Lower coast gazette., 1913-05-03
The Industrial Development of Ma
tons.
TONS.

Ii is quite aprOpOs to the present pOllticO
economic situation In the United States that
Mr.. George B. Curtiss, of Binghamton, New
York, has issued his great work on the Indus.
trial Development of Nations. Not of the phil.
osopheres OF modern times, nor of those more
ancient, ever uttered a greater truism than did
Gen. Hancock in his presidential candidacy OF
1880, when he stated that the tariff question
was a local issue, and there was not necessari-
ly any great or broad principle in it that should
dominate the entire country with an iron
hand, one way or the other. When we reflect
on the fact that no country in modern times
was more dlstlnctlVely protective in all of it's
legal measures concerning trade than was
England, until it's manufacturing industries be-
came so large that they finally acquired more
power than the old conservative, foudal arist0-
cracy of England, and that the repeal of the
duties on food stuffs to cheaper the cost of liv-
ing in England for the good of the English
manufacturers, was the final outcome with the
establishment Of what we now call free trade
England. That is an England which has so
leglslated as to best suit it's productiveness
from its own point of view. When England
controlled the American colonies she allowed
no manufacturing on this side Of the Allan
tic, and endeavored to retain at home all trade
that could be secured by any legislation.
v ll cA1SS tlC WOiluC4lul SuNSCSS VI
England in che peninsulars, wars led Napoleon
Bonaparte to determine that although England
controlled the bulk of the sugar production of
the world in her great colonies, he would en-
courage a home sugar industry by adequate
legislation, and from the effort of Napoleon
Bonaparte a hundred years ago, there has
grown up the great beet-Sugar industry that
produces half OF the sugar supply of the entire
world.
There is no great principle in this excepting
that OF Selt-lnterest. 1t is to the interest of the
natlon, OF the states, OF the countries and OF
the Clues to take care OF and look after the
welfare OF all OF their people. Thomas JET
1erSOn recognized this in his writings and
recommends that in the leyying OF duties to
carry on and to pay for the ordinary expenses
OF government, it was wise to levy such duties
as IN their incidence upon trade would encour-
age the nome production OF the imported arti-
cles. There is such a thing as protection run
mao, When 1t simply PROHIBITS the Importation
OF staples, and there is also such a thing as free
trade run mad, when it destroys great indus
tries that have been built up at home and which
may be destroyed by unfair competition with
cheap capital, or with cheap labor.
Mr.. George B. Curtiss, in publishing his
great work on the Industrial Development of
Nations has taken up the history OF the devel-
0pment OF the leading nations OF the earth and
has shown wherein they possessed certain nat
ural advantages which when availed of, brought
trade to them. He follows this up with a thor
ough consideration OF such legislation as these
nations enacted for the development of their
trade, whether in maritime affairs, in manu-
featuring, or In merchandising. Behind them
all lies the interests of the state or nation itself
and OF the people of the state. Whatever con-
clusion is finally reached by the state or nation,
it is presumed to be based upon a complete
consideration of all of the conditions involved,
whether social, Industrial, maritime, CONNER
clal, or military. From whatever point of view
any given people give fair cognizance to their
environment in this way, the legislation of that
people is effected to suit the situation and to de-
velop the trade of the country.
Mr.. Curtlss, in his consideration of these
matters, has given a historical outline of COM
mercial history from antiquity down to mod
ern-timed and especially to the early times of
England under it's original free trade condi-
tons to the greater modern development from
the middle OF the sixteenth to the middle of the
nineteenth centuries. He then turns to free
trad England in 1916 and to it's effect on the
home industries and to the development of in
dustrles in other European countries where the
conditions were dissimilar to those of England
and yet where the results from a national point
of view have been extraordinarily successful,
although the legislation effected was from a
protectionist's point of view.
Mr.. Curtiss makes careful comparison Of va
rious phases of commercial legislation in the
colonies forming the federal union and since
their organization into the federal union, tax
ing up separately the revenue tariff period from
1884 to 1860, which many of our older readers
will remember included the great panics of
1887 to 1857, with an intervening. era of dis
tress in the states west of the Ohio River that
led to multitudinous issues of so-called shin
plasters" and in the absence of money to the
development of a trade bartering work for
goods or work for work, such as has never been
seen since those days of five or six decades ago.
Mr.. Curtiss then follows the Civil War period
with the great industrial development through
out the country at that time up to 1892 when
it became quite the thing among o politi-
clans to say that protection in any form was
rabbery. The recreation of the trade of the
country under the protective policy adopted
again in 1897 is discussed in full and in this
way, Mr.. Curtiss offers to his readers the COM
pletest digest of the industrial development of
nations and in the industrial development of