The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-21
FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION.

From the ST. Louis Republican (DeDocratic).
Mr. Horace Greeley has been latterly pub
fishing elaborate essays on the above subject
in the columns of the New York Iri6URe
The alternative that is really presented is not
between free trade and protection absolute
and unqualified. 1t is between free trade and
artificial protection. There is a natural pro
lection that no human laws can abrogate
This is local distance, time, the labor, the eX-
pense and danger of conveyance Wheat
grown in Missouri or Illinois is shipped to
Liverpool, and sold there at or about the price
of English wheat. Nothing is palmer than
that in such case the English farmer will
pocket a considerably larger proportion of
that price than the American farmer. To this
extent Notwithstanding the full acceptance of
free-trade doctrines, the English farmer is
protected, and it is a great and substantial
protection. In England an article of prime
necessity like corn should never have received
any greater protection. An English farmer
has to pay rent an American generally owns
his land. But he pays much higher rate for
labor. 1t was, in fact, to uphold the rents
that the corn duties were maintained by
the English landocracy. 1t may be OBJ
served that with all England's zeal for free
trade, it was not until the present session of
Parliament that the duty on corn was COM
pletely abolished. A quarter dollar was re-
tanned as duty on the quarter of corn or grain
of every description. This was much felt on
the coarser and cheaper grains. Mr. Lowe,
the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, no
ticed this, and lately proposed the abolition of
it. This natural protection is most efficacious
in bulky articles, as for instance corn. In
light portable commodities it is less felt, but
even on them it operates. Geneva watch,
in the ordinary course of affairs, will sell at
much lower rate near the place of its produc-
ton than in England or America. The
dealer in watches will only give such price to
the Swiss or Geneva manufacturer as will
admit of sales in other countries yielding
him profit. This protection, then, which
nature itself upraises, is very considerable,
and of much efficacy in favor of the native
producers of every country. There is in
addition a protection which may be called
that of convenience. There is no country in
which ii is not necessary to raise some reve-
nue. That revenue can be most easily,
securely, and cheaply collected in the shape
of customs at the outports. We, to our sor-
row, find that in addition to the customs
there must be an excise and internal revenue
collected also. Before the war; the internal
taxation was altogether for the support of
State government and local institutions
There is no prospect for some considerable
time of the return of any such happy state of
affairs The amount of this species of pro
lection will, whilst large revenue continues,
necessarily be great And it is but just that
it SHOULD be so. The producers, the mecha-
MICS, and the laborers, all, in one shape or
another, contribute to the revenue. 1t would
not be Just that those who do not so contri-
butte should be allowed to compete with them
tax-free.
We see, then, that the American producer,
whether manufacturer or artisan, has two
great walls of protection, of one of which he
can under no circumstances be deprived.
How can it be that the production of any com
modify or article can legitimately require
moref Prohibiting foreign competition, and
forcing the consumption of native article,
for the production of which the soil on cir
cumstances of the country are not adapted.
will only lead to smuggling, with all its de-
moralizing results, and force the consumers,
including the laboring classes, in whose in-