New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-04-24
ERE TRADE IN BOSTON.

The Boston Free Traders have formed q
| working club, after the pattern of their
brethren in this City. The only thing re-
markable in this movement is its undersigned
confessions OF weakness. Their club is called
"Refom League" and pretends to have
dozen objects, when its real and single pur-
pose is the overthrow Of our Protective Tariff.
The names displayed on its roll of officers and
speakers are respectable but not weighty-not
such as give assurance that they could carry
single ward of the City. If they ever do carry
one, it will be that whose capital and industry
are most generally devoted TO the manufac-
ture, sale, and consumption of Alcoholic
Liquors.
For one of the false pretenses based on
this movement, its authors are not respon-
sible The World exults over it as though
Boston were the last place to countenance Free
Trade, when that city was its cradle and long
its chief citadel We well remember time
when every daily issued from the Boston press
was furiOusly Free Trade; and when at length
the late ]. Il. Buckingham, in his newly estab-
lished Courier, dared to take ground for Pro-
lection, it very nearly cost his journal its life.
Everything substantial, respectable and influ-
entail in the three -hillcd city was 80 vehe-
mently Free Trade that the poor mechanics
and artisans who rallied around the indie
pendent Journalist could barely keep his chin
above water. Boston largely contributed to the
defeat of a Protective Tariff in 1892, and
was in turn vanqushcd by the popu-
lar uprising for Protection in 1924. Then
Daniel Webster, as her representative IN Con-
eress, made more forcible Free Trade speech
than has since been heard in the House Every
vote that Boston could influence was then cast
against Protection--happily, in vain. Now the
solid men of that city, being of practical turn,
took their money out of trade, bought patch
of barren sand and rock, and built thereon
city of spindles which they called Lowell !;
since which, they have seen matters in a some
what different light than of old. Yet so late
as 1856, the late Abbott Lawrence assured us
that though he had done very well in manu-
features, he had never realized so large an
nual returns on his capital as when it was
previously embarked in foreign trade.
We rejoice that the Free Traders have organ
lied in Boston, because their movement will
aid TO dsspate the ignorant concet that FRO
lection is a down-east cOntrivance for local
| benefit Intelligent men know that Protection
was forced by the Middle and Western States
upon New England, against her earnest resist
ance. When it had become the settled policy
of the country, New-England eOnformed to it,
investing her capital and directing her labor
accordingly. She would now suffer heavily
from an overthrow Of Protection, but not so
vitally in the long run as would the South and
Southwest, because her manufactures are
established, have secured the neces-
sary capital, and have found or worn
channels to the vicinity of consumers
whereas, the South and West have these
manly to create or secure. Abolish Pro-
lection tomorrow, and most Massachusetts
factories, though somewhat crippled and COM
PEELED to reduce the wages of labor, would
still 60 on while the merely projected or half
built factories of Georgia and furnaces of Mis-