The Perrysburg journal. [volume] (Perrysburg, Ohio) 1853-1861, 1855-01-27
348
gree Trade versus Protection.

10 do win the commercial TeVulSlOn IOilOW-
ing upon this cause, than the passage of the
Kanzas and Nebraska bill. These crises in
commerce depend it says " altogether upon
miscalculation, resulting from unforeseen
changes in the financial and productive con-
dition of the trading and agricultural world,
with which we are indissolubly connected
by the bonds of commerce" Such being the
case may we beg it to explain whyit is that
commercial revulsions al11ayS follow in the
wake Of free trade, and rGUGr in that of pro-
lection? Up to that time the country had
never experienced a revulsion so serious as
that which occurred in the six years that in
tervened between the protective tariff ofl8l8I
and 1924. Serious, however, as was that
one, it was exceeded in its severity by the
revulsion of l84l-2. Being now at the out
set of another, the severity of which has, we
fear. yet to be experienced-and this, after
eight years Of free trade-we may, as it
seems to us, consider commercial revulsions,
by the help of which the poor are made
poorer and the rich enriched, one of the
regular forms of free trade with those
countries with which, as we are told, we are
indissolubly connected by the bonds of
commerce." Will the Union be so kind as
to give us any reasons for believing that
such must not be the case?
Again. From the time when the tariff of
1924 became operative and turned the tide of
commerce so as to enable us to increase our
stock of the precious metals, there were in
the long period of ten years, no rcvulsions
except the temporary one produced in 1882
by the removal Of the deposits from the
United States bank. During that long period
we went on steadily paying off our debts in
Europe, and increasing our stock of the
precious metals-and thereby securing our
selves against the possibility of future re-
vulsons And yet no sooner had free trade
exhausted the stock In trade that protection
had secured, than we found ourselves in.
volved in difficulty,-our banks suspended,
our government reduced to borrow money,
and our people forced to beg their bread be-
cause of inability to sell their labor. WIN
the Union tell us if this was not so?
Further from 1912 to l847 we had no.
revlsons. Every thing went ON smoothly,
and money became from day to day more
abundant, as labor became from day to day
more in demand, and as the power Of pro-
duction increased. Severe as was the Eng
lish revulson of 1867, we were wholly
. untouched by it, because for the five years
that had then elapsed, the policy of the coun-
try had looked to diminishing instead of in
creasing, our dependence on foreigners-to
making market at home for food and cot
tOu-to HO' ihS''oohh6o, OuA iOi
eign debt-and to strengthening, instead of
weakening, the nation. When the Union
shall be enabled to find in our history a
period when protection has given US COM
mercial revulsions, with their attendant
panics and boarding of money-or period
of free trade that has not SO resulted--itI
will. we think. be time for it to repeat the
assertion contained in the above extract, but
not until then
The difficulty under which we now labor
is, that our markets are flooded with foreign
manufactures, while our own people are idle,
the necessary consequence of which is, that
the balance of trade is steadily against us.
requiring a constant export of specie to pay
the diffprence-and that, too, in spite of the
fact that we have for years past bern build
ing up foreign debt. now requiring for the
payment Of its interest alone, not less than
twenty millions of dollars year. This
matter of interest is steadily kept out Of
sight by the Secretary of the Treasury. by
the President and by the free trade journals,
and yet it constitutes the first claim upon
our exports-snd is so much TO be added to
the balance that exhibits itself on the face
of the treasury statements. The value of
imports, exclusive Of specie, in the year
1923, was two hundred and sixty-four
oiIlionQ hat of tho eynOrtc alco ,