The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-26

and it is for their interest to buy cheap They
do not export their products to be given
away, but to be sold; and purchasers can pay
for them only by the products of their own
industry. In the long run, the exports and
imports of country will nearly balance, the
difference in their value consisting merely of
the profits or losses of trade. IL an American
planter exports cargo of cotton and brings
back cargo of iron, the amount of the re-
turn cargo, or, in other words, the price
received for the cotton, depends on exemp-
tion from leyies at the custom-house. A duty
of fifty per cent. on iron confiscates one-half
of the return cargo, and the planter receives
for his crop only half of its value in other
products. This is so clear that all producers
for expectation soon perceive it, and grow
restive under the exactions by which they
are robbed of great part of the fruits of
their industry.
The American grain-grower or cotton
grower, if we look to the ultimate result of
his operations, is engaged in the business of
supplying the market with iron and manutac-
tured goods. There are not American mouths
enough to consume all the grain, nor Ameri-
can backs enough to wear out all the cotton:
and SO the surplus grain and cotton are trans
muted by foreign commerce into manufac-
tured goods, which must be as worthless as
the surplus grain or cotton unless they can
find market If the grain grower can sup
ply iron cheaper than the miner and smelter.
it is wrong to him and to the public to pre-
vent him from doing so. He is fairly enti-
tied to all the iron which his grain will buy,
and the public is entitled to purchase it at
the lowest price. The iron which is imported
by an American grain grower is as truly
product of American industry as if the ores
had been smelted in this country; and it is
against all justice to confiscate one half of it
because its producers offer to sell it cheap.
The war will convert all the Western
farmers into as staunch free-traders as the
Southern planters have always been since the
cotton crop became too large for home con-
sumption. Exporting great quantities of
grain, they will wish to receive all the goods
it will exchange for, which they cannot do
when from one third to one-half of every re-
turn cargo is confscated at the custom house.
The transportation of the return cargoes will
cost very little even when the goods are de-
liyered in the extreme West. Ships which 60
out freigbted with grain must either return
in ballast or bring cargoes of goods; and
grain is SO heavy and bulky in proportion to
its value that they cannot return with full
freights. Rather than come back in ballast,
they will take freights at moderate and almost
nominal rates: and the same remark is true of
our canals and railroads in their westward
trips. The West will not consent to forego
the great advantages of cheap goods in for
eign markets and cheap transportation home
and that section, in conf junction with the
South, will promptly break down the tariff
Both sections will be more powerful after the
census of this year, and as both depend on
expectation for market, they have a COM
mon interest in establishing free trade, and
will act together.