The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1893-12-14
Clories for Great Britain,


the United States afforded a golden
opportunity for Great Britain from
1888 to 1889. Nearly all the monev
of this country passed into the
pockets of British merchants and
manufacturers AS there was no
Tariff to prevent it, foreign nations
literally poured in upon us their
products of every kind and descrip-
ton in such quantities and at such
prices that our people could not
compete with them. Our domestic
industries were suspended. The
weaver, the shoemaker, the halter,
the saddler, the rope maker, and
many others were reduced to bank
ruptcy; our markets were glutted
with foreign products; prices fell ;
our manufacturers generally were
ruined; our iaborers beggarded; our
merchants insolvent, and our far
mers necessarily followed these
classes into the vortex of general
financial destruction.
Our imports from Great Britain
alone were $50, 100000 in 17S4-S5,
while our exports to Great Britain
were only $4,000, 000-a frightful
balance of trade that was then pro-
portionatelv greater than 1t would
be now. The distress became uni
versal and calamitous. In Con-
necticut, for instance, a State de-
voted to Free Trade in 1892, there
were more than 500 farms offered
for sale for arrears of taxes, which
the owners were too poor to pay.
There was no market for real es-
tate, and debtors who were com
PEELED to sell their lands were ruined,
without paying one-fourth Of the
demands against them. Men uni
versally distrusted each other. The
bonds of men whose competency
should have been unquestioned
could not be negotiated except at
discount of thirty, forty or even
fifty per cent.
Free Trade was the starting
point. 1t was quickly followed by
imports largely in excess of exports;
then by glut of foreign produc-
tions; then by suspension of our
own manufacturers of all kinds:
then by gradual, but complete,
loss of all our specie; then by the
necessary stoppage of most of our
business; then by the enforced idle
ness of our .laborers and artisans;
then by universal debt; then by a
crushing depreciation of real estate;
then by positive inability on the
part of nearly everybody to pay
their debts; then by general dis
tress and financial ruin, and,
finally, by instructions and rebel
lion which threatened destruction
to the life and liberties of the ma
ton.
Lured on by these false doctrines
of political economy, our people had
been drawing closer and closer to
the brink o. individual and nation
al bankruptcy, and consequently
political humiliation; and at last
they stood where another step in
that direction was impossible with
ont plunging into that bottomless
abyss. If they would survive as a
nation there was but one thing for
them to do, or that they could do,
and that was to turn away from
Free-Trade and lay hold on Protec-
ton. They had been educated in
false doctrines of political economy
as taught in England-the most
swinishly selfish system ever formu-
lated by man; and these doctrines
had been so firmly established in
their minds that nothing less than
the bitter school of adversely could
correct and eradicate them. There
are still remnants of this swinishlv
selfish system left. and the sooner
we can eradicate them the better
will it be for the United States.