Cincinnati daily press. [volume] (Cincinnati [Ohio]) 1860-1862, 1861-11-01
Free Trade In Theory and Practice.

There is a common belief among old
seamen that EPSON salts" is your true cure
all. You disorder your stomach, and Jack
advises salts you sprain your ankle, and
Jack urges salts; you break your head and
as you lie groaning Jack approaches tenderly,
and in voice like young thunder. storm
suggests salts. From a mild pain of a cat
finger to the wild agony of Asistc cholera,
the inevitable salts are ready, and in either
case an old tar swallows down the nauseous
dose with equal willingness and faith.
Now what the salts of EPSON are to an
old sailor the Commercial Convention is to
the South. 1t is an institution as peculiar,
though far more harmless, than that other
which every body is now getting tired Of
For the last twenty years, no matter what
grievance was to be redressed, what i'm
provement made, what disease cured or pre-
vented in the South, the one patent medicine
in which every Southern statesman, from
John @. Calhoun to John B Floyd, has had
undOubtiDg faith, is the Commercial Conven-
ton. When the Charleston Convention
broke up in row, the conspirators i'm
mediately adjourned to a Commercial Con-
ventiou. When the Montgomery Congress
adjourned, it Yves to give its members time to
take a dose of Commercial Convention. And
no sooner do the affairs of Davis & Co. be-
gin to look gloomy than we hear-ss might
be expected-of q Southern Commercial
Convention"
The cry at all these Conventions is for free
trade. We exposed long ago the falacy with
| which the conspirators imposed upon credu-
| lous John Bull, on whom the words Stree
trade" operates like scarlet rag on one OF
his own Durbams. He runs at it with his
head down. When these Southern gentle
men" cry out for liberty, they mean liberty
to hold others in slavery; and when they say
free trade, they only mean that their wares
shall go free, while every body else's are
made TO pay double This little weakness is
| ingeniously shown in the scanty reports
which have reached US Of the proceedings at
the recent Macon Commercial Convention
The cry was unanimous for free trade, and
yet, in one day, the Convention suggested nc
less than three measures directly violating
that very commercial liberty which they
| pretend so to worship.
They recommend the Confederate Congress
to pass law levyiDg discriminating duty
of tweDty per cent against all goods i'm
ported into the Confederacy ''for Northern
account-thus asking Davis & Company II
interfere between buyer and seller in tn
most arbitrary manner.
Next, they ask that 'all cotton produc
bills be made payable in Europe" thus at
tempting to effect a violent change in th
current Of trade, which sets inevitably towar,
New York.
And lastly, they urge the imposition of
tax of twenty per cent. upon bills of exchang
pay able and of ten per cent. on debts due il
the United States.
These men have very crude ideas of tn
nature of commences; but they comprehen
thoroughly how violent must be the measure
which shall divert the current trade with tn
South, from its natural course. They est
mate that this can not be effected with a les
tax than forty per cent. against the markt
which they thus acknowledge to be th
cheapest They tell the Southern merchan
in fact: "We know you can buy cheaper 6
the North; we have reckoned, and find tbs
Northern goods are forty per cent. the cheaE
est; therefore we impose upon you the pay
ment of twenty per cent. import duties, an
a tax of twenty per cent. on the debts 20
owe in New York. This, we trust, will il
duce you to go to dearer market"
This according to Southern statesmen,
free trade-N. Y. Evening Post, Oct. 20.