Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-29
MIXING SHOP AND SENTIMENT.

MIXING SHOP AND SENTIMENT.
1t is rather amusing than otherwise to
hear the Trade Congress of Great Britain
and her colOnies-consisting of represen-
tatives from the Chambers of Commerce
of various scities-denouncing the Ameri-
can protection laws for "selishness." A
resolution afixing that epithet to our sys-
tenn was tearfully adopted at yesterday s
session of the Congress in London. The
idea that industries can be built up and
trade advanced either for individuals or
for nations without that special regard to
the interests and circumstances of the
individual or the nation, which is charac-
terized as Selfish has probably
never found Judgment anywhere
excepting in the British Trade Congress
and in this years platform of the Demo-
cratic party. Patriotism was defined by
DR.. Samuel johnson, in a fit Of gloom
doubtless, as "the last refuge of scoun-
drer'-and now we have protection de-
fined as selfishness by those foreigners to
whom the privilege is refused of running
American industries out of American mar
kets that their own may get in.
From this line of talk and from some Of
the twaddle that was lately IN the atmos-
phere at Chicago, one might suppose the
free trade believers both of Great Britain
and OF the United States contemplated a
grand scheme of philanthropy and benev-
olence, to be bounded only by the cor
ners of the earth, in which it was to
be made and provided that no nation
should seek to better itself if thereby it
hurt the feelings or the comfortable situa-
ton of any other nation. This, one might
suppose was to proceed, even to the mag
unanimous extent of closing our own in
dustries to make market for the products
of foreign industry. The people of the
United States, if this beautiful theory had
only been lived up to, would never have
entered upon the manufacture of iron or
steel, or glass or carpets, or Silks-nOt to
talk of tin-because Europeans were at
one time or other furnishing each of these
commodities more cheaply. There was
just one vocation which by consensus of
free trade opinion would have been suit
able for Uncle Sam-that of farmer. As
England has few acres in proportion to
its mouths to feed-and as while it could
multiply its manufactures indefinitely
to meet the wants of the globe, it
could not add single acre to its
area, it would be quite content to take all
it could, the manufactures, and leave to
Uncle Sam, or the Russians, or the East
Indians, so much of the farming as it
conld not itself do for want of room.
1t has been very "selfish" of course to
interfere with this view of things-but
such interference with other peoples ar
rangements is the way of the slowly evo-
luting world in which we live; and what is
more it has so conspicuously been Great
Britain's way that its presentappeal to char
table sentiment must provoke an inter-
national smile. The worst of it is, how
ever, that in place of standing up, by the
free trade they profess to believe in, this
English Congress inconslstently threatens
that it too will resort to protection against
cheap American breadstuffs if the McKin-
ley bill is not repealed This shows
want of principle, lack Of the true
philosophy of benevolence which teaches
against, the doing of evil through spite, or
even that good may come of it
But what is more dismal yet is the re-
Election that even as the matter stands
the threat to bar out American bread
stuffs is not genuine but bold bad bluff
No nation can successfully bar out from
its market what it cannot, itself produce.
Protection can only be applied to the de-
velopment Of home industry. There is
no room for more industry in raising
breadstuffs in England; and if they are TO
be got from the colonies to the exclusion
of American breadstuffs, that means that
the English consumers will have to pay
dearer for them without deriving any i'm
mediate benefit themselves
In word, the United States has got
very much the best of the situation in its
economic system of Protection; and the
criticism and complaints, extraordinary
remonstrances, and sad reproaches of
sentimental sort from good old Mr. Bull
arise after all, it must be remembered,
wholly from the fact that our system does
not suit him, his manufacturers, his mer-
chants or workingmen. But it has not yet
come to pass that the United States is
making laws for the benefit of foreign
countries, nor will that sort of idea be en-
couraged in November.