The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-12-04
A CONSPIRACY AGAINST COMMERCE.

meree. And there Is good reason Tor TINS
hostility. All the liberties, as all the sciences
and arts, are correlative and mutually depend
ent. The battle for commercial liberty,
fought upon broad, philosophical principles,
was natural that the fanatical and icentious
combination in the North which has labored
for so many years to destroy the federal re-
public, should have commenced the work by
prescribing free trade. 1t was natural that,
having succeeded in rendering one section
subordinate and tributary, in respect to trade
and industry, to the other section, they
should have made this relation the basis upon
which to mature and consummate, by mill
tary force and political usurpation, their
scheme of a central despotism. 1t was also ma
tural and perfectly logical that the intelligent
opponents of this scheme when they saw it
first unfolding, should have fought earnestly,
and, had they been supported, would have
fought uncompromisingly and desperately, to
maintain commercial equality, knowing that
no rights would be safe if this principle we're
overthrown. And, finally, it is consistent
with all preceding stages and processes by
which the combination referred to obtained
absolute control of the federal government,
that they should continue to act as conspi-
racy against commerce and, if possible, crush
out of existence every element which might
help the cause of commercial emancipation.
This remorseless design has a worthy ex-
ponent in the New York Tribune. The zeal
of this organ goes so far as to resent the
facilities with which nature has endowed the
country for purposes of commerce. "What
the South needs" says the Tribune, "is not
better communication with England. Every
one of its rivers, except the Tennessee and
Cumberland, runs toward England and tends
to carry its commerce abroad. The greater
the relative trade of the South with England
compared with its trade with the Northern
States the weakeris the Union. The greater its
commerce with the Northern States, the
stronger the Union and the less the need of
bayonets to hold it together. If national aid
is to be called for to build southern railroads,
let them run from North to South, so as to
increase the transportation of Southern cot
ton, tobacco and molasses into the Northern
States for manufacture and consumption, in
crease the transportation of men, machinery,
capital, stock, goods and tools from the North
into the South, and thus weld the two sec
tons in all their interests more firmly to-
gether, and render the Union not union of
States with diverse or conflicting interests,
but union of populations and industries
whose interests are identical. In Prussia,
forty years ago, similar steps were taken to
unite in interest all sections of the German
Confederation by so perfecting the means OF
railroad communication between all parts of
Germany as to facilitate their internal and
domestic commerce, at the same time that by
the Zolverein all the States of the Confedera-
ton were surrounded by Gordon of protec-
tive tariffs which amply sustained their home
manufactures and agriculture from injurious
undertaking by France and England"
The fallacy of this sort of stuff is positively
horrible. We cordially assent to the idea of
strengthening the Union by improved means
of commerce between the sections such as
could be maintained without obstructing the
natural and rightful development of either,
and with a reasonable prospect of redounding
to the prosperity of both. But the intersec-
tional commerce advocated by the Tribune is
one which it proposes to enforce by "cor-
don of protective tariffs" designed to close as
commercial outlets for the South and West all
those rivers, barbors and ports that happen
to offend by looking towards England and
tending to the increase of foreign trade. No
such system is ever going to add strength to
the Union in any other sense than that of ad-
ding strength to despotism. Commercial
coercion can no more weld the sections in all
their interests firmly together than it can
change the geography and climate of the same
sections, or transform human nature SO that
men will be grateful for injustice and eager to
strengthen the hand that Expresses and
iespoils them.
The illustration which the Tribune seeks in |
the German Zolverein, is in every respect ex-
tremely damaging TO its cause. The Zolver- |
sin was, in fact, great mitigation of pre-
Viously existing system of protective tariffs |
In so far only was it of any commercial be-
nefit to the various portions of Germany.
And how internal industry and enterprise
nave been promoted by the Gordon of pro-
ectiye tariffs" which was still permitted to en-
,ircle the confederation, may be judged from
he ever swelling tide of German emigration,
md from the German correspondence of the
English and American press indicating fer.
nent of dissatisfaction, constantly increasing,
mong the industrial classes of that country.
1t is, indeed, sad and curious spectacle
hat, while Mr.. Bright, the eloquent leader of
English radicalism, proposes to ameliorate
he condition of producers and consumers in
II countries by universal policy of free
->~..--',@ s1'-.aAkA- -uax imnossihls by dis
anding standing armies and abolishing !
layies, reserving only few armed ships for
'olice duty, and, best of all, to obviate occa-
ion of war by allowing social evolutions
verywhere to take their natural and legiti-
nate course, and uniting all peoples in the
interests of common commerce; tits, we say,
\ i