The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1898-08-03
COLONIES AND FREE TRADE.

The London correspondent of the New
York Tribune. writing about English
views of American affairs, says, rega d
ing the policy to be pursued towards
prospective colonies;
This is not the open door, principle
which England has applied to her col
| ONES ana dependencies, where foreign
! shlpoWnerS and merchants have been
admitted on equal terms with Eng
, lands shipowners and merchants to
! all tae privileges of commercial inter
! course It will be simply an application
| OF american policies which have been
! satisfactorily tested whenever there
! has been an enlargement of the nation
| al domain of the United States All
foreign merchants viii be upon an
equal footing, but there will be free
trade between the new territories and
the American Union, and discrimina-
tons in favor of the American coast
wise trade. The new possessions will
not be colonies, but internal points of
the American Union.
Any colonies the United States might
have would come under our tariff pol
icy, probably, whatever it might be,
while all foreign nations would be ac-
corded the same treatment. But it is
an error TO suppose that any tariff pol
icy can possibly assimilate the econom-
ic conditions of tropical islands, wheth-
er in the Caribbean sea or in the far
Pacific on the borders of the China sea,
to those existing in this country. The
tendency would be TO assimilate eco
nomic conditions in this country to
those existing in the tropical islands.
Particularly would this be so in the
case of the wages paid laboring men.
for the reason that the cost of produc-
ton of everything tends to the mini
mum. The natural conditions in the An
titles and the Philippines are so much
more favorable for the production of
certain articles that they would all
come from there, were they our colo
MES.
1t is favorite argument with the i'm
perialists that one of the greatest bene-
fits to be derived from the annexation
of SPANS captured colonies is the free
trade that it would give this country
with them; this London correspondent |
puts it forth. But to have free trade |
it is not necessary to have colonies. |
Great Britain has colonies, and her own /
policy is that of free trade, but she does |
not have free trade with all her colo
MES by any means. Could the United |
States be less liberal in this respect
than Great Britain?
1t is absolutely certain that with the
annexed, for example, that
this country would have free trade
with them? Is it not possible that we
might revamp some OF those old En-
glish ideas about the rights of colonies
and the home government, those ideas
which held that it was the right of the
mother country TO send any and every
thing into the colonies. but that it was
not a reciprocal right? Already some
are inclined to take this view when it
comes to the free movement of Chinese
between this country and our new ac-
IuisltiOn, the Hawaiian islands. When
| country begins to abandon the tradi-
ions which have guided it for a CEN
ury and more, and to adopt policies
hat are at variance with those tradi-
ions, it means an entirely new inter-
oretation of the country's fundamental
aw that the new conditions, the alien
may appear to be in har-
nony with it.
If We had a system of policies. we
night have free trade with them and
We might not. Nations no more than
Individuals can tell where Asw Ana I'M
,nown paths will lead to.