The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-08-10
LETTERS, TO. THE EDITOR
Free Trade in England.

To the Editor OF the Indianapolis Journal
The more see OF England the more L am
convinced that free trade is exactly the in
dustrial system that her peculiar condition
requires and the less 1 am convinced that
what is good for England is of necessity good
for or applicable to the United States. Eng
land is short of land but rich in labor, and
her great necessity is cheap raw material and
cheap food. Then, as Napoleon put it, the
English are naturally shop-keepers. These
facts, together with the peculiar genius
therein of the English people render protee-
ton here inapplicable and impolitic. Eng
land never did anything halfso wise as in
1874, to abolish her corn laws, but that does
not prove that it would be equally wise in
the United States to abandon protection.
The genius and necessities of nations differ
Bismarck, as a statesman, is certainly notin-
ferior to any Englishman of this century.
No one supposes he did not have the best in
terests of Germany at heart when he deliber-
ately adopted protection. And so with
France. Both of these nations are extreme
ly prosperous, yet both persistently adhere to
protect on, although the English free traders
have thousand times proved to them that
their policy was suicidal. If the main aim
of the United States was to maintain a ia
vored aristocracy, and each year develop to
the utmost a comparatively few very able
men; if she had more labor than land or raw
material, the splendid success of English
free trade would admit of great weight,
as we still look up to her as the mother
country. But conditions almost precisely
the reverse exist in the United States. We
have more land than labor; we can produce
more and cheaper raw material than Eng
land, and we can successfully compete with
her at manufacturing. Infinitely more than
that, our purpose as a nation is the growth of
great masses OF intelligent, self-respecting,
Independent men and women, and the pro-
ductlon OF better type Of working humani-
ty than the old world has yet dreamed of
We aim at the development of the universal
many rather than the individual few.
We are an uncrowned landed democracy.
and that industrial system that will give us
better people out of which to manufacture
a better government "of the people, by the
people and for the people" is our true and
only policy. Hence, we are a law unto our
selves in this matter quite as much so as
when century ago, We turned our backs
upon the old world and constructed gov
eminent to suit ourselves. Henry Clay,
when he called our tariff system. 1.-The
American system" struck the nail exactly
upon the head, Daniel Websters protest. to
the contrary Notwithstanding. We must make
our own tariff and not import it from the
old world. No doubt England's working
people are better off than they were under
the protective system, and their condition is
generally improving. But, at. its best, the
English workingmen are infinitely behind
those of the United States in point of wages
education and social standing while wages
are less and the cost of living as high, and
perhaps higher than with US. l do not at
tribute the present condition of the English
workingmen to tariffs so much as to their
social system. This is an aristocracy. Here
the "power of the people," so called, is the
power of the middle or business classes and
even that power is a new thing, not a CEN
fury DID, and has to make its way against the
traditional reverence that exists for that
mass of gewgaws, stars, ribbons and garters,
nisnamed kings and lords 1t is amazing how
SO thoughtful people worship such second
and third-class men and women. as for two
centuries have and still do. rule over them
under the name of royalty D. P. BALDWIN.