Los Angeles daily herald., 1890-01-10

region A grows corn at home for fifty
''shillings with which region B can sup.
"ply 1t at forty. and region B manufac-
"tures cloth at twenty shillings with
(which region A can supply it at fifteen,
"the national wealth of each is dimin.
"ished by the ten and the FIVE shillings
respectively"
This is the keynote of Mr.. Gladstone's
--..rrument for free trade. He believes
that protection is robbery, and that the
only thing that can justify its applica-
ton under any circumstances is the
necessity of raising revenue by govern
ment. He re-affirms statement which
he made years ago, that under free trade
the United States would displace Eng
land in many markets of the world,
although he modifies it by the statement
that while the United States would ex-
ceed England, owing to the almost illim-
liable resources OF the former, the COM
parison being in coal, for instance,
Englsnd's to the United States's So,
yet nevertheless England, though
eclipsed, would be greater and richer
than she is now.
Mr.. Gladstone presents in the follow
ing the hardest nut the Protectionists
. have to crack: "But the view of the
"genuine Protectionist is the direct oppo
"site to this. understand his conten.
r "tion to be that protection is Gas should
"say freedom is) mine of wealth
, "that a greater aggregate profit re-
{ ''sults from what you would call keeping
, "labor and capital at home than from
'letting them seek employment wher
8 "ever in the whole world they can fint
3 ''it most economically. But if this il
, ''really 30, if there be this Unborn fertil
Q city in the principle itself, why are the
: "several States of the Union precludet
}. "from applying it within theil
a "own respective borders? If the sggre
"gate would be made richer by thi;
, ''internal application of protection tt
= "the parts, why is it not go applied
/ son the other hand, if the country as q
"whole would by this device be made
"not richer but poorer, through the in.
q reference with the natural laws of pro-
/ "duction, then how is it that by similar
: Interference the aggregate Of the States.
: "the great commonwealth OF America,
: "can be made. in it's general bslancs
"sheet, not poorer but richer?"
Mr.. Gladstone devotes portion of his
8 consummately able argument to showing
how the enhanced price of protected
staples requires a much larger capital
with which to handle them. He next
, applies himself to proving, to his own
satisfaction, that proposition SO abhorrent
to the Protecticnist, that protection, in
stead of raising the price of labor, lowers
it, putting his postulate in the language,
ga country cannot possibly raise it's
aggregate wage fund by protection, but
''must inevitably reduce it." He explains
the prosperity of theU United States, in spite
of protection, by its unrivaled resources,
and concludes his quite memorable free
trade argument by dissertation on the
immortality of protection.
OF course, we have given mere hint
of the luminous arguments of the "grand
old man." There is a conventional
limit to newspaper article which we
have reached, if we have not exceeded.
His paper is characterized by his old
time acumen, eloquence and perspi-
cacity. In our next issue we shall take
lightning glance at Mr.. Blaine's pre-.
sentiment Of the protection side of the
question.