The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1880-11-17
THE FOLLY OF PROTEs TION.
The EngIish Thunherer On Tarim tn
the United states.

The hope that the United States may
some day or other be clear-sighted
enough to discard protection, and to give
and receive the enormous mutual all
yantages which a free-trade policy would
bring with it, has been so often raised
and disappointed that our manufacture
and political economists are not easily
10 be reused to state of active expec-
tation on the subject. The day, they
well know, must come when the United
states, after a series of pernicious mis-
takes, will at length blunder into the
, truth. The balance between opposed
interests will not always be maintained
steadily. Free trade will work its way
from one point to another, until in due
time it is victorious along the whole
line. But when this is to happen is a
question on which few persons willven.
ture to pronounce confidently. They
will be content with watching the pro-
gress of events, and with noting each
occurrence which seems to bring the
final result nearer or to remove it to an
Unreasonable distance than before. In
the calculations of chances there are
one ortwO assumptions which have been
pretty generally made and accepted.
The Democratic party has been set
down as favorable to free trade; the
Republican party as hostile to it. The
solid South has always been reckoned
on the free trade side. The Western
States are known to he as yet uncOn-
WINGED, but their interests are so clearly
i'm the same direction that il is hoped
they will be early converts. The man
centers are prOtectionists, of
course, and prOtectiOnists they are like
to continue. All that can be expected |
about them is that, here and there,
some special interest will split Off from
the rest, as the Boston and New York |
shipping interest has lately shown signs
of doing. But when We are "a far as |
this, and when we have fancied our |
selves on firm ground thus far. we re-
ceive from more than one quarter an
unpleasant notice of the doubtfulness of
our whole footing. The Democratic |
for the Presidency, General
Hancock, issues IA circular expressing
sympathy with the policy which has
kept Americans from having to COM
pete with the labor of Europe, and de-
claring that all talk about free trade is
folly. The Boston Shipping Conven-
ton, after "a long debate, adopts the
view that American shipping ought to
he bolstered up by subsidies, inasmuch
as the protective system is the best for
the United States. Lastly, letter,
signed "H. S. S." published this morn
ing, seeks to rob us of all belief i'm the
South and of all hope about the West.
The Southern States, he declares, are
rapidly becoming protectiOnist. The
Republican party intends very shortly
to build them in the general protective
system by the imposition of protective
duties on what they produce as on what
they consume. The great Western
States, have, he says, favored the policy
of protection and will continue to do so.
They prefer assured home markets and
home consumers to the uncertain de-
mand which reaches them from this
side the Atlantic. IfPennsylvania will
buy corn from them, they will submit
to be taxed for the benefit of the Penn
sylvanian ironmasters. Their fear seems
to be that if they cease to he thus docile,
Pennsylvania and its irOnmasters and
all the rest of its inhabitants will run
away in body, and that there will be
no one left nearer than England to buy
their agricultural products from them.