New-York tribune., 1869-06-05


transportation, which enhances the price of i'm
ported Salt to Western CONSUMERS. reducing the
relative COST, to them, of homemade Salt. So
of every staple of considerable bulk or weight.
Yet all the calculations and comparisons of Free
Traders are based on the prices which rule in
the seaboard cities, where imported articles are
cheapest, and their home made rivals always
relatively, and often positively, dearest.
l may now properly consider the uniform
assumption of Free Traders that Protection is
q device of wealthy capitalists, who, having
somehow secured monopoly of our markets,
wish to be upheld by law in their gainful
privilege of selling therein bad and dear fab
iics in preference to such as are good and
cheap. Ali tolerably informed persons must
be aware that this assumption is q fragrant
defiance OF History. Whoever will consult
Alexander HamiltOn's Report on Manufactures,
the writings of Matthew Carey, Hezekiah Niles,
and their compeers, with the speeches of Henry
Clay, Thomas Newton, James Tod, Walter
Forward, Rollin c. Mallary, and other forensic
champions of Protection, with the Messages of
our earlier Presidents, of Governors Simon
Snyder, George Clinton, Daniel d. Tompkins,
Dewitt Clinton, &C., &c, cannot fail to note
that they championed not the maintenance but
the creation of Home Manufactures-not mainly
the preservation of existing interests and indus
tries, but the naturalizing or calling into life of
pursuits new to our cOuntrymen; and this not for
the sake, primarily of those who should thus
be melted to manufacture, or drawn hither
from Europe to plant their arts on our soil,
but for the benefit, directly and mainly, of
those who then were, aud would probably re-
main, farmers. In their day, Manufactures were
unknown to or in their rude infancy among our
people, of whom fully seven-eighths were sub
sisted by Agriculture and a full tenth by Com
merce, Navigation, and the simpler Mechanic arts;
leaving but minute fraction engaged in the
arduous, difficult task of naturaizing q few of
the ruder, simpler Manufactures on our soil,
with scarcely a skirmish-line of legislative de-
fense against a powerful, determined, often
crushing, foreign rivalry. The main considera-
tions which impellod our. early champions of
Protection were fairly and forcibly set forth
by Gen. jackson, in his well-known letter to
DR.. l.. H. Coleman of Virginia, wherein, near
the close of our country's first half-century of
Independence, and when he had been for
thirty years cOnspicuOnsly active in nearly
every sphere of pubic life, in the very crisis
of the struggle for Protection as n recognized
and cardinal feature of our National policy,
he said: ............
"I will ask what is the real situation of the agri
culturalisti Where has the American farmer mar
ket for his surplus productsf Excerpt for cotton he
has neither a foreign nor home market. Does not
this clearly prove, when there is no market either at
home or abroad, that there IL too much labor en-
ployed in agriculture and that the channels OF Labor
should be multpliedI Common sense points out at
once the remedy Draw from agriculture the
perabundant labor, employ 10 IN mechanism
and manufactures, thereby creating a home
market for your breadstuiis, and distributing
labor to a most profitable account, and benefits TO
the country will result. Take from agriculture IN
the United States 10000 men, women, and children
and vOu at once giyea home market for more bread
stuis than all Europe now furnishes. In short, Sir
we have been too long subject 10 the polcy OF Br-
ish merchants. IL is time we should become little
moro AmcicdRsfd, and, instead of feeding the pau
pers and aborers of Europe feed our ow or else III
a short time, by continuing our present pOlcy, we
shall be paupers ourselves. .
1T is therefore my opinion that careful tariff Is
much wanted TO pay national debt, and afford us
the means of that defense within ourselves on
which the safety and liberty of Our country depend,
aud last though not least, give proper distribution
To our labor, which must prove beneficial 20 the
happiness, independence, and wealth OF the cOmmu-
nity.'
Il have cited this familiar passage to prove
the state of facts then existing, and the con-
siderations which impelled many of our fore
most men to advocate Protection as "A remedy
for existing and formidable evils. True, hold
the views thus expressed judiciOus and every
way sound, while by others they are decisiyely
condemned and rejected; but even these must
concede their value as testimony, both as to our
then subsisting Economic condition and to the
views which impelled our wiser statesmen to
seek remedy through Protection
III ltg, Coz, oil !
pregnant testimony in exposure OF the iallacy
which represents Free Trade as affording the
farmer choice Of tgO markets, while Protec-
ton would cOnfne him to one. Our markets
were then glutted with Foreign Metals, Wares,
and Fabrics admitted at very moderate rates
of duty; yet Gen. Jackson testihes that, eX-
"cept for cotton, we have neither foreign nor
"a home market for our agricultural products,
and insists that we must create one by foster
ing and building up Domestic Manufactures.
Now it may be said that the British Corn Laws,
(since repealed,) were the chief cause OF this
dearth of demand for our Food staples
but the obstacles intcrposed 10y Nature to theIT
sale abroad at a profit are permanent, and
more formidable than those devised by Man.
Those edible products which the farmer grows
with comparative ease and to greatest profit
Grass, Fruit, Vegetables, &c, &c.-must hnd
a market near the point OF production or they
cannot be disposed of at all without rulnouf
loss. They are too bulky or too perishaDle u
bear transportation to distant consumers.
Some twelve or fourteen years ago, (sinct
the British COrn-Laws were repealed) visited
Iowa City, then the capital of the State, barely
fifty-six miles from the Mississippi, with which
as with the whole country this side, it was il
direct communication 10y railroad. 1t was mid