in the shape of twelve million dollars sent abroad for railroad iron, to make which would have employed thousands of our own people, built up forges, and developed the rich mines that lie scattered over the country; it comes to us in the shape of nine million dollars for cutlery, twentyfour million dollars for iron and steel, five million dollars for lead, and seventy-eight million dollars for dry goods. It comes to us from Rhode Island, where the last broadcloth mill has closed its doors; and from the city of New York, where the laboring classes are holding meetings, and calling for employment, which they cannot find, and the merchants looking out for every mail to bring accounts of protested notes and heavy failures. We are so closely connected and dependent on each other, that no great interest can suffer without dragging down others in its train, reminding us (to continue the figure) of those lofty palaces of ancient Troy, fired by the treacherous Greeks: "The Palace of DEIPHOBUS ascends, In smoky flames and catches on his friends. An efficient tariff would soon put a new face upon every interest and upon every business man, for there is hardly any interest that does not require it. Confidence would spring up to take the place of that distrust and apprehension of the future, which has hung like a leaden weight upon the country for the last five or six years, during all which time we have read over and over again the same old story of better times coming, but which have never come, and never will come until we go to the root of our difficulties, and adopt a policy that will place us on some footing of equality with our great commercial rival, who is crippling us and draining us of our resources; until we remedy that fatal mistake of 1846, when we checked the growth of our rising manufactures, while we have been pouring out our millions to sustain those of foreign nations. Having beaten John Bull in a fair fight in the field and on the sea, it would be a little remarkable if he should overreach us in a trade, and we find ourselves not quite so shrewd as we have the credit of being; if, by means of his agents at Washington, New York, or Boston, assisted by visionary theorists of our own, he should succeed in blinding our eyes with the false lights of free trade, so that we can no longer see the things that pertain to our true growth and national independence. The truth is, we could easily employ millions of laborers more than we have in developing the boundless and unequalled resources of the country, if we were wise enough to reject the fallacious theories of free trade, and return to what is called the exploded doctrine of protecting ourselves. FREE TRADE. 1855. IN a former article, I have taken, to illustrate the operation of free trade, the case of the farmer who sent abroad his wool and took broadcloth in pay for it. There are many ways in which the same thing may be shown. Take for instance the case of a shoemaker and a hatter, and suppose the duty on foreign shoes and hats to be thirty per cent., making, with freight and charges, fifty per cent. protection on those articles. The hatter pays his neighbor six dollars for a pair of boots instead of four dollars, but he sells to the shoemaker a hat for six dollars, instead of four dollars. Each pays the other fifty per cent. more than the cost abroad, but neither of them could buy the foreign article at the less price, having nothing to pay for it with. They can pay each other, and what the one pays more for a hat in consequence of the tariff, the other pays more for the shoes. Both parties are gainers of course, because they have employment, create wealth, build up their neighborhood, educate their children, and support the minister. Suppose, however, we have no tariff, and the foreigner sends over his hats and his shoes at four dollars a pair. The shoemaker and hatter can no longer work at their trade, and cannot of course buy the foreign hats or shoes, however cheap. What then can they do? Turn farmers. Very well. Suppose we all turn farmers, who will buy our produce? The foreigner will not take it in exchange for his shoes or hats, except our cotton which he cannot do without, and some of our grain at a price that must compete with the almost pauper labor of the Provinces on the Black Sea, or the Baltic. Of the great variety of the farmers' produce the foreigner will hardly take two or three articles, and who is to buy the rest, since all other mechanical pursuits have shared the fate of the hatter and shoemaker, and of course are no longer consumers to the farmer, but producers themselves? It is said, however, that a man who makes neither hats nor shoes loses by the tariff, because he could buy cheaper abroad. But who is he that could buy cheaper abroad? Is it the minister or schoolmaster, who rely on the hatter and the shoemaker for their salary, or the mechanic who is building them a house, or the storekeeper who sells to them, or the workmen they employ? How are all these going to buy abroad, if the very act that gives them the opportunity |