The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-04-08
The Republican Party the Hope of
virginia.. tH

lHe nope Vi virginia lies I'LL Tie ueNelOp-
ment of her vast natural resources
the immense advantages which she will
derive from the conversion of her noun
tains Of iron into rails, steam boilers, ma
chnery, agricultural implements and
hardware, as well as in those which will
flow to her from opening up her large de-
posits of coal, which is now the chief
motive power of the world. These para
mount advantages, considered in connec-
ton with her unbounded supply Of wood
and timber and her unsurpassed water
power, now running almost every
where to waste, should naturally
suggest to the statesman Of Vir-
ginia policy that would ultimately dot
our state all over with thriving manufac-
turing towns and villages, and soon make
her barren fields TEEN again with the rich
est luxuriance and verdure. We say should
suggest to our statesmen; but who Of
them have had the sagacity to see it, and
lay hold Of the only policy by which such
paramount advantages may be successfully
reaped? Certainly no one Of the Conser-
vative party of Virginia has risen to the
magnitude of this great question, or is like
ly to do so under the teachings of its anti
protective leaders.
The Republican party IS the only one
that dstinctively favors protection to
American industry, and holds to the posi-
ton that protection begets competition and
invariably cheapens the price of manufac-
tured commodities in the markets of the
world. This is not mere theory it is
attested as historic fact in every manu-
featuring country in the world. So long
as Holland protected her industry more
adequately than her neighbor across the
channel. she sold her cheap goods IN Eng
land andmaintained her commercial supre-
macy on the seas. 1t was only when Eng
land came TO see that there was no
advantage in policy that led her TO sell
her raw products at the price that Holland
would pay, and buy them back when
manufactured at a price at which Holland
would sell, that she perfected system of
protective duties which gave her the boast
ed supremacy she now enjoys--that of
carrying English fabrics in British ships to
the mere growers of raw material in all
parts of the World, to be exchanged at
English valuation for the raw products of
other nations or for the gold and silver
they may dig out of the earth.
1t was only after about two hundred
years of continuous protection to English
manufactures, and after establishing colo
NAL system of dependence in all parts Of
the world, that the idea was conceived by
her statesmen that she might, by cheapen-
ing labor to what would be starvation
prices in most other countries, MAINTAIN her
manufacturing and commercial ascendancy
on the basis Of absolute free trade, especi-
ally as she would be able to hang up the
barometer of exchange at London, and
make every nation of the earth pay tribute
to her in adjusting the balances of trade,
as well as in the way of accommodating
herself to the commercial and monetary
fluctuations they might from time to time
undergo. 1t was a happy thought on the
part of her statesmen, and the only difficult
ty in the way Of successfully carrying it out
was to find sufficiently plausible argu-
ment to convince all other nations of its
advantages to themselves, as well as to
England. Accordingly English political
economists were set to work with their
pens to demonstrate the very common
place truth that men should buy in the
cheapest and sell in the dearest markets of
the world, in order to supplement their
industry with the substantial benefits of
their own production. With this theoreti-
cal dogma, demonstrated in hundred
different formulas and worked
up into the grand pivotal truth on
which to hinge all national prosperity,
there would be no difficulty in maintaining
the manufacturing supremacy of England
of making her, in fact, the workshop of
the world, while she would be mistress
Of the seas, as much by her maritime
carrying trade as by her naval ornaments.
which were designed to demons trate her
free trade theories by a more convincing
logic. 'at g 1is a
1t was this absurd English policy. tho
roughly accepted by Virginia statesman
ship in the past, as well as pertinacious-
" adhered to by the leaders of the Con.
serVatlye party in the state to-day, which
has made all the difference between the
material growth and prosperity of Penn.
sylyania and our own state. When tho
keystone State first accommodated herself
to the true American policy of protection.
she was. financially. at lower ebb than
Virginia is to-day but this .acconmoda-
Ton at once impaired to her a new tinan-
clal and industrial life, and, in the brief
period of thirty years, she has advanced
from the verge Of bankruptcy and material
rum to the front rank of manufacturing.
agricultural, and commercial states.
And what Pennsylvania has achieved
by accommodating herself to the policy Of
protection lies equally open in the way Of
achievement to Virginia, if she can be in
duced to break away from the blind i'm
policy of the past, and henceforth unite her