The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-09-12

The STATE JOURNAL talks about Protective
Tariff in connec ton with the election of Con-
gresham from this district as if it were q ques-
1on OF vital importance to the interests of Rich
mond and Virginia. We don't know what the
views of Captain George ID. Wise may be with
respect to u protective policy, but we do know
that long years before protection can do anything
for Virginia the whole policy of The world will
undergo n complete change, and be based upon
unrestricted commercial relations, and tariffs
will return to Nex the Moors an other highway
robbers and toll gatherers who invented them
Enquirer
This will be when the mystical lion and
lamb shall lie down together, when nation
shall not rise up against nation, and when
the different peoples Of the earth shall seek
to bless their neighbors with the fruiton Of
happiness that vastly exceeds their own.
And then the "protective policy" will not
return TO vex the class to which the En-
9uirer refers, for they belong to class of
freebooters who desire an unrestricted free
trade in all the products Of other mems
labor, not seeking to protect or encourage
any Of their own.
The Enquirer is beautifully consistent in
its advocacy of free trade, for while it de-
sircs that the markets and ports of Vir-
gina should be open to an unrestricted trade
with the English, French and German man
ufacturers, it would establish Gordon ofcus-
toms along the Potomac and Atlantic coast,
and levy the highest possible duties
upon all articles Of New England man
uiacture. In fact, it assumes that this
''would be the only system that would
afford this city and State any protection"
We have read of a good many kinds of
blindness, such as moral, spiritual, judicial
AMI the like, but nothing comes quite up to
the mental strabismus with which our
neighbor is afflicted in his obstinate squint-
iny towards New England. TIE principle
OF free trade is destined to work ad-
mtrably in our intercourse with all
other peoples except the rascally New
Englanders. They are generally up to
such political depravity, and such mental
and moral obtuseness generally, that the
less Virginia has to do with them the better.
If Chinese wall forty times the size of
that erected by the Ten Cha, dynasty,
could only separate Virginia from the New
England States, all would be peace, happi-
ness, glory, and material triumph and
grandeur in the Old Dominion, We
speak, of course, from the Eaquire,'s
standpoint.
But we hold no such opinion ourself.
We believe that Virginia can more than
hold her own with New England, in all the
magnificent enterprises which protective
policy may encourage her people to engage
in as the industrial peers of New England.
Nay, the time has already come when the
manufacturers of Richmond may bid def
ance to any city in New England, III the
successful rivalry with which they may
challenge competition in many of the more
important branches Of manufacturing trade;
and that she may do this in eUe,y branch of
this trade, and become the Queen City of
the South in manufactures and industrial
enterprise, thrift, and energy, is what in
spires us to urge the identical policy for
Virginia which has made New England
great in spite Of all her natural disadyanta-
ges.
Webster said Of New England that she
had only two great export staples-ice and
granite. lie should have added third,
which we have in equal if not greater
abundance, viz: agater as rGU matertalof
industry. In fact, an inexhaustible supply
Of water is the first and most important
Of all the "raw materials" Of industry.
1t is the first great staple, or indispensable
element, in all the leading arts and indus
tries. This raw material we have in such
magnificent supply, right here in Rich
nond, that we could challenge a dozen
Lowells, Manchesters, Nashuas and
Lawrences, to rival us in their manufactu-
ring grandeur. We have the noble James,
giving us a storage capacity extending back
to and beyond the great mountain chains of
the State, with fall of seven miles above
the city so admirably graded in its de-
scent that the same volume of water may
be harnessed into service dozen times in