Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1879-10-17

gress of the United States, is not very
nattering to our national pride, and is
distasteful to those who
have been reposing in the belief that
our fiscal system is perfect, and that
under the benehcent influence Of free
trade, the commerce of the world ought
topaSs through our hands. They may,
indeed, console themselves with the
fact that the first consequence of re-
vival i'm protectionist America has been
to bring orders to our free trade shores,
and the circumstance is certainly one
upon which we may congratulate
ourselves but land there is often as
much virtue in a "but" as in an "if),
we have to take note of another inn
portant fact-that the American
orders are chiefly for raw materials,
such as piglFon, and for articles upon
which the minimum of labor has
been bestowed. Our cousins across
the water do not send their orders to
Sheffield but to Middlesborough.
They take our rails, but they make
their own locomotives. They send for
Scotch pig" in order to work it up in
axes and saws which command a
higher price in our colonies than can
be Obtained for similar articles manu-
featured here. Times have wonder
fully changed from the period when
England could boast of being the
workshop of the world. We are now
content to congratulate ourselves on
our ability to supply raw materials,
while our finished articles remain on
hand. The reflection will, however
it is to be hoped, stimulate our manu-
facturers to MAKE an effort to recover
some of the ground they have lost,
and although they can never hope to
be in a position to compete for the
home trade of the United States, the
world is wide enough for all, and there
vet remains an immense area which
has not been conquered by the peace
full arts, and is available for the ex-
tension of commerce. So soon as it is
clearly perceived that something more
than free trade is requisite to success,
it cannot be doubted that English
enterprise will be at last match for
European rivals, and if we can but
manage to share the available trade
with orr American friends we ought
to be well satisfied, and even become
proud of the circumstance that al
though we have lost large slice of
our own trade it has not ''gOne out Of
the family"
"The time was when what we were
pleased to regard as the "encroach-
ments" of American enterprise on our
manor produced anything but a
Christian feeling in the commercial
mind. Without pretending to any
access of piety since then, we have to
look upon the success of the United
States in different spirit. We need
not hypocritically pretend that we
would not rather have larger slice of
trade than is left to us ; but we can
reconcile ourselves to what cannot be
helped, and agree to regard as honor
able rivals those whom we at first felt
inclined to regard as flibusters.
There is not, perhaps, an Englishman
alive who does not freely and even
proudly sympathize with and con-
graduate the Americans on their
enjoyment of the independence which
they achieved hundred years ago /:
and there is gradually growing up a
feeling that we should in the same
spirit regard them as brothers in all
creditable enterprises, in the hope,
and with q reasonable certainty, that
they will reciprocate the sentiment.
There are ten to one more points of
resemblance than of difference be-
tween us and them, and we should no
more begruge them success in trade
than we should be Jealous of their
cultivation of our common language.
1t will bye and bye become evident
enough that whatever is most benefi,
cial to the one country will ultimately
be the best for the other"