New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1866-07-07
THE NEW TAR1FF ELL.

THE NEW TARIFF BILL.
The tariff bill now under consideration in
Congress, and which we suppose will pass
that virtuous and enlightened body is really
. necessary part of the scheme by which New
England expects to control the industry as
well as the politics of the country. Even
New England politicians perceive that the
will and the intellect of people cannot be
permanently subjugated, as long as freedom
of industrial development is permitted. The
progress of opinion, of civilization, of enlight-
ment, is measured in this age of the world by
the growth and concentration of those ma
terial agencies which are the conoomitants of
moral force and political power. 1t would be
vain for the people of New England to expect
to acquire permanent dominion over the
policy of the country unless they at the
same time gain that control over industry and
the sources of wealth which can alone con
firm their power Hence the persistency with
which the tariff system under the specious
pretext of protection to American industry, ;"
has been urged by New England politicians
ever since 1928 is owing not merely to the
natural greed of manufacturing capitalists,
but to the Unsuitable desire for power and am
bition of control, which has always charac-
terised that remarkable people.
1t is peculiarly unfortunate for the country
that its financial condition, consequent on
the enormous sacrifices of the war, has afford
ed spacious pretext for recurring to a system
which is at war with every sound principle of
political economy and the fallacy of which has
been exposed by all the eminent thinkers of
the last hundred years To be sure the reason
ing mind perceives that the period during
which a country is overburthened with debt
and finds its industry heavily taxed is pre-
cisely the period during which unrestrained
freedom of trade is most desirable and neces-
sary. But the idea seems some way or an
other to have obtained possession of the pop
ular mind, especially at the North that pub
lie debts can only be paid by means of tariffs
on imports, and comparatively few persons
are capable of drawing the line between what
S really revenue tariff and what is a
tariff. Hence the astute politicians of New
England find it easy enough to take possession
Of this formidable agency, and under the pre-
tense Of raising revenue for the government
to establish system which, at first simply
restrictive, becomes in the end totally pro-
hibitory.
It is, therefore, not surprising that the bill
now under discussion in Congress should ex-
hibit this Characteristic in its most conspicu-
Gus form. Indeed, its details involve so COM
plieated a machinery of ad rQEorem and
specific duties that, apart from the enormous
imposts which it provides this feature alone
would prove a serious annoyance and embar-
rassment to foreign trade. The design so evi-
IDENTIFY is to give to New England complete
of. the American market and an
entire control Of the cotton supply, thereby
not only enriching herself at the expense of
all the rest Of the country, but likewise ena-
bling her to riyet the political chains which
she has imposed on the public mind-that it
is only remarkable that there was any attempt
to conceal the purpose 1t is only wonderful,
not that the attempt should be made, but that
it should be yelled beneath those thin sophis-
tries and absurd fallacies which have been so
often exposed
The righteousness Of this effort is nowhere
more oonspicuously manifested than in a re-
cent speech Of Mr.. Morrill,, in defense of the
bill to which we have referred.
There is the same old talk about esprotection
to American industry, ''the pauper labor Of
Europe" foreign competition, ETC., etc..
which, to sane mind of the present day, is
about as nonsensical as an attempt to revive
he Ptolemaic system, or to prove that men
ought to go naked if they cannot make their
,wn clothes. Everybody knows that "protec-
ion to American industry" means simply pro-
ection to New England manufacturers at the
Expense of the rest of the country, and that
EXCLUSION of the products of the 'pauper
abor of Europe" means only the compulsory
consumption, by the South and West, of the
Inferior and dearer products of Massachusetts
ooms and of Pennsylvania mines-that it
means getting little for much money, or
much labor-which is the same thing-instead
If much for little money, or little labor that
t means fraudulent and hypocntical system
If taxation by which all the industry and all
he resources of the country are to be made
iubseryient to the ambition and cupidity of
New England. And as everybody knows this
o be the case, what is the necessity for M.
Morrill, to reproduce those effete platitudes, or
or Mr. Stevens to denounce as antiauated
Ieresies, the great truths of free trade? The
inc is past when people can be deluded by
retences so transparent. Philip II might
onyince his 0loyar subjects that he was a
1onarch, element, mild and debonnaire,
Then be ordered Alva to coniscate all the
property of the Netherlands, and to extermi-
ate the people; but nobody will believe Mr..
Ioaill when he exclaims protection for
american industry at the very moment when
e is deyising system of plumber and extor-
ion, far more effective, because far more in
enious, than anyof which Philip or Alva ever
heamed.
THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA.