The Sun.
London, England, 1867-01-03 00:00:00

SPIRI r OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The Americans are gradually discovering

hat Free Trade cannot be sacrificed to Protection

without a loss in some shape or other more than pro-
portioned to the gain. At this moment they have
undertaken, and are, indeed, actually performing, a
gigantic feat of finance. They are liquidating an
enormous public debt by vast instalments out of a
surplus revenue greater than has ever been raised in
any other country. The taxation incidental to this
achievement they are enduring without any of the
impatience exhibited under such butdens in the
States of the QM World. They are paying more
taxes, we should imagine; than any people ever paid,
and paying them easily. For all this, however, they
do not escape without suffering. The incidence of
taxation has been so regulated—perhaps, under the
circumstances, unavoidably—as to involve high pro-
tective duties in almost every branch of manufacture
and trade ; but this system, though it is advocated
and strenuously defended by certain classes, is
steadily undermining the commercial position of the
nation. High duties make everything dear, and
most things bad. The actual wealth of the United
States in articles of raw material is incredibly great,

but the value of these resources has been so impaired
by a protective policy that the people are losing the
commercial advantages which would otherwise be
theirs. The Secretary of the Treasury, in his last
Report, has been at the pains of demonstrating the
fact in the hope of impressing upon Congress the
necessity of timely reform, and the instance which
he selects for illustration is exceedingly striking.
If there was any branch of manufacture or com-
merce in which the United States enjoyed natural
and apparently indestructible advantages, it was
that of shipbuilding. Americans took to navigation

as instinctively as Englishmen ; their foiesis and
mines gave them inexhaustib,e supplies of material,
and thir peculiar skill in design and workmanship
has been so recently exemplified in the Ocean Yacht
Race that we need not insist on the point any fur-
ther. There were, in fact, no better shipbuilders

or hardier navigators in the world, and, as a neces-
sary result, they had a building and carrying trade
inferior to none but our own, and competing hope-

fully with that. Now it is simple matter of fact
that half this trade has been already destroyed. The
Secretary gives the exact figures, and shows that
some 6,000,000 tons of American shipping have
fallen during the phst five years to little more than
3,000,000, while the foreign shipping by which the
trade has been appropriated counts for some
4,500,000 tons instead of 2,600,000. In other
words, business to this extent has left the United
States and been transferred by the irresistible law

------ --- -- -
of commerce to other countries—mainly to our own,
- • -

The explanation of the result is not far to seek.
Success in such matters is determined by cheapness,

