round London, cauliflowers are doubled in price.

Here we get into the vicious circle through which domestic life moves in the United States. Labour is dear because the labourer when he takes his money to market finds that a shilling will not buy more than eightpence, or in some transactions sixpence, will in Free Trade England. The articles that labour produces are dear because the labourer must have the difference made up to him in cash. It is like taking money out of one pocket and putting it in the other, reversing the unprofitable process and pursuing it indefinitely. The only class who make a clear gain are the manufacturers, and they grumble because they have to pay the higher wages created by the artificial restraint of Protection.

The great school of Free Trade in the United States is the Custom House at New York. If it were possible for the whole population of the States to pass through the institution in a single year, and to remain in the frame of mind in which they leave it, Protection would be hustled out of the country within twelve months. When a man comes to pay thirty-three per cent. duty on a supply of clothing or boots that he has brought from

VOL. I.

10

England, he begins to doubt the soundness of Protection.

Things are made badly and priced exorbitantly in America, because the manufacturer has the consumer in a corner. He must either buy his goods, go without, or import them from Europe, paying the heavy fine imposed at the Custom House. It is a bitter reflection on American manufactures, and a striking commentary on the working of a system of arbitrary restriction of competition, that whenever an American gets the chance, he adopts the last course. A fellow-passenger on the Britannic brought with him for a relative, a well-known senator and stout champion of Protection, six pairs of boots, for which he had paid the fancy price of £2 10s. a pair. To this was added a Customs impost of onethird; and yet the senator found it worth while to buy his boots in London, and, comfortably and stoutly shod, will in the coming Presidential campaign angrily denounce Free Traders and eloquently plead for the Protection of American manufactures.

Another passenger had made a pilgrimage to Coventry, ordered a bicycle, paid freight and Customs duty, and found the bargain better than anything he could do in the United States. The keeper of a gambling

house at Leadville, the same who boasted of his tiles imported from Mixton's, told me he had a pair of riding-breeches made in England. These lasted him fre years. Giving out fourteen months ago, he bought another pair of American manufacture, which were already worn out, and he was wondering how he could get a fresh supply from England. Advocates of Protection admit all this, but see in it only a fresh argument against Free Trade.

"If we abolish protection," they say, "our manufactories must shut up. They cannot compete with England. Our manufacturers would all go bankrupt, and we should be driven to rely entirely upon agriculture."

There are some Americans who take another view, and believe that if Free Trade were adopted, the cost of living would decrease, the demand for wages would have a corresponding fall, and the American manufacturer, no longer pampered, and having cheap labour at his command, would go in for making the best and cheapest article, and would succeed. But this class is in the minority, and the era of Free Trade in the United States is still afar off.

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house at Leadville, the same who boasted of his tiles imported from Minton's, told me he had a pair of riding-breeches made in England. These lasted him five years. Giving out fourteen months ago, he bought another pair of American manufacture, which were already worn out, and he was wondering how he could get a fresh supply from England. Advocates of Protection admit all this, but see in it only a fresh argument against Free Trade.

"If we abolish protection," they say, "our manufactories must shut up. They cannot compete with England. Our manufacturers would all go ban