The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-29

PROBABLY the most effective argument that
can be used against any statement is to
charge the man who made it with being
When Daniel Webster made his argument in
the Dartmouth College case he was 'hired,"
and. therefore, what he said should, by the
new school of ethics, count for nothing.
The free traders and tariff forrevenue-only"
people dismiss all the facts which Mr..
Robert P. Porter adduces as to the condition
OF English workingmen by denouncing him
as 'hired" by the New York Tribune, for
which paper he has written his observations
in England, Scotland and Wales. We pre-
sumo all the able ree-traders work and write
for nothing, simply for the pure love of the
thing; and, therefore, what they say should
not be put into juxtaposihon with anything
a horrid "hired' man may write. This is
the afsectation of the dude. 1t makes no
difference whether the man be "hired" or
whether he writes for nothing the question
is as to the truth and relation of what he
asserts and reports Awriter in the Chicago
Tribune calls Mr.. Porter "a hired witness, )"
and charges him with falsehood in his repre-
sensations of the condition of European
working people, and then says:
Born and reared among the working
classes of England, my boyhood was spent in
London during the years of the free-trade
agitation. was twenty years old when the
free-trade policy was adopted, and the pro
lection" antiquity discarded forever l have
a vivid recollection of the social and moral
condition of the working classes during the
period when the protective" system OPP
pressed the industry of Great Britain. After
a thirty years residence in America, / re-
turned to England short time ago and
could scarcely recognize the people, SO great
was their improvement under the operation
of the enlightened system of free trade"
This is the unsupported assertion of one
who does not even give his name as a guar
anty of good faith, and as to whose compe-
tence or opportunity for observation we know
nothing, except that he was only twenty
years of age when he saw the operations of the
protective system. Mr.. Henry Fawcett, who
has made life study of the question, and
whose work on political economy is a text
book in schools and colleges-himself free
trader, says: 'sFhe increase of our national
prosperity has, as yet effected no correspond
ing improvement in the condition of the
laboring classes" and the London
Times, in recent discussion of free trade,
says: "The United States do not approach
the question from the same point of view as
ourselves. The object of their statesmen is
not to secure the largest amount of wealth
to their country generally, but to keep up
the standard OF comfort among the laboring
classes" Against the absurd illogical and
unsupported assertion of the anonymous
correspondent of the Tribune we place the
carefully made statement of Prof. Fawcett
and the suggestive concession of the London
Times We are quite certain the vast
majority of American workingmen are much
more interested in their individual and per-
sonal comfort than they are in the general
wealth of the country. Free trade according
to Prof Fawcett and the London Times, con-
tributes to the latter, while the American
system of protection contributes TO and
maintains the former. The Republican party
of the United States is for the individual