The San Francisco call., 1907-02-24
Harold Bolce breaches Against
the Protective Tariff

HrotectloniStS Will take serious ex.
ception to Harold Bolces book '"The
New Internationalism.' and free trad
ers will find in 1t a promise of the COM
mercial millennium. Both sides will find
this exposition of trade conditions good
material and the reader who has moth
ing of either politics or economies will
be Informed and entertained by con-
sideration of the mass of facts here
analyzed and compared. Irrespective
Of deductions the statistician may have
perfect debauch with Mr.. Bolce's
book. Each paragraph teens with in
formation facts, dates and figures.
In the 0rst chapter, uildeFa9he rather
poetic caption The Already of Nam
mon.H Bolce announces:
The New Internationalism rapidly
welding the world into an economic
unit, is not utopian- It is nothing less
than financial and commercial ANAL
gamation of the units There is moth
ing anaemic in the programme, nor is
there anything aitruistic. The men
who are inaugurating It are not poets.
They carry their faSorite book in an
inside pocket, and the quotations with
which they are most familiar trip
through ticker. Plato to most of
them would be of far less consequence
than a company's prospectus"
Noting specifically some of the men"
engaged in the worlds greatest eco
nomic innovation" the writer says that
one Of the leaders, James ]. Hill. has
conquered more territory with a
coupling pin than Caesar did with a
sword. and adds: This new master Of
money and domain. realizing that bust
ness knows no boundaries-that the
world, commercially and financially, is
ready for unifcation-has merged
European gold with American genius
and Oriental opportunity, and thereby
transformed the industrial life of half
a continent and multiplied the profits
and dividends of three"
According to Mr.. Bolce the great in
ternational movement is still in it's
swaddling clothes because, as he as
serts, only in the past year or two the
new gospel of trade has rewritten the
foreign policy of eight leading nations
OF the old world. With these basic
statements Mr.. Bolce develops his argu-
ment by massing the facts of CONNER
ciaI achievements and by showing the
way by which they came. but the while
he is sounding notes OF warning to the
pat and taking no. account of the
worlds commercial progress, well sat
ished with what calls the great
American religion, the tariff.
The Boer government is cited as a
modern example of the proposition that
no nation can live unto itself The
judgment OF Washington and John
Adams is cited on the location of ship
ping centers TO show how the world
has outgrown the things once held to
be the final expression of fact. Mr..
Bolce endeavors to add proof of his
contention by noting Napoleons mis-
take In using the census as an esti-
mate OF peoples strength. The re-
cent war between Japan and Russia
furnishes proof" to him Of a signih-
cant progress. OF the United States,
Mr.. Bolce says:
But now prosperity has piled up
so high that II is running over into
the sea The tariff wall can no longer
contain this continent. 1t is the part
Of wisdom, therefore. to build trade
gates and get them down toward the
level of International traffic"
The chapter on international adj
vance is calculated to make an Ameri-
can strut until he comes to the record
of old world progress For example,
the growth of Chicago and New York
are noted. but, according to Mr.. Bolce,
Berlin has been growing at the same
rate for sixty years. In 1868 some
Japanese. who had just acquired two
Occidental anchors, had to call upon
Americans in port to show them how
TO lift them from the mud, while today
Japan, says Mr.. Bolce, has greater
merchant marine on the Pacific than
America has on all the seven seas"
The author does not disparage
American progress, and, speaking OF
transportation, says what every one is
learning nowadays by annoying ex-
perience that freight cars cannot be
built fast enough to haul the harvests
from the farms or the finished goods
from the factories. But, he adds, "a
similar condition prevails in Europe"
In q chapter on "Reprisals and
ternationalism that prompted tho
United States to step into Cuba" He
says that the news of the Lisbon
earthquake In 1855 was three weeks
reaching London, while that of San
Francisco was caught In midair al
most Immediately by the Marconi operS
ators, giving men on board ocean liners