Mississippi Democrat. (Carrollton, Miss.) 1844-18??, 1844-12-11
FREE TRADE-WHAT IS 1T?


pend on its own merits, to rest on its own
resources, on the principle that every in
diyiduu can and does know better what
pursuit will be best for him than any legis-
ators 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 it man can make most by agricul-
ture, he will adopt that pursuit--so of all
othersi 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.
ceptions, and must vary with the pecuiari-
~ 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 necos.
sary resources.
The friends of protection, as it is call.
ed, say no. it is better to make other in
terests tributary to manulactures-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
unsuited our climate or our circumstances.
We had better exclude all intercourse with
foreign nations, establish home markets,
and, like the terrapin, live under or within
our own shell. They will deny this plain
Interpretation of the nature Of their sys.
TEN; but such IS its true character, as |
can readily show. What is protection
Mr.. Webster says it implies something and
somebody to be protected-and something
aud somebody to be projected against
that it is solely to protect American hand
labor. | go 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 ii has been
made TO protect under all the tariffs, for
30 years past, not only American labor,
whether of the hand or of the machine,
and by 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 materi-
ais, and labor to work them-and when
any article thus produced is disposed of, |
the division of the result or proceeds of it |
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 IS per cent, labor
can get but % per cent. DO not forget
Mr.. Webster's words, that it is hand labor
alone he pOuld protect by protection, and
against hand labor, the pauper hdnd.ldbor
Of Europe.
Now, ton of iron is made in Europe,
which, when taken to market there,
is worth $20l
Let us suppose that the capital
which bought the mine, the ma
chnery, the lime, and other fuel to
make it, were worth l6I
Aud that the labor was worth Al
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
poan manufacturer got his pauper labor for
nothing. If this indisputable fact be so
does not the duty of S25 per ton on iron,
under the tariff of 1912, not only protect
the labor of making iron to the full amount
of oil its 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 veracty pretend to say that duty
Of S25 per ton is necessary to protect the
sabor only, IN making iron in this country,
against the foreign pauper labor, when the
whole cost Of ton of iron is but S25!
But protection means something TO be
protected by, and something to be protect.
cd from.
Or, in other words, protection requires
sacrifices IN money, or its equivalent, from
the many for the benefit Of the few, from
all other classes to the manufacturing. III
matters not whether this tribute be paid
in lowering the price Of what they buy or
enhancing the price Of what they sell; i'll
is the same thing to the protected who re-