high duties. The practical effect of this, then, is, that the consumers are prevented by governmental interference from buying cheap. This seems to be a very singular effect for government to aim at, because individual wisdom always suggests the idea of buying cheap. All men of ordinary sagacity, in the management of their private affairs, invariably endeavor to buy cheap. Individuals who would act upon a different principle would be considered fit subjects for a commission de lunatiquo inquirendo. Now, it is very strange that laws should be made by government to prevent men buying cheap. If it be wise for individuals to buy cheap, why is it not wise for the whole nation to buy cheap? The very first step of the protectionists seems to be founded in a negation of the universal practice and experience of mankind in their individual relations.

It is sometimes denied that protective duties increase the price of the home product. But there can be no dispute upon this point, for, unless the protective duties increase the price of the home product, what is the use of the duty? There is no other possible mode in which the duty can operate in favor of the home producer, except by increasing prices. If it does not accomplish this effect, then the duty is inoperative. But the tenacity with which the protectionists cling to the duty shows that it is efficacions. If the duty on the foreign product does not increase the price of the home product, then there can be no objection to reducing or abolishing the duty. But the opposition to reduction of duty on the part of the home producer, whose only object is high prices, demonstrates the effect produced. Higher prices for the home product implies the expenditure of a greater amount of labor to accomplish the same purpose, for labor is the true measure of value. If it be considered wise to waste labor, then the policy of compelling the consumer to buy at a higher price from the home producer is defensible; otherwise, it is not. The very civilization we enjoy is the fruit of labor-saving appliances. If we are superior to the barbarians, it is because we can accomplish more by our labor than they can. The highest development of society is the accomplishment of the greatest results with the least labor. It is for this reason that the great discoveries in the arts and sciences, magnifying to an almost incalculable extent the productive powers of human labor, have conferred such vast benefits on mankind. Strike from existence our labor-saving discoveries, our steam-engines, our railroads, our magnetic telegraphs, our innumerable laborsaving appliances, and we have relapsed into barbarism. The saving of labor is not merely the genius of civilization, but civilization itself. Any policy, then, by which this hu

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manizing process of saving labor is abridged, is not merely a pause in the onward movement of society, but a step backwards. The protective policy, then, as raising prices to the consumer, which is the same thing as requiring more labor to accomplish a given result, and thus, as attacking the problem of saving labor, is antagonistic to the great social progress of the civilized world.

Again: the protected forms of industry are either profitable or unprofitable. If they are profitable, they do not need protection; if they are unprofitable, they do not merit it; for the idea of legislating to turn capital into unprofitable channels. in this country is, of all absurdities, the greatest. Look at our country, a vast continent, extending from one great ocean to another great ocean, resting on the south upon the great American gulf, and on the north upon a chain of vast lakes, with every variety of soil and climate, a vast portion of it in its virgin condition, only needing development, and promising in its development the richest returns. Does it not seem, when such vast fields of production-in commerce, in agriculture, in mining-lay inviting before us, that of all things in the world we need not hunt out and legislate to force unprofitable pursuits? In no country in the world is there such an extended field for the application of capital and labor productively as in our country. Then why not let capital and labor take spontaneously their natural direction? Why strive to force them by governmental action into barren channels? In this connexion we would allude to a great fact, which should never be lost sight of, that the protective policy does not increase capital; it only gives a new direction. The capital remains the same after you have passed your protective laws as it did before; you only force it into new directions. If by your legislation you could increase the capital of the country, then there might be some reason for your legislation; but as all your laws do not increase by a single dollar the amount of capital, how futile are your efforts for good!

The popular fallacy on which the protective policy rests is the encouragement of home industry. It is true you may build up certain forms of industry, but, in doing so, you have done it at the expense of other forms of industry. If, for instance, you have developed the woolen manufacture by high duties and raising the prices of woolen goods, you have done so at the expense of the other industrial classes which consume those woolens; for you have compelled them to give a higher price for their woolens; and to the extent of this enhanced price, you have discouraged them in their industry. The most effectual protection of home industry is to let every form of industry attain its most profitable results. This you can

only do by permitting freedom of exchanges. Then every form of industry exchanges its fruits to the best advantage, and consequently derives the most profit.

Protection does not increase the rate of wages, and this from a very obvious reason, because the competition among the protected forms of industry prevents profits from remaining permanently higher than the average rate of the profits of capital in the country generally; and therefore the wages in the protected forms of industry cannot be higher than the ordinary wages of the country. The facts in reference to wages in the protected forms of industry in this country bear out the theoretical proposition laid down upon the subject; for, as is well known to all who are familiar with this branch of the subject, the wages of manufacturing laborers is in no degree above the average wages in other forms of industry. It is a singular fact, that while we hear so much on this point of protecting American industry, no one, not even the most jealous protectionist, has taken any exception to the free introduction of foreign labor. That is foreign competition by the very firesides of our laboring classes. Their so-called peculiar friends take no steps to discourage this competition, the necessary effect of which is to decrease wages. To esti mate the extent of the competition from this cause, it is only necessary to refer to the number of immigrants who have entered this country from 1843 to 1853. The statistics of immigration show that within that period 3,174,395 immigrants arrived in the United States from foreign countries.

