The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-12-18
LEGISLATIVE AID TO coMMsRcs AVID
MANUFACTURES.

| in the midst Of this second half of the nine
teenth century, a journal published in Louisi-
ana, and outside of the precincts of Bedlam,
gravely commencing to the favorable consid-
Grafton of its readers the question, whether
productive enterprise and commercial pros
perity may be prompted by system of re-
strictive legislation. Scan legislation aid
commerce or manufactures? p is the form in
which this question is propounded by a COM
mittee of quaint, respectable and complacent
antediluvians appointed by the State Senate
to while away the vacation by inventing IN
consequential conundrums and restating ex-
ploded fallacies. Perched upon promontory
Of obsolete error these amiable gentlemen
launch their mystihed riddles, something
after the manner of the Theban Sphinx-in
manner, we mean, which seems to say that
the community must answer, categorically,
satisfactorily and quickly, or be incontinently
devoured. We humbly submit that this is a
little too hard on our people. They do not
deserve this visitation. They have been suf-
ficiently afflicted under pretext of political re-
construction, with revamped barbarities of the
past, without being carried by politico-econo-
mical reconstructionists a nd retrogressionists
still further into the gloom of the dark ages.
"There has always BEEN" says the es-
teemed but Anticipated contemporary to
| which we referred, ga difference of opinion as
to whether there should be protection for
manufactures, and as to what regulations
shall be made as to commerce. The theorists
have, by large majority favored free trade,
while strong minority among political econ
omists have shown that, when unrestrained
| by public law, concentrated capital has not
failed to enact laws of its own whereby mon-
| opolies have been created far more antago-
nistic to free trade, and even prohibitorily
protective to favored manufactures" Is it
possible that such thoughts as these can, at
this point in history, overcome us like sum-
mer cloud, without our special wonder? Is
it possible that it was only yesterday, so to
speak, that Richard Golden died, after hav-
ing exposed the protection swindle and outrage
in its last refuge, after having SO successfully
fought the battle for the emancipation of COM
merce and industry as to impress the princi-
pie of free trade upon both France and Eng
land, as the basis of a settled policy? And |
that it was only last week, as it were that Bas-
tiat, with brilliancy of illustration and |
mathematical cogency of reasoning which |
captivated every logical mind demonstrated |
the injustice, the tyranny, the waste and i'm
poverishment of legislation designed to foster.
by prohibitory provisions particular forms of |
trade and modes of industry? The resurrec-
ton, here in the New World, of the pernicious
ideas which Bastiat and Golden struck down |
and entombed in the Old World, is enough to
cause those worthless to rise from their graves
and protest against the spectacle as a fragrant |
anachronism and an Insult to modern ciyili- |
cation.
The theorists" so-called, shave favored |
free trade and unrestricted competition" for |
reasons precisely similar to those which have |
induced mathematicians to favor the demon |
STATIONS of Euclid and the calculations of |
arithmetic and algebra. The theorists be- |
lieve, because they kaotc, that absolute free |
trade and tyrannical monopoly can not CO.
exist. They believe, because they know, that
it is only through the prohibitions and pro-
tections of the law and in no way and no de-
gree through the relaxations of the law, that
capitalists and property holders may combine
tooppress and despoil the mass of "a community.
For example, landed aristocracy lis only I
possible where legislation has surrendered the
right of eminent domain in the state into the
perpetual and unqualified possession of few
landholders to the exclusion of the great body
of the people; and monopoly on the
part of incorporated companies or of private
capitalists is only possible where legislation
has provided conditions adapted to bring
about such result. Take away all positive
enactments that tend to restrict competition
and obstruct free trade, and there will be
about as much ground to fear that monopoly
viii prey upon the substance of the people,
as to fear that they may be massacred by
some despot who has no soldiery to do his
butcberly work. 1t is the law that arms and |
equips the monopolist
Here, then, naturally recurs the question to
which we adverted in the outset, "Can
legislation aid commerce or manufactures ?"
We answer. yes, and no. 1t can infinitely
advance the interests of commerce by repeal ..
ing all the legislative interference by which
hey have been 80 greatly retarded and
depressed. But to go on cumulatively with
his sort of interference would be like holding s
lsphyxiating gas to the mouth of man I
already half dead from suffocation. As to 6
legislation can aid the natural 6
and wholesome development of industry in
hat direction, simply by abolishing all legis- !
alton which has caused that industry to take
IN unnatural and unwholesome development. ;
Industry would then be spilled to making d
What could be produced with most facility d
md most profit. and the many wnnld not I.
AVE to pay in increased cost Of consumption 4
bounty to the few. The people at large \
sould be richer, and the financial position of i
he government would be proportionately =
tronger. n
But, for the rest. Aas it never occurred to 4
he committee who are prosecuting inquiries q
S to how manufactures may be promoted in q
louisiana by State legislation that no protec- is
- = Al. |