New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1903-12-02

the economic and philosophic kind. The changes
have been rung on the dismal science" making
Il more and more dismal with each plangent
note. We have been assured that political
science is an exact science. and that the laws Of
trade and the tariff. especially. are precise and
invariabe. regardless of time, place circum-
stance. wherefore. if any one transgresses or
makes an exception to the principles laid down
by Smith or Mill or Golden or whom not, let
him be anathema, anathema marantha.
He has sinned against the eternal verities. as
though ne had made variations the multi
plicatiOn table insisted that the square Of the
hypothenuse was not equal TO the sum or those
OF the base and perpendicular After all OF
which Mr.. StanwOod is 10 be welcomed For
he ventures. despite the portentous taboo of
the Prophets of Dismaldom, 10 treat the tarin
from the natural, practical, human point OF
view. To him il is not much 4 matter of the
nth powers Of X Of sines and logarithms and
indeterminates, IL is of ordinary everyday
business Instead therefore of cropping blindly
ST. the dark he walks with eyes wide open in
the light Of day: seeing things as they are and
not dreaming Of them they might. could,
would should be in some paulopost future Of
q speculative millennium.
Why not? SO far as we have observed. tariff
laws have been made and administered, not by
Brooding Buddhas, even by professors of
political economy, but by practical POLITICIANS
and men of affairs. Even the distinguished man
who gave 10 Great Britain that sacrosanct
fetch upon which some of the ablest of British
statesmen are just now laying iconoclastic
hands was a particularly thrifty of affairs.
AS for our American tariffs, which are most to
the present point. the one which came nearest to
being the work Of a professor Of political econ
ony succeeded only in being characterized by
the highest Of authorities a thing of perfidy
and dishOnor. In this not, Of course,
casting any unfavorable reflections upon pro-
fessors OF political economy. upon their erudition
their practical sense. They are worthy OF
high respect and it is to be observed that they
themselves confirm our view Of the nature Of
tariffs. by taking. some Of them the Protection
ist and some the Free Trade side. The present
author Mr. Stanwood, is himself a of ripe
academic scholarship. We are simply insisting
that tariffs are not twentieth century editions
OF Median and Persian laws forever immutable,
and that they arc not mathematical or chemical
formulas. ntrinsicaIly infallible and unalterable
without disaster; but they means to end.
variable according TO circumstances. and are
thus to be framed, modified. adapted and APP
piled by men Of practical intelligence and cur
rent observation.
It is in some such spirit that Mr.. Stanwood
has addressed himself 10 the task of telling the
story Of American tariff controversies The
controversies which h. has in mind are those of
Congress rather than Of the classroom. He has
given a history, not philosophical disquisi-
tion and history from the political industrial
and commercial rather than from the academic
point OF view He tells US what Presidents and
Secretaries recommended, and what Congresses
enacted, and what the results upon the
practical interests of the people. II he seems to
devote most space and attention to the Presi-
dents, Secretaries and Congresses. that is be-
cause they have been the chief protagonists in
lie century long controversy. Tariff contro-
versies have been. and are TO this day, for the
most part political, and not only political, but
partisan. Political parties have been formed
with the tariff the prime line Of demarcaton
between them. Tariff laws have been made
PARTISAN measures. and enacted under the crack
OF the party whip men voting for this that
schedule, not scientific principle nor from
profound moral conviction-indeed, sometimes
contrary 10 the latter-but for the sake Of 'regu-
larity" and obedience to the party caucus. New
ertheess, Nj. StanwOod does not slight the in
dustrial commercial and fiscal phases of the
story. He presents them with admirable fulness
and lucidity. and, so far as his work is argu-
mentatve, bases thereon his stHngest reason
ing. II is an interesting coincidence that at the
very time Of the appearance Of his book the
greatest two commercial countries in the world
revolutionary, tariff controversies. Great Brit
ain is for the first time in fifty years prac-
tically considering the abandonment OF academic
free trade and the adoption Of a practical tariff
system, suited not 10 theories but to actual con-
dltions, and seems likely TO make the change.
The United States is considering the establish
ment OF that logical extension of protection
known as reciprocity, and is also likely to make
that change, or advance. But what is particu-
larly noticeable is that in both cases the contro
versy is conducted practical rather than
theoretical lines Men are arguing not so much
that this that plan agrees with or contra
diets this or that dictum of the schools but that
its execution will have this that effect upon
manufactures and commerce and wages and the
cost OF living. Above all, 1t is recognized that
what is country's meat may be another
country"s poison, and that what was good in the
middle Of the nineteenth may not be good in
the beginning Of the twentieth century.
Mr. Stanwood also displays IN a high degree
The quality. essential and supreme in a historian
OF impartial judgment. We do not mean that
his attitude toward the tariff controversy is that
OF neutral We should not have much esteem
for the work OF man who had no positive con-
victiOns on one side or the other As a matter
OF fact Mr.. Stanwood is, as is well known and
as he frankly avows, an earnest believer in the
protectionist system. His book is written from
the point Of view Of a protectionist It is not
however. special plea for protection but an
honest endeavor to set forth the truth and the
whole truth on both sides of the question. Some
eminent free traders have been wont TO begin
their discussion Of tariff matters with the
automatic premise that protection is a breach
Of the moral law. and that protectiopist
Sc Of necessity either a knave or fool upon
has