Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-04-02
The English System Tor England The
American System for the United
States

II Free fradc has worked we'll in Eng
land, why may 1t not work we'll in the
United States, l. the sophomoric, confident
exclamation of an American thcorst
The reasons are strong, numerous aud
conclusive, though enough can be stated
in "A few lines. Nothing is more likely to
lead some minds astray than mistaken
or false analogy. Tariff and taxation
policies and methods should always be
adapted to the circumstances, resources,
aud condition Of an independent people.
A system admirably conforming to the
wants and circumstances of one nation.
would not be best adapted to the condition
and interests of another nation. In point
of fact, though called Free Trade coun-
try, In the language of books a. well as of
popular understanding, in reality England
is to-day more of Protected nation than
the United States. When Golden and
Peel led England to adopt her present
tariff policy, what were the pressing needs
of the great majority of the English peo-
plep The English lands could not produce
the necessary amount of food to keep them
from starvation England wished to
keep her people at home. She desired
to develop the resources she had,
and knew that her increasing population
could not live on resources which she did
machinery, capital, She had not the
necessary wheat fields and cattle pastures.
She was compelled To make the most of
the resources of which she had an adc-
people, to protect and make valuable her
vast coal and iron deposits, and to keep
her labor, machinery. skill and capital at
home. Therefore Golden and Peel, and
smaller Interests of the laud-holdcrs in
order to protect the vastly more impor-
tant interests of the owners and workers
of coal and IRON they were compelled To
remove the duties from food supplies.
England has no cotton fields. She must
have American raw cotton. to feed her
mills and make populous and prosperous
her manufacturing towns aud cities. Thus
to admit raw cotton and Il vast quantity of
food supplies from America was q distinct
ireiy proiectjre msaSNFc. Still more, to in
crease and protect home interests, to
maintain her vast manufactures, she must
pay out enormous sums raised
by taxation to substitute foreign
steamship lines, and hundreds of millions
more to maintain her colonial system in
all parts of the world, through which to
sell her goods and to protect her Home
Industries. Hence wars in India, and
expensive interference with the affairs of
Turkey, the seizure of the islands in the
Pacific and other parts of the world. No
other nation on the globe at any age ever
had more protective and paternal
system, which is especially adapted to her
insular situation and her few natural
resources.
But it goes without saying, that the cir
cumstances and position of the United
States are radically different. We have
all the resources within our own borders
which England has ut home. supplemented
by all she can bring from abroad. There
fore our Protective system is aud must be
radically unlike that of England. 1t is
immensely for our interests that we work
our raw material at home, instead of ex-
pending half its value by carrying itacross
the seas, to give our laborers good pay. to
build mills, towns, and cities, to work
our one hundred and forty thousand miles
Of railroad in the transport of our home
commerce, and to supply the vast demands
Of our home markets, which British greed
is so very DESTROYS to gain possession of.
and which the Golden Club and American
Free Trade theorists maintain would be
so decidedly English, you know"