The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-01-08

Making a saving to the 100 men in the aggregate
of So 900 a year, besides enjoying more comforts
of life.
We have a duty on rice that amounts to about
60 per cent, but no one complains that the rice
growers are growing rich, or that rice has become
too high in price in consequence of the duty.
But we don't want projections, says another.
Let every man protect himself Good. Carry
out the principle roll the world back three or
four thousand years do away with court-houses,
and police, and courts of justice, and the rights
of man, and every man protect himself-should
we not bave a nice state of affairs. The best
shot, the most expert swordsman, the biggest
bully, would como off the best. Every man pro-
tect himself Buy your revolver and load it;
grind up your bowie knife, and put it in your
belt, and buckle it on, and be always ready.
Away with such stuff! Give us protection ac-
cording to the usages of other civilized countries.
We do not ask protection to exclude foreign
goods from our market. Our importers can very
well sell at a much smaller profit than they are
now selling for. That would be about all the
difference protection would make. We do not
ask for higher prices. We ask for u chance to
sell our own manufactures at present prices. We
are told by some of the importers that we may
get fifty per cent, on some articles as duties, and
they will undersell us then. Well, if they can,
the country will get the benefit of the fifty per
cent. If the purchaser here pays no more for his
goods than now, the fifty per cent, must light
somewhere, and it seems pretty clear that, if it
does not come out Of the purchaser, it must be
that much less profit to the importer, and would
be that much less for him to carry out of the
country when he goes away.
The importers and the foreign shop-keepers
who are Stopping here and there at our ports
selling foreign made articles, are the only persons
who would receive no benefit from protection,
except travellers and strangers staying here for a
year or two. They will all, no doubt, cry out
for free trade as n certain party of old cried out,
- Great IL Diana of the EDhesians.'
The planter will tell you to come and work for
him. and sugar will bring into the country more
money than is sent out. Without disputing that
point, we say to the planter, go ahead with your
plantations; get your cheap labor on the right
basis, and bring all the money you can into the
country, and don't take the steamer some day for
San Francisco. and carry all your money out of
the country with you when you go.
A country to prosper must have diversity of
labor. and the mainstay of a nation is in her
home industries. If a country has but one
branch of industry, and all the people are depend
ing on that one branch, they are liable from any
unforeseen cause to be thrown from employment
at any time. But if the industry is divided into
many branches and one fails at any time, the
Others continue, and the community do not feel
the loss. In a country like Ireland, for instance,
where the people are almost all farmers, there
are more than enough to do tbe one kind Of work,
and consequently wages are low, and when the
crops fail in part the people suffer, not because
there is nothing to buy, but because they have
no way of earning money to buy it.
Look over from ireland to Scotland, where you
sec a great diversity of labor. Manufactures on
every hand, and all have money to buy bread.
Look at Nantucket thirty-tive years ago, and look
at her now. She had but one business. That
was whaling. 1t found better accommodations
at another place, and there is not much left to-
day of the once wealthy Nantucket but her native
sand banks.
Where are the old commercial cities of the
world-the cities built and sustained by COM
MERGE alone? They exist only in history. Some
new discovery or invention changed the direction
of commerce, and the cities, like gardens once
but from which the streams have been
turned aside, have withered and died. A new
channel, some new invention, steam, or the
compass, even apparently slight causes. draw off
the commerce, and the city Ianguishes and fade
out. Philadelphia, in the United States, was in
1856, the first in commerce., and also the first in