National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-05-01
PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE.

N. Chevalier and John Bright are dis
posed to laugh at our protective notions.
This is their privilege, and we can better
endure their ridicule than admit their man
ufactures to our market duty free. With
their notions the case is different They
are large sellers of manufactures and large
buyers of breadstuffs. They dare not tax
the latter, which is prime necessity to
their labor. But upon this compulsory ad-
mission of breadstuffs and cotton free of
duty, because they must have them to feed
and employ their labor, they claim great
free-trade merit and success. Yet at the
same time they turn right around and tax
our spirits and tobacco almost to prohibi-
ton. Governments monopolize the traffic
in the products, and from it realize enor-
fs.n.,s nrefits These Governments pirate IF
free trade, and their statesmen ana political
economists affect to believe that it would
be far better for Young America to follow
their example. They even laugh at us for
supposing that they can be duped into join
ing us in our Exposition of industry, when
we impose tax upon the importation of
the articles exhibited.
If Bright and Chevalier refer back to
period q little over three score years past,
perhaps they will find that England forced
Napoleon into war upon this identical
question. Napoleon declined the dictation
of England in regard to her tariff He even
decreed that her manufactures should not
be used upon the continent at all, without
some reciprocal benefit. This England
could not brook, and she fomented against
Napoleon the war of the allies, which finally
resulted in his downfall
1t has long been the boast of Britain that
she could dictate the laws of any country
through the possession of her trade; hence
her objective point in all new countries is
q foothOld in their markets for her manu-
features, and by the purchase of portion
Of their produce secure the carrying trade.
This is a most sagaciOus policy. By sell
ing her manufactures on credit, she keeps
exchange largely in her favor, and makes
her commercial emporium the clearing
house Of the world The United States had
become a most formidable rival to her,
both in the carrying trade and in manufac-
lures, anteCedent to the civil war. British
capitalists, therefore, encouraged the rebel
lion. They wanted the cotton of the South
at their own price, and delivered at their
ports in their own bottoms. They used
our civil war as a means to attain that end.
And they were most successful. Most of
the cotton of the South now seeks British
market in British bottoms. Her privateers,
the Alabama and Shenandoah, swept our
clippers from the seas, and the flag of St.
George now protects the American products
which are consumed abroad.
But this is not all. No sooner was the
war at an end than some Vengeful, short
sighted statesman conceived the idea that
il would be a grand achievement to lay a
tax of three cents pound upon all the raw
cotton in the country. This was again
playing into the hands Of the British CAPT
talists. 1t was neither more nor less than
three cents a pound protection to cotton
culture in Africa and India, which Britain
had been for years seeking to encourage as
rivals to our productions. The seventy
millions that we raised in that way yielded
TO the British capitalists ten-fold that
amount in the two years of stimulation
which it afforded to their experiments in
Africa and India, and completed the eman-
cipation of British spinners from their de-
peDdence upon American cotton. And
again, the Southern planters, by their dis
enlargement and oppression of free labor
in the cotton fields have continued the en-
couragement to the inferior cotton of
British colonies in Africa and India, until
it menaces the superior American fibre
with expulsion from the markets of Eu-
rope through extreme depression of prices.
These are briefly the facts in the case, and
they fully disclose the reasons for our pres
ent commercial and financial depression.
1t is clear that we are now in no condi-
ton TO open our markets to the free recep-
ton of the manufactures of France and
Great Britain. We cannot consume the
raw produce of the Sandwich Islands
Cuba and Central and South America and
pay Great Britain for bringing them to us,
unless she will take our breadstuffs, provi-
sions and tobacco in return. But she not
only wishes us to do this, but also to take
largely of her manufactures, and of those
of Germany and France also, and pay for
them in California gold. And she is not
satisfied with this unless we will also con-
sent 10 give her the carrying trade growing
out of all this immense traffic, which is
now estimated to pay a profit of over one
hundred millions per annum. The Ameri-
can people are no more willing to do this
now than was the first Napoleon sixty-fiVe
--nnr. arn They are uiIIinn tn trndn and