Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-05-20
FREE TRADE "BoUR soNIsM n

A San Francisco journal which some-
times discusses Free Trade without com
pretending it, has made a remarkable dis
covery, namely, that "outside of the
" schools the chief advocacy of Free Trade
comes from the Bourbons of the press
and of Congress" Most people probably
did not know before that the New York
Nation, Times, EceniHg Post, the Chicago
Tribune, the Boston AdUertiSer, the Cincin-
natl Gazette, and many other journals Of
supposed liberal and advanced views,
representative "Bourbonism" of the press.
Our contemporary, however, has made this
discovery, and at the same time has ascer-
tanned to its own satisfaction that Adam
Smith, Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, Profess
or Fawcett McCulloch, Professor Sumner,
David A. Wells, and company, are old
fogies, and obsolete doctrinarisns, and
that Ben Butler, Henry Carey, and such
distinguished economists, are the only re-
liable lights in this connection. Our con-
temporary, however, fairly overflows with
wonderful discoveries. Here is another
fitst-class find" 20 In school and at col
lege nearly everyone who has any posi-
"tive opinions on the subject is a free
trader, while in the busy world
"outside almost everyone who has
@ acquired practical knowledge
" bearing on economic questions and is not
personally interested in foreign commerce
''may be set down as protectionist.
This is singular, if true. But is it
true? At school and in college it is usually
sought to instill correct principles. These
principles are necessarily based upon &C
tual experience. Neither Adam Smith nor
John Stuart Mill evolved their conclusions
from their imaginations. They first ascer-
tanned the facts, and then drew their in.
ferences from them. Political economy
does not consist of 81 abstract propositions,
as our contemporary appears to suppose.
If, therefore, free trade principles are of
character to appeal with irresistible force
to the unbiased mind, it must be because
their demonstration is convincing. And it
would be amazing indeed if the student
whose opinion had been formed by close
observation of actual phenomena should
on going into the world find that these
phenomena were somehow entirely different
from their former appearance. In truth,
however, the student finds no such change
Every intelligent man who has been well
grounded in economic principles is and re-
mains an advocate of free trade. Every
unprecedented and educated man mrst
be an advocate of free trade. For what is
the converse of such a position? Obvi-
ously, belief in hampered and restricted
trade. Is that an advanced view? Is
that view of which an intelligent repub-
Gcan need not be ashamed? Is the propo-
sition that it is better to fetter trade than
to have it free, rational and an enlight-
ened one The fact is that Protection is
Bourbon to the core. 1t is on the same in
tellectual plane with religious intolerance,
with press censorship, with sumptuary
laws, with slavery. And any advocate of
that medieval policy who is simple enough,
like our contemporary, to admit that
''in school and in college nearly every one
sis free trader, thereby gives away the
whole of his case. Protection is a system
by which the few are enabled to rob the
many, by first deceiving them. 1t has no
economic justification and no moral de-
tense. 1t will last no longer than the
period necessary to educate the American
people to a full perception of the manner
in which they are plundered and oppressed
under it.
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