The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1872-03-02
Our Most Prosperous Era.


must be decisive Of the question, and that is
the test Of experience. Happily, in that re-
spect, this country, to say nothing of Eng
land and other countries OF the old world, is
abundantly supplied with the material to
make an unerring test We have had our
eras Ofhigh and low tariff. During which
was the country most prosperous? The an
swer necessarily settles the question.
Ex-Commissioner DAVID A. Wells, who is
admittedly the highest authority on questions
Of taxation and revenue in this country, in
recent newspaper discussing, historically, the
financial measures Of our government, fixes
the period of our greatest prosperity under
low tariff. From 1851 to 1860, and more par
ticularly during the last three years of this
time, when the tariff was an average of ONLY
Is to 20 per cent. "the comparative growth
and progress attained by every department of
American trade, commerce and industry was
greater than for any corresponding period.
either before or since, in the history of the
nation" 1t was in the latter part of this
period that our commercial tonnagerose to up
wards of five and half million tons the cot
ton crop exceed ed efive million bales ourexports
Of manufactures reached their maximum and
our consumption of sugar. coffee and cotton
cloth-the best test OF general prosperity
reached the largest per capita rate it has ever
reached. During the decade from 1850 to
1860, the increase of population was over 80
per cent. and tue average of property to each
individual $50. ut would be difficult"
says the cx-commissoner, ''to find more
happy illustration of the influence of the non
interference or non.obstructive policy of a
government with the trade, commerce and IN
dustry OF highly civilized, active people,
than the condition of the United States at
that time afforded" The federal government
imposed no direct taxes on the people there
was no such thing known or thought of as i'll
ternal revenue, stamps, excise, assessors and
collectors the only source Of revenue that the
government applied to was light impost of
less than 20 per cent. upon imported goods,
and the sale of public lands: ana, low as the
tariff was, compared with the exorbitant pro.
tective tariff which now exists, it yielded Sc
large surplus revenue that the trouble with
the government WAS, not, how to increase it,
but how to reduce it. Nor was the pros
porous and pleasant state of things due entire
ly to the fact that We had no national debt to
take care OF it Was attributable, in large
measure, to the simplicity and frugality of
our governmental system, and the purity of
the civil service that prevailed in those days.
From 1851 to 1881 the ordinary expenditures
Of the government were So, '0,0O0,ior 5000
per copita of the population while the per
capita Of payment on account of the national
debt alone for 1871 was So &c. and the addi-
tional per capita cost of the government. not
including the national debt, was twice as
great for the last year of the Republican adj
minstration as 1t was for the last year of a
Democratic administration.
During this period, the low tariff on foreign
materials of manufacture, enabled us to use
them in making fabrics as cheap as competing
nations could make them; and so we sold
largely of manufactured articles to Canada,
the West Indies and South America, to whose
people we now scarcely sell at all, simply be-
cause We cannot afford to sell them as cheaply
as the European manufacturers do. During
the same period, our commerce carried in our
own ships whitened every ocean, and, instead
OF the lamstatlons now heard about the DIES.
tructlon of our shipping, and hiring foreign
vessels, at profit to them of forty million
dollars year, tc carry our own produce
abroad and bring back goods in exchange for
it, we wre accustomed to point to the steady
annual growth Of our shipping interests, and
contidentially look forward to the time when
the United States would be the first maritime
nation OF the world. In lsGOGl our register.
ed and licensed tonnage was 5,539,s13; in ] 500.
20 it had sunk 20 4,2lG507 tons; and in 1871
it had decreased TO still lower figure. In
ls6o-6l the tonnage employed in the coasting
trade, which by law is protected from al
foreign competition, WINS 2,6j;,292 tons in
lSG9-70 it had decreased to 2,595,32S. The
tonnage employed in the cod-tlshcry during
the same time decreased from 1890 10 81, G12.
Thus 1t is seen by indisputable figures, not
only that our shipping, our Goldfish, our coast
ing trade and our exports of manufactures
were greater eleven years ago under a low ia
rir with population of only thirty millions
than now, but that the cost per head for the
ordinary expenses Ofthe government was then
less than halt what it is now