The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1888-05-11
1856 WATERLOO ROAD,

100 w lNbADg 7
LONDON, ENGLAND, March 2S, 1888. !
Serrrtdry Home Nartci Club, Boston:
DEAR SIR:-Thanksfo for the papers you
have sent me. | was in America for
about two months last summer, sent
over by our association, to see for my
self whether the working classes OF your
country are better Off under protection
than we are under free trade, and the
conclusion l came to was this:
That any person who has to earn liy-
ing in America Us a producer must tirst
become crazy before he becomes free
trader, and the farmers must be the
craziest OF the whole lot to think OF such
thing. Before any of your working
men leither engaged in manufacturing
or agriculture) talk about free trade, let
them send one Of their number over
here to see what it is doing for this conn
try; let him walk about for six months
looking for job, until his coat gets rag
ged and his shoes gets thin, and he gets
thinnest OF all, and everywhere he asks
for work he will be told that the Ger
mans and Belgians are doing the work
cheaper than he can do it; then let them
send for him home again, and hear what
he says about free trade.
II II is the surplus revenue that is
causing the trouble, send it to some free
trade country. You never knew them
to have a surplus; or, if you don't like to
do that, take it out to sea and sink it, or
bury it, or burn it, or do anything in
fact rather than adopt free trade; that is
to say, if you do not want foreign COM
petition to ruin your manufacturing in
drstries, and by so doing ruin your
farmers by robbing them OF their home
market. Yours truly,
II. ]. PETTIFER,
electro Plate Worker, Secretary Work
mans Association for Defense OF British
Industry.
Intelligent men from this country,
whowere acquainted with the conditions
and means Of living of the workers here,
have printed volumes of convincing tes-
after investigating the wages,
living and circumstances oflaboringmen
in England and Germany. "All this
testimony" says the New York Tribune.
sis but cumulative in value, in view OF
the tide Of immigration which sets in
ever-swelling flood toward these shores
from free trade countries. When half
million or more OF workers come every
year from such countries to this, it is no
longer an experiment or an accident.
1t is because they have learned, through
n host Of friends who have preceded
them, what opportunities Of labor are in
this country, and by patient and pinch
ing economy have at last gathered money
enough to escape from free trade slavery
by immigrating to a land where labor is
In this connection the Tribune prints
an article by Emil schalk on the logic
of protection, which makes very happy
addendum to the above. Mr.. sChalk
says:
Protection in every form, in its fullest
lutduluSt hppllGu W tNGAg olhNl0 VI nv
is the distinguished feature of civiliza-
ton. Without protection society and
cannot exist; barbarism, saw
age life, the life OF brute, alone pre-
walls. Protection is the slow-working
agency which gradually lifts man to
higher planes ofciviliZation. 1t reduces
the dangers and chances in the struggle
for life. Society charges itself with
the individual against dangers
and difficulties by which he may be
beset. In the natural state each indi-
vidual has to fight hunger and thirst, the
inclemencies OF climate and weather,
and his mortal enemies besides, who
are ever plotting his destruction.
1t is by means Of protection that
the life OF man differs from that
OF the animal; for protection is the TO-
suit OF mans highest intellect, OF his
faculties Of reflection and forethought.
We build houses to protect ourselves by
day and night from the inclemencies Of
the weather. We make clothes to suit
the season, now to shield us from the
scorching rays OF the sun, and then TO
protect us against the freezing winds OF
the North. cultivate fields and erect