New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1850-12-11

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the interests of trade, and especially OF
trade with foreign and distant regions. We
di.irust exceedingly the source from which
this cry for commercial liberty has issued
And we are assured that true freedom of e1-
changes in which, as an ultimate thing, we
most fully believe in, as indeed We believe in
freedom Of every sort, IS not to be reached
on the road travelled by these spectators,
whether Of the one class or the other.
True freedom does not consist in the
more absence Of legal restrictions any more
than health consists in the absence Of pain.
Such restrictions may be hurtful or they
may be beneficial That depends on the
circumstances Of the case. When they
tend TO tho ultimate establishment of COM
plcte liberty they arc good; when other
wise, bad.
Now what arc the necessary conditions
Of genuine Free Trade They are many,
such as a right organization Of labor, q cir
culating medium everywhere Of equal val
ne, and an adequate development of the
natural resources Of the country. Without
each and all of these, commercial liberty
cannot really exist, We DO not, however,
now propose TO consider them all, but to
say brief word on the last only.
That is not freedom, but slavery Of COM
merce, when we are compelled, no matter
by what inducements, to 20 TO England for
our Iron, having abundant stores of the
best sort of that metal lying within the
bosom of or own hills, or when We are
compelled to send our grain across the
ocean to buy Broadcloth or Cutlery IN
stead of having it consumed and those
articles produced at home. For The die
tate and demand Of nature is that we
should improve the gifts she puts into
our hands. She has assigned different pro-
duets to different regions and climates, and
those are the proper objects of distant
trade; but it IS absurd and ruinous to go
to distance for articles whose raw mate
rial exists in profusion all around US, and
for the manufacture of which we have
every natural facility. And yet we are
told that an arrangement whose sole virtue
is that it compels the performance of this
very absurdity is commercial liberty
The question then arises as to the best
mode of developing our own resources and
bringing our industry into astate of maturity
in every sphere not forbidden by nature.
An ingenious advocate of the Utopian the
DRY has proposed system of rewards, to
be paid by the Government to those who
shall introduce new branches of labor or
raise to the necessary perfection those al
ready introduced among US. This seems
altogether more clumsy and Inefficient
than the system of Protective Duties.
The use of that we know by experience;
it is sufficient for the purpose, as has been
demonstrated again and again.
Nothing con be more delusive than the
Frce-Tradc mode ofreasoning from England
to this country. There the abolition of com
mercial restrictions was good thing. The
industry of the country had attained
complete development in every branch and
the reason for Protection was gone by.
But even there the great merit of Free
Trade is altogether foreign to commerce.
and belongs to entirely another sphere of
affairs. Free Trade is good for England,
because it is revolutionary, and attacks the
land monopoly and aristocracy of that
Kingdom with irresistible force. They
ought to be attacked and destroycd Free
Trade has done the one and will do the
other; therefore we rejoice in it and watch
the progress of its fatal action with I'M
speakable interest But this consideration
is without force in this country.
Protection is then to be supported not
as thing of eternal duration, but rs the
best means of guarding the industry of the
country, while it is Lshll young and strug-
Cling against the effects of foreign compe-
tition which would strangle it. 1t is the
first duty of the country to develop its
own resources and thus ensure freedom to
the home trade. Until that is accomplished
commercial liberty must remain a Utopia
no matter by what phrases we may please
to delude ourselves. c A. D.
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TEXAS AND GLoRY.-A correspondent
from Pamela Co. Texas, writes US at some
length in reference to the claim on New
Mexico and the Ten Million Consolation