The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1894-09-08
vIcIousNEss OF PROTECTION.
Secretary Morton Says Its the Death
Of Foreign Trade.

Press the following interview on the
new tariff law:
'Some American statesmen ex-
press great fear of free trade, as
though it would compel our citizens,
age .st their wishes. to buy com
modities, products, exclusively from
foreigners. Free trade, however,
does not force any one to trade, eth
er with foreigners or anybody else.
1t does not even suggest trade be-
tween two Americans or anybody
else. But it righteously permits
the American citizen to trade when
ever and wherever he may find it, in
his judgment, to his interest to trade.
THE natural rights of man are
few. He is born, however, with the
right to life, the right to liberty and
the right to enjoy the earnings of
his person. These natural rights
were recognized by the race while
yet in a state of barbarism. Emery
ing from savagery, the right to life,
liberty and property, which had
been maintained by each barbarian
for himself, was recognized as wor-
thy of conversation by all men for
each man. Thus, from natural
rights, civilization evolved law to
preserve life, liberty and property in
each by the power of all. But a pro
tective tariff McKinleyism) tram
Piles upon the natural right of per-
son to enjoy his own earnings and
then exchange them unrestrictedly
in the worlds markets for those
things which he most desires.
Legitimate trades are naturally
advantageous. Each man, woman
and child IN the United States is
every day practical out-and-out
free-trader. Each one buys where
one can buy cheapest and sells
where one can sell dearest. Trade
between a merchant and his custo-
mer continues just so long as it is
found mutually advantageous. AS
long as the customer gets genuine
goods and the merchant gets genu
inc money, each in quality and
quantity sufficient to give satisfac
tion, trade fourishes between them.
But if the customer finds goods
which he boys deteriorated, or the
merchant discovers that his custo-
mer pays him money of doubtful
value or fails to meet his bills, trade
ceases. Bad trade always stops it.
self and mutually profitable trade
always perpetuates itself
"Englishmen sell to Americans,
Americans sell to Englishman just
as long as the interchange of goods,
products or commodities is found to
be mutually profitable. Whenever
John Ball feels cheated, or Brother
Jonathan feels swindled, trade be-
tween them ends
prior to the protective tariff,
there was a large and growing trade
between England and the United
States. Because it was growing it
must have been mutually profitable.
Then protective tariff was enacted
to repress or destroy trade which
was mutually profitable, and which
could not have existed and grown if
it had not been mutually profitable.
A protective tariff is device to
prevent profitable international com
merce 1t enslaves American buy
ers and sellers.
"Fhe tariff bill which has Just
passed Congress is more favorable
to liberty than the act which it re-
pealed. The new act is not as much
a restoration of freedom to commerce
as may be wished for. But in the
aggregate it reduces tariff taxes
more than did either the Morrison
bill or the Mills bill. just as life
in summer is more beautiful and en-
joyable among the sunlit hills and
fragrant forests of the country than
it is in the heated confines and
among the massive walls of city,
so commerce and manufacture are
healthier and stronger the greater
and broader the markets and the lib
erty which law bestows upon them.
Competition is the life of trade.
A protective tariff shuts out foreign
competition. Therefore. protect
i've tariff is the death of foreign trade.
Under it American consumers be-
come slaves to the protectees.
ga slave is one whose earnings
are, under the forms of law, taken
from him without his consent and
appropriated by another. Before
the war the negro in the Southern
States was 100 per cent, slave, be-
cause his master appropriated all of
his earnings. Since the war buyers
and sellers ell over the United States
have been the slaves of those to
whom the monopoly of the Ameri-
can market has been guaranteed by
protective tariff.
"But the protectionists-masters
of the buyers and sellers-have ex
torted only 76 to 80 per cent of their
earnings. Therefore, American
farmers and wage earners have often
lacked but 25, and sometimes only
10 per cent of being as much slaves
as the negroes we're before the war.
"Protection created a dulocracy.
Tariff reform DEGREES emancipation
to agriculture, commerce and manu-
facture. Before another generation
there will be a contamination eff alb