New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1866-07-14

is idle TO treat their understanding with the simpes
of a quack philosophy, for they are not simpetons
Tell them that market gluts, ruinous fluctuations OF
prices enforced idleness and money reyuslons must
happen Just as the ocusts and they VIII want 10
know the reason why. Tell them that supply and
demand form the see-saw of business, and they VIII
want to know why the one sometimes TITS inc o'nel
off the plank. Or, try hem finally, with that sageaI
of all free-trade oracles, "water will find It's level
and they will that the best use that can be MADE
of water to dam it, turn it out of its course put
20 work, interfere with its natural tendency and
drift compel its service and never surrender the con-
troll of it till it has served human ends to its utmost
capacity-then let it seek its level as it may.
The earliest settlers of a new country understand
very well how unrestricted trade with manufacturing
and commercial nations promotes their welfare, makes
their exchanges profitable, supplies them with impe-
ments and fabrics which they not yet able to make
for themselves and in how many ways the inferior
profits by commerce with the superior, up to that
point where such trade begins to rcpreSs the growth
which before it had fostered.
In all the stages and circumstances Ofnat0na growth,
legitimate trade consists in the mutual supply ofthe
things in which the parties respectively deficient
This condition of exchange exists therefore, not only
as to products and commodities Of which either has
the natural monopoly, but also as those things which
either NAV be accidentally or temporarily incapable
of furnishing on demand for use. country OF even
the highest prospective capabilities, while yet IN It's
infancy thny peopled, and with little material capt.
tai or Skill greatly benefited by free trade with ma
tons which have reached maturity or an approach 10
it in such things. But it cannot be too strongly IN
sisted upon that all foreign trade like domestic ex'
changes must be merely complementary-the division
of labor wisely extended over the globe-and nothing
else or more; for all else, and all beyond ehis Is
domination of the one party and dependence of the
other An enigrant to one of our Western prairies,
without capital to stock and work his homestead,
may advantageOusly, because be must, work III
his neighbours corn-fed for a year, and take
his wages in corn and pork; but If he
continues to sell his labor thus, in its raw state for
dozen years together he is at the same time selling or
losing the possible produce of his own land to that
neighbor for nothing, and losing his ownership be-
sides SO, a whole nation may proftably exchange
its raw materials and provisions its lumber, wool,
wheat and fax, for their various manufactured forms,
until its own labor and capital can supply them Tor
domestic use. In other words. exchangeabe values
may be the aim of national trade, while they promote
productive power in constantly improving forms and
stages of advancement; but when trade begins to
cripple producton-when it arrests its growth or
abates it, it must be subordnated. In country hold
ing the highest rank approaching it raw materials
and provisions have their highest, if not their whole,
value in home consumption and internal trade-of
which more hereafter.