The Whig standard. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1843-1844, 1844-09-21
BENEFITS OF A PROTECTIVE TARIFF.

BENEFITS OF A PROTECTIVE TARIFF.
Hon. Andrew Stewart, of Pennsylvania, one of
the ablest and most practical men of The country
thus powerfully lin recent address to his con-
stituents) sums up the benefits Of protection to
Home Industry -
"lst. BY putting the country on its own ex-
haustless resources--susanng and diversifying
American labor--protecting our mechancs-en-
couraging and multiplying manuactures-in-
creasng the home markets for agriculture, and
developing our vast resources, agricultural, man
ufacturng and mineral
I'D BY increasing exports and diminishing
imports-sellng more and buying less-resoring
sound and uniform currency by the Importation
of millions of specie-destroyi monopoly by
stimulating ompetition-increasing the price by
increasing the demand for the farmers produce
and diminishing The price by increasing the guam
tlty of manufactured goods, thus enhancing The
price of every thing the farmer has TO SELL and
reducing the price Of the goods he has to pur-
chase, SO that the farmer, instead Of being op.
pressed, is, of all others, the most benefited by
the protective policy
"3d. The national wealth is further increased
by the protective policy, in the encouragement
and extension it gives to labor.saving machinery,
making one hand equal to forty-in bringing
wealth, capital and skill from abroad-in counter
vailing the prohibltory and injurious commercial
regulations of foreign Governments-and above
all, in sustaining the free and prosperous labor
ers Of the United States against an unreslralned
and runous competition with the degraded and
impoverished labor of Europe, to whose level,
without protection our labor must inevitably
come, in its moral well as political condition.
Let us imagine that British gold and Pokery
prevail, that the Tariff is repealed, and the S00,-
900 manufacturers, with million additional who
constitute their families, are thrown for lveli-
hood upon Agriculture, already producing more
than can be advantageously disposed Of? What
would the farmer do--hs home market gone
Virginia sends annually to Massachusetts alone,
100000 barrels of flour and 100000 bushels of
corn--(probably great deal more )-where will
she send her surplus breadstuffs when the man
ufacturers are broken up, and one-sded free
trade proclaimed !-(that is, we are to give Eng
land free trade but We suppose that no nan is
fool enough to imagine that she either can or
will repeal her Corn Laws, or dispense with the
enormous and indispensable revenue which she
derives from our tobacco, taxed 1000 or 1900 per
cent. upon prime cost) We ask these moon.
struck advocates of free trade--these men who
live in the clouds and feed upon theories, dsdan.
ing to survey the actual, practical world as it is,
what is Virginia, what are the farmers of The
United States to do, deprived of their home mar
ket what are they to do, when, besides being
deprived of their only safe constant, steady, sure,
and permanent market, three millions of people
more are added at once to the tiIers of the soil
That such incomprehensve folly should be
found is passing srange.-Richmond Wing.