But, during all this period, no complaint has been uttered by the peculiar friends of home industry, the protectionists. Why was this? The reason is sufficiently obvious: because the protective policy is designed to benefit the capitalists, and is not urged in the interest of the laboring classes, though that popular sentiment is assumed. Nothing could more thoroughly demonstrate the falsity of the assumption that protection is designed for the benefit of the laboring classes, than the stubborn fact that the protectionists have made no efforts to discourage the immigration of foreign laborers, but on the contrary, have steadily encouraged the same, when the necessary effect was to diminish the wages of labor. There are only two modes of increasing the rate of wages:

1. By increasing the amount of capital.

2. By diminishing the quantity of labor.

The protectionists do not increase capital; but, by encouraging immigration, increasing the quantity of labor, they necessarily diminish wages. They do not wish foreign products introduced, because that jars upon them; they favor

INDEPENDENCE OF FOREIGN POWERS.

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the introduction of foreigners because that, while it jars upon the American laboring classes, benefits them. While we do not propose to exclude the foreigner, nor to discourage his immigration, we desire to strip from the protective policy the delusive pretence that it is urged to protect home industry, in the face of the fact that foreign immigration is encouraged, with its necessary consequences of diminishing wages.

The protectionists insist upon their policy as necessary to make us independent of foreign powers. This is a very pretty phase; but when we examine the rationale of it it is not so captivating. Dependence on foreign nations only amounts to this: that, by exchanging our products with them, we get what we want cheaper; by being independent, we get what we want dearer; because, if we buy from foreigners, it is because they can furnish us cheaper than we can supply ourselves; otherwise, we would not buy from them. This dependence, which rests upon the idea of getting the best bargains, cannot be very injurious; and that independence which consists in buying at the highest prices is not very attractive. But independence is entirely a relative term; if we, in order to make ourselves independent of foreigners, refuse to buy from them, they cannot buy from us; so that, in making ourselves independent of them, we have compelled them to become independent of us. If we have no importations, there can be no exportations. Commerce is the exchange of products. If we will not receive the products of the foreigner, then we lay an embargo on our own products. What do we gain by independence of foreigners, but the privilege of laboring harder to attain the same results? Then, do we get any better treatment from our home producer than from the foreign producer? The home producer will get all he can out of us; the foreign producer can do no more. Experience does not show that the home producer lavishes any more generosity upon us than the foreigner. It is only a question of profit with both classes of producers. Free trade gives us the chance of competition. Protection restriots our range of purchase, and forces us to buy from the home producer.

The leading error of the protective policy is having regard only to the interest of the producer. It undertakes to promote the prosperity of certain favored home producers by insuring them high prices. On the contrary, the great object to be regarded is the interest of the consumers. The object of all production is consumption. The protected producers are, comparatively, a small class; the consumers are the great mass of the people-everybody. The true purpose, therefore, should be to promote, as far as possible, the interests of the consumers. The interests of the consumers consist in cheap

production, attainable only by entire freedom of exchanges. Upon cheapness of production depends the well-being of the great mass of the people. It is for this reason that the great improvements in machinery, made in the last century, have been so beneficial to mankind. To cheapen food and clothes, for instance, is to confer a direct gratuity on mankind. Instead of increasing the cost of production, our great purpose should be to diminish it as much as possible. To accomplish this, we must turn from protection, the interest of a few producers, to freedom of exchanges, the interest of the large class of consumers.

It requires no extended argument to show that protection is injurious in this country to agriculture and commerce. Agriculture has possession of the home market naturally; free trade superadds to this the foreign market, increases the demand, and the more the demand is increased the better. Protection excludes the foreign market and leaves only the home market; for if we are prohibited from buying from foreigners, they cannot buy from us. Look at the immense amount of wheat raised in the northwest, which has found a market in Europe within the last five years, greatly to the advantage of the American wheat growers. Carry out your protective policy to its full results, and you cut off American wheat from that foreign market. The same principle which applies to wheat, applies, in a greater or less degree, to all the great agricultural interests of the country. Commerce, by which we mean foreign commerce in this connexion, is nothing but the exchange of our products for foreign products. Its greatest development consists in the greatest freedom of exchanges. Paralyze importations by the protective policy, and you paralyze exportations, and annihilate commerce. Free exchange is only another name for commerce.

Protection is monopoly, and, therefore, anti-republican. It is impossible to protect all classes. You can only protect those forms of industry which produce what foreigners produce. All other classes of the community who do not produce articles in competition with the foreigner cannot be protected. The result is, that you protect one class at the expense of all other classes. You protect the unprofitable forms of industry by throwing burdens on the profitable forms of industry. The only way to protect all classes is to protect none; to let all alone, and use your powers of taxation simply for fiscal purposes. Preserve order, enforce justice, and practice the laisez nous faire policy, and you have done the best you can do, in view of the interests of all.

The genius of the age is in nothing so strikingly apparent as in the efforts to overcome all obstacles to exchanges. Look