and cheapness is determined by the prices of mate.
rial and labour combined with economical ingenuity
In America material used to be cheap and labour
dear, but the commercial ability of the people was
so great that they could well hold their own and
build ships successfully enough to compete with our
own shipmasters. The new tariff has destroyed all
this. The duties on raw materials are so heavy,
and labour at the same time so dear, that the
American shipbuilders can no longer compete with
foreign rivals. They are taxed upon their iron,
their steel, their wood, their coal, and their tools,
and such is the effect of these exorbitant imposts
that, though labour in this country has become
gradually dearer, and one of our advantages over
America has thus been impaired, we can easily un-
dersell the Americans. It is stated in a
New York paper, which we quote elsewhere,
that river steamers would be built in this
country and sent over to America for use at a less
cost than would be incurred by building them on
the spot. Of course, too, with the building trade
goes the carrying trade, for cheap ships make cheap
freight, and cheap freight secures custom. As a
practical result we are told that l
lice basettwAeemnerNwicean
steamers engaged on any great
York and Europe are now for sale, the commerce of
the ocean having passed into British hands. Such
is an outline of the argument advanced by the
Finance Minister of the United States in favour of
some modification of the present duties in the direc-
tion of free trade. It may be true enough that such
a revenue as is now raised in America could not
possibly be raised without an extravagant tariff, and
that, indeed, Mr. M.Culloch seems to admit when
he advises that a considerable portion of the pre-
sent revenue should he surrendered. But, besides
the vital injury to commerce which this protective
system involves, it is really found unmanageable in
itself. Protectionists are never satisfied with the
existing protection, and all the favour which pro-
ducers and manufacturers now enjoy in the
States is insufficient, as they declare, to keep them
going. Nor is it necessary to suspect them of in-
sincerity in these complaints. The truth is that
under such a system manufactured products dete-
riorate day by day, until foreign products can com-
pete with them even at any disadvantage, and so
heavier and heavier duties are constantly called for
to give " native industry" its stipulated benefit. At
this moment the woollen manufacturers of America
are demanding an additional protective tax of 20
per cent. on foreign imports, and that indulgence,
if conceded, would last only for a certain time.
The printing and publishing trade, it was said
in our latest correspondence, is in a similar or
worse condition. All the Christmas books exposed
for sale in New York this year were English. It is
cheaper to export a manuscript to this country and
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naturally this protection would presently be found
to fail them, for the system sooner or later defeats
its own end. It will not do for us, however, to
speak with too much confidence or self-congratula-
tion on a subject like this. Recent discussions in
these columns have shown that if what the Ame-
ricans once possessed has passed to us, what we now
possess may pass as easily and as quickly to some
other people. It is evidence, indeed, of the singular
advantages of Free-trade over Protection that we
should have been able to supersede the American
shipbuilders with our own industry in a condition of
such derangement. Shipbuilding has actually fallen
off in our great centres of enterprise. On the Clyde
there is a decrease of 78,416 tons in the construc-
tions of 1866 as composed with those of 1865. On
the Thames the stagnation of business has produced
great public suffering. The vast fleet of "iron
commercial steamers plying over every sea, built
so cheaply and ingeniously as to drive out all com-
petition," will not long be ours if masters and men
cannot understand themselves better. The Ame-
ricans envy us now ; we may be envying some
other people before long. There is no monopoly of
advantage in these matters. Success depends simply
upon quality and price, and it will belong infallibly
to those who can offer the best article for the least
money. It is of no use calling in the aid of Pro-
tection. The Americans are finding out the hope-
lessness of that expedient. They are laying extra-
vagant burdens on consumers, and yet they are not
satisfying producers, while in the meantime national
commerce and national prospects are perishing to-
gether. We are happily not entangled. in the em-
barrassments of a Protective system, but, if labour
and capital cannot come to better terms with each
other, we may soon find ourselves unable to main-
tain the position which at present gives us an abun-
dant revenue, while industry, as far as legislation
is concerned, is left absolutely free.
MORNING POST.—The winter has come upon us
suddenly, as it so often does, just when the length-
ening of the days is becoming agreeably perceptible.
Indeed, some of our severest winters have come in
the spring, or, at any rate, have continued into the
spring, even after the period of the vernal equinox,
when more than 12 hours' sun has been inadequate
to master and dissipate the frost and snow. The
secret of this apparent enigma is not, perhaps, very
difficult to penetrate. After the parlour fire is out
the warmth of the room continues late into the night
—but by the morning the atmosphere has got tho-
roughly changed, and it is not until long after the
fire has been burning brightly that it acquires a
genial heat. The like progress.on a vast scale goes
on throughout our hemisphere. The surface of the
earth and the aerial ocean resting upon it become
thoroughly warmed during the summer, and have
not, as a general rule, parted with the caloric thus
acquired until about mid-winter. By this time, how-
ever, our zone has thoroughly cooled down, and the
winter chill lasts far into the spring and summer.
There are exceptional seasons when the waves of
cold air from the North roll in at an unusually early
date, and we have severe frosts perhaps as soon as
October or November ; but, taking the average,
the hardest weather generally comes after Christmas,
and ushers in the New Year. In the ordinary course
of the seasons the heated atmosphere of our zone
tempers the aerial waves from the North which may
find their way here much before the shortest day,
as the water of the Gulf Stream tempers the rigour
of northern seas. The chief difference is, that
while the aerial currents bring large masses of
hyperborean atmosphere to the heate air of our
zone, the current of the Gulf Stream carries the
warmer waters of the South towards the polar seas,
where it raises the temperature and diminishes the
ice. The severity of the frost is much increased,
especially to the poor, by the suddenness with which
it has set in. There has been no time to get accus-
tomed to it. The rich have only to increase their
fires, to bring into requisition a greater number of
blankets and eider-down quilts, to put on additional
garments, and they can maintain their personal
temperature at an equilibrium. Under such favour-
able conditions the bracing air, the more rapid mus-
cular movement, and consequently the increased