Litchfield enquirer., 1866-11-08
17l -7ll7.7I- Free Trade,


 One of the most remarkable features of Ameri-: can history is to be found in the fact that so many aborers sacrificing their truest interests in neg lecting to sustain the diversified manufactures of the country and in yielding to the stale cry of free trade" as that cry is made use of by demagogues. This cry being plausible on it's face they may practice deception upon all whom they can infuenence by the false representation that duties laid upon for eign goods enhance the cost of those goods to the consumer here. Nothing is more easily proved than the reverse of this by the facts of history Be fore we began to manufacture cotton goods, or were protected in their manufacture, the ordinary quality of British sheetings1 yard wide were sold in our markets quite uniformly at s7s cents per yard; under the first effects of protection our manu- lecturers gave us heavier and better goods at 20 cents per yard. Subsequently the same class of goods produced by improved machinery and with more skill, were sold us for many years before the war at from 6 to cents per yard. In the same manner the price of cut nails was reduced from 12 to 2 and cents per pound. Window glass 9, from s6 per box to s1 50 per box and other sizes in proportion. So it was with mutitudes of other ar ticles of necessity. 5
 Now, does any sane man doubt, that if our American manufactures were broken down, Foreign CTS would immediately take advantage of our ne- cessities and advance their prices to the highest point that our ability to pay, would bear? Under such state of things, hundreds of thousands of operators would be thrown back to the primitive occupation of cultivating the soil. A result which would be disastrous to the agricultural inter- ests of the nation for, you double the number of producers and diminish the number of consumers in the same proportion, where would be your pur- chasers? Some one says, export your surplus. Many, indeed, most foreign countries, very nearly supply their own demands, and those that do not, we could cover all over with our agricultural prod ucts in few years, if many of us were compelled to turn our attention 50 exclusively to agriculture.
 Does any man fail to see, therefore, that diversi fled labor promotes our truest interests? No one can doubt for moment about what would have been our condition during the gigantic rebellion, which we think we have suppressed, if our manu- factories had not been in existence, and we had been left to the mercy of the great manufacturing nations of Europe for our supplies of ordnance, arms and munitions of war. Those nations, too the very same who were so much delighted at the
 
 in short, that we shall crumble to decay, as na- tion, if we do not sustain our own diversified indus try, aud do consent to the adoption of the s free trade" doctrines so consistently urged upon us by England and so gbly mouthed by our own dem agogues, who, long since, took their cue from Southern politicians jealous of the prosperity of the North An objector says, we shall never come to this, our industries are too well established to per init this Perhaps they are, but the tendency of free trade doctrines is in that direction, and mil lions of British capital, and British manufactures have been thrown into our country, frequently, for tho purpose ofcrushing new projects of American I enterprise. And they have succeeded, too. The foregoing remarks made, however, only for the purpose of calling the attention of American labor CTS to more careful consideration of the policy which protects American industry The disastrous effects of neglectng this policy, may be referred to hereafter. Let one item of our indebtedness suffice for pres ent illustration. There were manufactured over one million tons of Pig Iron in the Northern States in 1864 to produce this, more than million tons of coal were mined, nearly three million tons of ore and tens of thousands of cords of wood cut and iudue lNtO cnaTcOal. w nat thousands or men were employed in preparing these raw materials, and what other thousands in converting these into the |slngle article of Pig Iron. What other thousands still have been occupied in converting these and foreign irons too, into Castings, Machinery, Bars, Steel, &c., may be imagined when we notice that nearly 1000 tons of rolled iron were turned out of our rolling mills, and more than GOO tons of Steel manufactured in the free states. It would be in- terestng, too to show how the manufacture of this Steel in our own country compelled the British mar kets to reduce their prices from an average of forty cents for the highest quahtes to twenty cents per fb. The same result was produced in some meas ore in regard to Iron. Where should we have been during the rebellion, without these facilities for producing our own supplies at home. And yet, there are multitudes of men among us, who still cry Free Trade" and who would sacrifice all there great interests to British cupidity, upon the plea that England would supply us with cheaper Iron. This falacy is easily exploded. .- t* F----------- >-.------- '.f =. ToL l:-sl