The Portland daily press., 1869-09-11

\ uidCluio' tnsee great INDUSTRIES constitute
the very foundation of her unrivalled pros
perity and control as well as characterize
her social and political organizations. Of
the whole population of the United King
dom, one tltth at least owe their means of
| subsistence directly or indirectly to these
| pursuits" n 'di d. G7Hr..f s1I ~ i'-i..
] For the protection of this great industry
| which has furnished a market for her high
farming, ana has laid the foundation of the
largest commerce in the world, her tariff leg
| islation mas been marked by statesmanlike
! capacity almost unequalled upon any other
question, or by any other people on the globe.
+ Having 1or long series of years applied the
highest protection duties amounting almost
| to proliDIlon upon foreign manufactured
goods, she found herself possessed of a great
producing interest, in Which her great masses
of Iaccumulating capitol found investment.
and to the easy and rapid working of which,
I Watt aud Crompton, and Arkwrght, and
| HargreaVes, and Cartwright, had 9exerted
theirinafVeioas ingenuity, incontrolling the
| most powerful mechanical forces for the most
| delicate purposes. Her mills demanded their
| raw materials at the lowest market rates:
| and these materials were admitted free of
| duty Her manufacturers required CHEAP
| labor. and cheap food for that labor, and
breadstuffs were admitted at mere nominal
rates OIL duty, diminishing materially the
| charge OF living in England, and rendering
continuance of low wages practicable. "Some
great change, which should cheapen subsist-
| ence, and make it possible for the artisan
| and the laborer to live in Great Britain had
become an evident and imperous necessity.
Neither the manufacturing nor the mercan-
tile interest could expect to holds its own,
much less to expand and posper, so long as
the corn laws stood. Free trade in bread
stuffs had in fact become essential to their
| protection, and was finally carried against
the fierce and powerful opposition of the
land holders" And nov armed with
cheap capitol. cheap labor. cheap food, cheap
raw materials, and broad commercial rela-
tions and large merchant marine, Great
Britain went tOrthto occupy the markets of
the world with her manufactured goods.
Said Sir ROBERT PEELE, at the close of the
debate which carried the modified tariff and
| theIrepesl of the corn law into operation -
Il do not abolish all protective duties; on
the contrary, the amended tariff maintains
many duties that are purely protective, as
distinguished from revenue duties" And
this protection was applied to articles wholly
manufactured, and IN the manufacture of
whchithe labor of England was largely en-
gagged. These articles were manufactured
cotton, wool, fax, iron and steel, brass and
"copper" china and eartheanware, glass, paper,
clocks, watches, hats, candles, leather, chem.
cal oils, etc. And would remind the New
England manufacturer that the highest rate
of duty $40 on every e100 value Imported,
is laid on cotton and woolen goods, iron and
steel, brass. hats, linen, and leather; and
alsoth paper printed on in the English
language is prohibited; and clocks and
watches are restricted as to Importation.
! Lowell, and Lawrence and Lewiston and
Worcester and Waltham may well remem-
ber this. In fact Great Britain has given us
an example of a protective system, whose
applicability to existing. wants and necessi-
ties, and whose ,invigorating power teach US
what wise government can do to develope
J nations resources, and magnify nations
wealth. She has made m1rket for her farm
produce, she has neglected no interest in
which skilled labor is employed, she has
% tempted the remotest producers of raw mate
rials to open their ports to the products of
her spindles, she has made herself the centre
OF commerce and exchange, by the protection
of her home industry, and by multiplying her
number OF industrious producers. May she
long remain foremost among those nations
who believe in the importance of protecting
domestic industry. In expressing this desire
| accept the facts as they exist, and not the
theories with which these facts are sometimes
SO disguised, that their most familiar friends
Il This policy which has been so shaped and
moulded by British statesmen as to conform
to British necessities, is also the policy of
every enlightened nation on the continent of
Europe. "PrOtection." says the president of
the council general of the manufacturers of
France in 1852, eprotection, the industrial
creation of Napoleon, was the most precious
and principal cause .of his coneuests." In
LATTER days, whatever changes. may have talk
en- place in the customs duties of France;
even under the Anglo-French treaty, the i'm
portanee of her manufactures has not been
lost sight Of, She may have admitted Eng
slish coal and iron in order to give increased
stimulus to her manufacturers but she
opened the markets of England, to. her silk
manufacturers as an equivalent, and before
her products the silk industry of England
itthHd oh IS fadr and died She held
wringing from Lord UIoJ and acknowledge
ment that she had made but small progress
towards unrestricted commerce, authorizing
Count Gasparin to rank her tariff with our
own Morrill, tariff, and actually protecting
her iron, woOllen, and silk interests to au
extent equal to any protection furished by
the United States:-and perhaps greater,
when we remember that the rates of wages
in European Countries and the supply of
capital, ander the lower rates of duties,
the higher duties of our own country, as in
competition with them. -.- ..-.. %.
In 1924, Count Nesselrode established the
protective system for Russia, and the civil-
zation and prosperity of Russia commenced
at once; her iron mines have been opened
for the supply of rails as against the compe-
tition of England and Belgium; her manu-
factures have Increased her labor has become
elevated and serfdom has vanished before a
Il,
of skill and intelligence to the raw produc-
tions of more primitive endeavors. With
her own mills she is proceeding to clothe her
people, with her own railroads she is binding
her great territory into compact empire,
with her own ingenuity she is placing herself
among the skilled nations of the earth, and
| is raising her agriculture out of the primi
tive condition of her old semi-barbarism, to
the higher system demanded by increasing
| intelligence and more immediate markets.
| And by her side, in this labor at least, stand
| all the continental nations, Austria, Bel
| GUM, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Spain, all
| differing in their civil polity and in their
| national relations, but all one in this great
| modern attempt to clothe each nation it's
own n1people with substantial fabrics, and to
| develope its own creative genius and pecu-
| liar resources. - 5'''" +'i -'' '''"
| Now, gentlemen, I think we have right
| to infer that the policy which has proved
| successful in developing the industry of these
| nations, must prove successful also in devel-
| oping our own, even were We without our
| own experience to sustain this opinion. That
| system of protection which has been found
necessary, even between nations where the
| differences in labor and capacity are slight
/ and accidental, rather than deep and funda-
| mental and the violation OF which has ena-
| IJod ono of thnsa nations To crush ont Ona en-
| tire industry in another, mnst inevitably be
| required to guard our labor against that,
| which from the simplicity of its wants, and
IS inferior position in society has every ad-
| ,antage over us as means OF productlOn.-
/ If cheap labor in one country must be pro-
j tected against cheap labor in another country
| is it not manifest that the well paid labor OF
| our own country is entitled to and requires
| similar protection even in larger measure?
! suppose no man, not even the most enthusi-
astic doctrinaire, would attempt to assert that
the condition of an operative in mill In
Lowell is similar to that of an operative in a
| mill in Manchester, or Leeds, or Elboeuf.-
Every circumstance in the life of the former
his food, his clothing, his education, his
trades, his newspaper and books, his natural
ambition, all compel him to earn more daily
wages than the latter. And when he resigns
all this and becomes satisfied with what less
money will secure, he loses at once his dis
tinctive characteristics as an American la.
. borer and leaves capital to engage alone and
single handed in great struggle, in the re-
i suit of which his whole dignity and man
hood should be interested. You may tel
this American laborer that by reducing the
price of his own productions, either by admit
ting at lower rates Of duty the production:
) of his foreign rival,or by reducing his Owl
l.. ~ sc