The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-12-22

only when she could no longer raise
food enough for her people and wanted
that food admitted free of duty. Now
she wants to steal into our markets and
sell her manufactures, and the Demo
Gratis are doing all in their power to help
her.
The history of this country is proof
that pro ection pays. In times of par
tial free trade we haYe had panics and
failures and suffering; under protection
we have prospered. Is proof wanted?
You find it in that prosperity that has
prevailed under the Mckinley law. You
find it in the depression caused by the
fear that this Congress will wipe out our
protective laws. You find it in the
cities that dot the happiest and best
country in the world. You find it in
good wages, contented citizens, good
schools and happy homes.
England adopted free trade in 1858,
and since that time 5,149,S9 British and
Irish immigrants have come to this
country. This extraordinary exodus,
largely of adult workingmen. from Great
Britain to the United States of more
people than now dwell in the Canadian
Dominion, or in Australia or in Ireland,
cannot be ascribed to anything else than
either the home expressions of free trade
or to the attractions emanating from a
protective tariff, and the joy of deter
mining which has been most potential
in the movement may be left to the thick
and-thin philosophers of a tariff for
revenue only" 1t may help them to re-
member that no tracks of returning
hOmesick emigrants from America have
ever Eeen discovered. Yet some people
b. eos, la, Co,
us. Let her first make laws for herself
that will keep her people at home. Let
her first feed the paupers in her cities,
who are coming to this country in one
unceasing stream to get food in a pro-
tected country.
England has, according to the last
census, 945,G ,GS6 paupers; the United
States has 66,57S. Thus British pauper-
ism, notwithstanding our nearly twice
the population, is nine times greater than
that of the United StaLes. This is our
modest contrast with the chronic pau
perism Of Great Britain, which has been
graphically described by member of
Mr.. Gladstone's cabinet as follows, st
is an awful fact-it is really not short of
awful--that in this country, with all its
wealth, all its resources, all its power,
40 per cent, that is to say, nearly one
half of the persons who reach the age of
60 are, or have been, paupers." Is there
any party here ambitious to follow this
ill-starred track which marks the homes
and highways of free trade?
One hundred years ago the United
States were poor, few in numbers, with
only stinted household manufactures,
and no industries of any notable account
save in agriculture. Great Britain,
drawing well-relished nutrition from the
breasts of her colonies, was then already
conspicuous in its national power, its
accumulated wealth and its eXportable
manufactures. 1t had conquered India,
and had been, with our help, victorious
over France in Canada. After century
of commercial progress the wealth of
Great Britain has been estimated at S20,-
0O,000,000 less than that of the United
States. which our census of 1890 states at
$62, 100000 000 Do these facts indicate
any economic blunder on our part that
should suddenly teach us to reform our
national revenue policy by an exchange
for that of the country we have left so
far behind in the national racep
England has some wealth, it is true,
but she laid its foundation under pro-
lection.
In Great Britain no wage-earner ever
rises to be an employer of wage
earners. In the United States it is a
common occurrence, and almost the rule,
that the head or business manager of
any industrial company has risen from
the ranks of practical manual labor.
The biographies of our captains of in
dustry, when we look alOft in the history
of the American people, shine forth as
abundantly as the stars of the milky way.
Free trade, with only fine words to wage
earners, wears the air of aristocratic
condescension, but protection helps
with love like brother.
Already free trade is dying in Great
Britain. for her people are beginning to
think. 1t is diving and no laborer viii
weep over its grave.
We need prOtection-need it to give