New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-02-04
PROTECTION ~. SLAVERY

That the people of the United States had
they followed the advice of all our early states
men by the adoption and maintenance of the
principle of Protection to American Industry,
would have obtained the gradual and peaceful
abolition of Slavery, is conviction TO when
all must come who study the relation OF cause
and effect existing between protection to Kus-
sian industry and the peaceful emancipation OIL
the Russian serfs. The condition OF the United
States and that of Russia in 1920 were much the
same. Both had beaten back the wave of Napo-
lconic wars-Russia repellnS the armies OF
France, and the United States those OF England,
more by distance than by battle and because
the force of the invader had been spent before
it reached them. Both had vast areas, immense
forests, unopened mines, and no manufactures
but those which the war, by cutting them off
from Great Britain, had developed The first
railway was not run in England until thirteen
years after. Russia performed two-thirds, and
America perhaps One-fOurth, OF her labor by
slaves In 1912, there were fewer cotton and
wooden factories in all Russia than we now have
west of Lake Michigan. With the peace OF
1871 the two nations started in the same direc-
ton. Russia the late ally of England, was
won for time to Free Trade. America, the
late enemy of England. adopted the same pol
icy British goods flowed into Russia and
America, their gold flowed out and by 1923
while England was rcsuming specie payments,
the United States and Russia were both in ruin.
The manufactures stimulated into being dur
ing the war had in both countries been over
slaughcd and destroyed, and Andrew Jackson
in America and the Emperor Alexander in
Russia united in declaring that the ruin was
due to Free Trade. Both nations in 1924, in
stituted the system of Protection to their
Industry In Russia, it has been pursued
without interruption and with steadily in
creasng skill and success ever since. Russian
mobiles have opposed the policy, because of its
tendency TO convert their serfs into skilled
wOrkmen, and so into frecmen ; for the mo-
ment n seIf acquired a trade, lac must go wher
ever work offered, and, instead of rendering
mental service 10 his owner, he could only re-
NIT portion of his wages, and enjoyed other
wise his freedom. The Protective policy adopt
ed by America, in 1924, set out in the same
road. Manufactures and trade revived. Our
people having more to buy with, imported
more than before We paid off our debt.
Even among the slaves, freedom was growing !;
for not only had most of the Northern States
abolished Slavery, but Virginia and Kentucky
were seriously agitating it, and throughout
the South the same system of hiring their free
dom had begun, which proved to be in Russia
the dawn of emancipation. In 1923, while
Alexander was decreeing that the serf could
not be sold from his land, philanthrOpists here
were agitating to prevent the separation of
slave families. But here provision Intended
to check the importation Of slaves acted as
stimulus to their domestic production. The
Constitutional provision forbidding the impor-
tation Of slaves after 1903 was the only
absolute prohibition on imports ever passed by
the United States. A tariff Of $500 per head
could not have so effcctually protected and
stimulated the production of slaves. The cot
ton Of the South needed 'only abundant slave
labor to make it a monopoly. The molasses
and sugar crop needed q special tariff; and that
tariff, amid all our fluctuations in financial
policy, was steadily maintained. The South,
therefore, whose three great staples were slaves,
cotton, and the sugarcon enjoyed a constitu
tional prohibition against the importation of the
first, an absolute monopoly of the second, and
a high special tariff for tho third. 1t would be
denying the value of protection to industry TO
doubt that under this, the most absolute prOteC-
ton the world had ever known, these three
branches of industry rose in power over all
others. The tariff of 1894 promised to afford
some degree of protection TO Northern manu-
features and agriculture as well but the South,
having all the protection its own industries
needed, rebeled against the protection of man
features. and in 1928, by her open notification
and defiance of tho Tariff law in South Caro-
lima, broke down the policy, inaugurated free
trade, brought on the crisis and crash Of 1887
to 42, and has since prevented the permanent
protection Of any of the industries of the Free
States until the Rebellion ended her control in
our Congress. Slavery grew, because the slave
producer was given by the Constitution mo-
nopoly Of the American market. Freedom de-
clined, because the free labor of the North had
no monopoly Of any market. In Russia, free
dom grew, because industry was protected in its
home markets. The monopoly of the noble over
his serf melted gradually away under the simple
effects of giving the serf higher wages, which
flowed from placing his industry in greater
demand by the development of manufactures
side by side with agriculture. In 1860, the
United States, out of population of 100000,
had only 100000 hands employed on manufac-
lures, or one in 2S. European Russia, in pop
ulatlon OF GO,0O0000, had over 100000 or one
In ~; yet these Russians were the grand
children OF Mongol, Kalmuck, and Sclavic saw
ages, while America blended the best blood of
Western Europe. Russia had grown two-and-
a-balf times as fast as we in manufactures. and