Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-02-15
THE INsrABILITY OF PROTECTION

The Chattanooga 1rades1iqn is a very
willing though not very able advocate OF
that immense fallacy, protection. In its last
publication the APPEAL is rebuked for
quoting with appreciation, from the New
York Times the proposition that ''the most
prosperous and stable trade has been built
mp where the government has had the least
TO do with directing it." The IFadesman in
reply says the statement is ga falsehood."
The truth of the statement is easily proved.
Where a government builds up a trade by
arbitrary regulations and discriminating
taxation, on the plan of our own protective
sy-t--., that .rado. according to the protec-
tionists' own showing, would die without
them, for they declare that to establish
tariff for revenue only, excluding protection,
would be the ruin of the protected producers
and manufacturers. Assuming this allega-
ton to be correct, as far as protection is the
basis of our trade that trade is unstable, and
should the people become weary of con-
tributing to build up the fortunes of monop-
olists, then the trade they had subsisted upon
would evaporate as the dew. \ trade that
comes itself into being is one of mutual ex-
other its excess, and so each supplying the
others deficiency. Such would be
the case with ourselves and Brazil,
if both, without any government
interference, exchanged coffee and flour. The
exchange would not depend upon govern
ment's opinions, nor even upon a peoples
change of view; it would be based upon
the memorable results of differing climate
and other natural conditions comparative
artificial advantages and disadvantages. The
proposition is therefore true that the less
trade depends upon the mere will OF any
ruling authority, and the more it is of spon-
taneous growth, the more stable it is. The
1rGdesnian abuses the New York Times as if
the correctness OF the controverted statement
depended upon the character OF that paper;
il would be equally correct it if came from
the mouth of the worst convict in the peni-
tertiary. The Times fallaciously refers to
England, to the abiect poverty of its lower
class, to its pitiless taxing to support mo-
nopoly and aristocracy, to its commercial
history Of the two last decades. The Trades
man succeeds no better when citing fact
than when abusing New York newspaper.
If the shameful inequality of conditions that
digraces England had come into existence
since that country adopted the free-trade
system, then there would be ground for argu-
ment in favor of what fraudulently assumes
the name of protection. Such was not
the case. Centuries ago feudalism es-
tablished class, and later on protection |
"a protection that, while it protected |
the aristocrat's rents from his landed estate, |
crushed the working manunder the weight Of |
dear bread by the operation of the corn laws |
protection finished the work William the |
Conqueror and his successors began and sus-
tanned. Since the abrogation of the corn |
laws and the introduction of free trade, the |
British laborer and artisan have lived, on |
the average, on better fare and more of it |
than at any previous time since the corn |
laws were imposed after the final defeat of |
Napoleon Bonaparte. Nothing can be more /
true than that the trade is the soundest and /
most stable that springs up from the nature
OF things, that comes without any especial /
will or intention, but simply because it was
wanted, simply because the common sense Of
man tells him to buy where be can buy
cheapest and sell where he can sell dearest.
The restlessness and apprehension that exists
among the protectionists at this present