Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1870-05-18
Mr.. MOrrilI'S Speech on the Tariff
Question

I
livered in the U. S. Senate very able and
exhaustive speech on the Tariff question,
which has been highly praised by the press
of the country. We would be glad to print
the speech entire, this week but it reaches
us SO late, and is so long-occupying some
ten columns of small type in the Congress
siOnal Gio6e-thst we must content ourselves
with giving only portion of it, including
his q summing up from which the reader
will perceive the main drift of our Senator s
argument.
HARMONY OF INDUSTRIES.
The commingling of many industrial
| branches of business is the true way to or
ganize all the forces of the community so
that every man may follow a congenial pur-
suit, and thus develop the entire strength of
all the component parts, whether skilled or
unskilled strong or weak, those having gen.
! Jus or otherwise Then all will be harmoni-
ously engaged in doing the best they know
! how. The farmer does not put his stoutest
! sl,vut Ills llgutesI WORK or where a boy
will answer the same purpose, nor does he,
| if wise confne his land to a single crop /;
but by having more he utilities all his time
and help, as we'll as all his varieties of soil
taking care of one crop after another in reg
uIar Progression until the whole IS grown
and harvested. Thus he takes advantage of
every occasion for economy, and greatly null
tiplies the sources and chances of profit.
Nations guided by an equally enlightened
selEintcrest follow the same policy, and have
never yet failed and never will fail 70 demon
strate that diversified employments prove
immeasurably more productive in the aggre-
gate than where they are more restricted.
Such industries are mutual insurers, and
when disaster befalls any special branch the
loss is made up from the better fortune OF all
other branches, leaving the major part al
ways successful but those nations confined
to a single venture, whether OF manufacture
or agriculture, of fisheries or of numbering,
like the farmers who rely single crop,
in case of failure are cut off from all other
resource or compensation elsewhere. In our
country agriculture transcends in Importance
all other interests combined, and always
must and should take the lead. Other inter-
ests derive much of their beneficial power
from the direct aid which they afford to It's
pursuit, and the indirect aid they afford by
increasing its rewards through the consump-
ton of its surplus products.
The greatest rulers of the world have con-
firmed these truths by their example. Crom-
well, Peter the Great, Napoleon, were pro-
tectionists. In England, the elder and the
younger Pitt, and in France, Colbert-min-
listers and statesmen whose far-reaching sa-
gacity has never been impeached, and whose
! fame still shines brightly over the civilized
world-were in favor of the sturdiest kind of
protection, and went not only to the verge of
of what might practically prove to be pro-
hibitory duties, but sometimes to prohibition
in terms. Napoleon went SO far as to say
that duties should never be fiscal instru-
ment, but a means of protecting industry.
Pitt went so far, in 1902, as to specially leg
islate against the competition even of the
United States, and by protection he trIum-
phantly sustained the finances of his country
through long and most expensive war.
80 U nder his administration" says the histo-
rian Allison, Z" the revenue, trade, and man
uiactures of England were doubled, its colo
MES and political strength quadrupled, and
he raised an island in the Atlantic, once only
a remote province of the Roman empire, to
such a pitch of grandeur as to be enabled to
bid defiance to the world in arms" Macau-
lay styled Pitt 60 the greatest master of the
whole art of parliamentary government that
has ever existed" And yet the polished
sophists of free trade would have US believe
that such men as these lived and died iGDo-
rant of the sound principles of refsicai econ Ta
omy. They needed 1"e Iiee ''a Mo;,.a.
so1Sne by his famous report, supported by
one of the first acts Of Congress, for which
Madison voted, to :" encourage manufac-
lures - by the protection of American pro-
ducts Our most generous statesman, Henry
Clay, and our boldest, General jackson, as
well as the coolest and most astute, John
Quincy Adams were protectionists in head
and heart. The ship OF state was in no dan
ger of laundering under the pilotage of these
men, and, if their policy was wise, time has
furnished no reasons for change except In
degree. Perfection of means and ends may
be so nearly reached that favor is no longer
required as to many articles; but others
from necessity lag at unequal distances in
the race, and still require to be nursed.
Nations which rely on the fertility of their
soil, or upon single crop, with no alterna-
tive means of subsistence, place even their
+This list might be indefinitely increased from the
ranks OF the old Republican party by such names as
that of Thomas Jefferson, who writes in lsl5 as fol
lows: The prohibitory duiies we lay upon all art
cles Of foreign manufacture which prudence re
quires to establish at homo, with the patriotic
determination Of every good citizen to use no for
eign article which be made within ourselves,
without regard to difference of prices, secures us
against relapse and foreign dependency"