Independent Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1842-1844, 1844-11-20
FREE TRADE-WHAT is IT?

| ne ltleuuS OF Tree lrad6 cOntenQ tnat II
is best to let each and every interest de.
pend on lis own merits, TO rest en- its own
resources, on the principle that every in.
dividual can and does know better what
pursuit will be best for him than any legis-
lators can advise for him; and that if eve
ry man be left TO follow, unrestricted, the
pursuit most conducive to his own interest,
the sum total of the commonwealth will be
greater than by any other system; that
what Is thus true of individuals, is also
true of those various pursuits themselves;
that if a man can make most by agricu-
ture, he will adopt that pursuit--so of all
others; and that if manufacturers, or COM
merce, or law, or physic, or any other pur.
suit, becomes more profitable than the
Others, each will, in due time, attract their
various friends, by that surest and best of
all guarantees, the interest and profit they
afford. To this there is no exception, in
time of peace with other nations. A state
Of war may alter some interests, in some
countries. in some degree; these are ex-
ceptons, and must vary with the peculiari-
ty of each country, and the country or
countries with which it is waging war;
1t is not believed that any exception need
now be made in this widely extended coun-
try, so full as it is Of every kind of neces.
sary resources.
The friends of protection, as it is call.
ed, say no! it is better to make other in
terests tributary 10 manuiactures-or, in
other sense, they say it is better to protect
American labor. 1t is better to DO all our
own work, however unprepared for it, how
ever much more it may cost us, however
unsulted our climate or our circumstances.
We bad better exclude all intercourse with
foreign nations, establish home markets,
and, ike The terrapin, live under or within
orr own sholl. They viii. dumJ '!'i5 Pioiu
Interpretation Of the nature Of their sys-
TEN; but such Is its true character, as ]
can readily show. What is protection ?
Mr.. Webster says 1t implies something and
somebody to be protected-and something
and somebody to be protected against
that il is solely to protect American hand
labor. | 90 further, as he might and
would have done, had it suited his purpose
to do so, and say that protection implies
something 10 be protected by. somebody to
be protected from, and that it has been
made to protect, under oil the tariffs, for
80 years past not only American labor,
whether of the hand or OF the machine,
and by a system calculated to deprive US
ultimately Of all foreign markets, and
leave us the home market only.
And now to the proof: The production
whether at home or abroad, OF any and
every thing, requires the joint operation of
two things--capital to furnish the matcrl-
ais, and labor TO work them-and when
any article thus produced is disposed OF,
the division of the result or proceeds of 1t
belongs to these two subjects, which, in all
countries are generally opposed to each
other, though acting otherwise harmonious
ly. If capital take more, less is left for
labor. 1t capital take 70 per cent, labor
can get but % per cent. DO not forget
MIR. Webstor's words, that ii is hand-labor
alone he pould protect by protection, and
against hand-labor, the pGuPer hand'td6or
Of Europe.
Now, a ton of iron is made in Europe,
which, when taken to market there,
10 wor,b $50
Let US suppose that the capital
which bought the mine, the ma
chineIy, the lime, and other fuel to
make II, were worth 10
And that the labor was worth q
Is it not evident that, if you would pro-
teot the labor alone, that duty of 81 per
ton would be sufficient, even if the Euro
pean manufacturer got his pauper labor for
nothing. If this lndisputaDle fact be so.
does not the duty of $25 per ton on iron,
under the tariff of 1912, not only protect
the labor of making iron to the full amount
of oil lis cost, but protect the capital also
to the amount of twenty.one dollars per
toni
Nothing can be more plain; and the
same is true, not of iron only, but of every
other protected article. How can any
man of veracity pretend to say that duty
of S25 per ton is necessary 10 protect the
labor only, In making iron IN this country,
agaiDat the foreign pauper labor, when the
whole cost of ton of iron is but $25!
But protection means something to be
protected by, and something to be protect
ed from.
Or, in other words, protection requires
sacrifices in money. or its equivalent from
the many for the benefit OF the few, from
all oiher classes to the manufacturing. 1t
matters not whether this tribute be paid
in lowering the price of what they buy OF
enhancing the price of what they sell; II
is the same thing to the protected VINO rs'
ceiye and to the nonP1olcc;ed who paS