New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-06-12

manner in which our farmers profit by the lat
ter OF cur manufacturers suffer under the former.
II is really quite time, as we think, that gen.
tlemen who undertake to teach political econo-
my-and who hold in such contempt all who diff
fer with them in relation to British Free trade
should begin to manifest their own confidence
in the truth of their doctrines by placing be-
fore their readers all the facts, and thus ena-
bling them to Judge Of the correctness of their
own infereuces. That, however, they never do,
il being their rule to pick out just such as suit
their purpose while rejecting all that do not
TO present one side or the other of any question
as happens to answer at the moment-and never
70 open their columns to discussion on the other
side. To maintain Free trade, as they call II,
in cloth, cotton and iron. they find it indispen-
sable to prevent the existence of anything ap-
preaching to freedom in the commerce of ideas.
Had our contemporary had any strong de-
sire that his readers should understand the qaes-
ton in regard to which be undertook to enlghten
them, lie would we think have laid before them
the manner in which the Protective system
operated upon both our farmers and our manu-
facturers, and then would have done the same by
the British system, thus he would have enabled
them to compare the advantage or disadvantage
which the nation at large derives from both.
That however, would certainly not have suited
his purpose, and therefore be has selected such
portions of our community as might perhaps, in
their ignorance of the true facts OF the case, be
led TO feel themselves aggrieved, and has pre-
scented to one the advantages of Free trade and
to the other the disadvantages of Protection,
throwing altogether out of view the question of
the advantage to the farmer derived from the
Russian system, and the loss to the manufacturer
from the British one, and thus making politico-
economical whole about as complete Us the mu-
steal one that might result from the combination
of alternate verses of God Save the Queen and
Yankee Doodle.
There is as we think, better way of treating
such subjects. This is to be found in examining
question in all its lights and thus enabling
the reader of a journal to form opinions for
himself If it is really true that our farmers
profit by the system that Britain has established
and is labOriDg to extend, then the more per-
fectly the facts are placed before the world the
more will its farmers be satisfied that both prin-
ciple and interest should lead them to the advo-
cacy of British Free trade. Truth can lose
nothing by the most thorough discussion, but
falseho0d may; and to the knowledge that the
latter is the case is probably due the fact that
our Free traders present invariably but half the
facts, and even these generally mistated, and
Al N. ! bo1 oil N
saying this, we have no desire to charge upon
The Era any intention to deceive its readers in
the manner usually practced by The Journal Of
Commerce; however complete may be the de-
ception produced by its mode of operation. On
the contrary, we hope to see him prove by his
present action that he is an honest seeker after
truth.
The object of Great Britain in repeating the
Corn Laws was to cheaper food. What our farm
ers had to desire was that food might be cheap;
and if Britain succeeded in accomplishing her
object they were quite unlikely to profit by her
action. But it will be said ii gave them mar
ket they had before not enjoyed. On the con-
trary, il deprived them of market of which
they before had had possession, and thus greatly
injured them. The market of England was
worthless when that country had large crops,
but it was valuable when crops were short; and
when that proved to be the case they possessed
Advantages for supplying it such as uere enjoyed By
no other people in the irorld. They had fast ships,
canals, railroads, and their own consumption
was so large that the slightest economy at home
enabled them to meet large demand abroad.
AS a consequence Of this, they profted largely
by the sliding scale which forbade that the
people of Poland and Russia should lay them
selves out for the supply of the market of En-
gland. If the system of the latter tended to en-
hance the price of food, they ,cers The only foreign
people possessing the to enable them TO profit
tyh
The repeal of the Corn Laws deprived them
Of this advantage; and such was in part its OBJ
ject. If Russia, Poland Egypt and other coun-
tries could be induced to grow grain regularly
for England, the effect would, as the people of
that country were assured, be to establish
uniformly low price for food of all descriptions
and this was precisely what our farmers did not
desire under any system. The market of En-
gland must, as We have always said, be valueless
when her own crops are large, but the effect of
the new scheme must be to render it value
less when the crop of any part of Europe was
large-and such precisely has been the result
The average price of -four in this City'in the
four years prior to the war-say 1850 to 1853,
both inclusive, as shown by table recently laid
before our readers, was less than five dollars
barrel, and in the two last of those years it was
but S4 6s; and this, notwithstanding the de-
mand that had arisen for the supply of Califor-