'mL, Document No. 3. MWEBsilV t?F 1U.WIS* NewYork Association for the Protection of American Industry, EFFECT OF FREE TRADE ON THE LABORING CLASSES IN ENGLAND, TURKEY AND EGYPT. BY CYRUS HAMLIN, LL.D, President of Middlebury College , Vt. Published for Distribution by the Association. New York Association for the Protection of American Industry Effect of Free Trade on the Laboring Classes IN ENGLAND, TURKEY AND EGYPT BY PRESIDENT HAMLIN OF MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE, VT. Published for Distribution by the Association. Organized under Act of 1875 Chap. 267. OBJECTS OF THE ASSOCIATION : 1. To disseminate ideas favorable to just protection of manufactures. 2. The development, protection, and advancement of the various industries of the United States. 3. The restoration and development of ocean navigation in American-built ships sufficient for the exigencies of trade, commerce, and manufactures, and for the advantage and safety of the country. 4. The security of the comfort and improvement of workmen, and — by encouraging allow- ances or pensions after long-continued service in important establishments— of their support in old age. MANAGERS : ULYSSES S. GRANT, LE GRAND B. CANNON, EDWARD H. AMMIDOWN, BENJAMIN G. CLARKE, SOLON HUMPHREYS, GEORGE B. BUTLER, CHARLES S. SMITH, CHARLES L. TIFFANY, WILLIAM L. STRONG, JAMES A. BURDEN, FREDERIC A. POTTS, CORNELIUS N. BLISS, ALFRED R. WHITNEY, DANIEL F. APPLETON, JOHN ROACH, WILLIAM A. GELLATLY, WILLIAM A. A. CARSEY, SELIG S. FISHER, LEVI L. BROWN, DEXTER A. HAWKINS. Address on business GEO. B. BUTLER, Secretary, 44 E. 26th St., N. Y. City. NEW YORK ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF AMERICAN INDUSTRY. DISASTROUS EFFECT OF “ FREE TRADE” IN ENGLAND, TURKEY, EGYPT, ETC., ON THE LABORING CLASSES. BY PRESIDENT HAMLIN, Middlebury College, Vt. [Reprinted from the Agricultural Review and Journal of the American Ag- ricultural Association of November, 1882 (J. H. Reed, editor and publisher, 33 Park Row, N. Y.), with additions since made.] In the Journal of the American Agricultural Association for July and October, 1881, is an article by Prof. Arthur L. Perry on “ Farmers and the Tariff,” which seems to de- serve examination and a reply through the columns of the magazine which gave it first to the public. Prof. Perry seems to write under considerable excite- ment. He regards Protectionists as “ shrewd ” and sel- fish men, who carry the measures by “ lobbying” and “ log-rolling” — “unscrupulous ones,” “ mendicants.” They “cajole” and “swindle” the farmers, “ Gallileans,” etc., etc. The farmer is “ the ass that bears most of the bur- dens and eats least of the hay.” It may perhaps be sug- gested, without offence, that this is hardly a model style for a public scientific teacher to use when addressing men who, while possessed of great practical wisdom and dis- cernment, are accustomed to look up to scientific men for models of manner, and who do not relish being compared to asses. 4 As to argument, it is for the most part a repetition and working over of the statements and principles by which the Cobden Club in England has most industri- ously and perse veringly labored to incite our farmers against the Government and our manufactures. During the last twelve or fifteen years it has expended vast sums upon this object, with very poor returns thus far. This celebrated Club seems further than ever from attaining its desired end, which is to break down the protective sys- tem of the United States. If the end were attained, it would probably be as disastrous to us as beneficial to England. In England it would benefit only a cer- tain class — the great capitalists — for whom the United States were not created. For Free Trade in Great Britain has not been the universal boon which its. advocates proclaim. To prove this we need not go be- yond the testimony of the most ardent and the ablest Free Traders themselves. We admit that the wealth of England has increased with enormous strides. Colossal fortunes have been built up in very large numbers. To a class of millionaires who carry out with amazing ability the motto , of the Cobden Club, to “ buy cheap and sell dear,” Free Trade is the thing. It enables them, as we shall show, in some markets to buy and to sell at their own prices. This is to them a very comfortable state of things, and no wonder they are willing to spend money freely in other lands in advocacy of their principles. But all this success of the great capitalists does not constitute true national prosperity. It does not necessarily make a contented people. It does not diminish pauperism. In England the laboring classes, manufacturing and agricul- tural, are no better off than they were fifty or one hun- dred years ago. On the contrary, the difference between them and the rich is greater than ever. If Free Trade has been a blessing to England, her millions of laborers have no share in it. They have made no progress. The wonderful inventions of the age, the better modes of liv- ing, the higher enjoyments of life, pass them by in the 5 sweat and grime of their ill-requited toil; and if hope ever comes to them at all, it is the immortal hope of an- other life. In proof of this assertion that Free Trade has in no respect benefited the laborers of England on the farm or in the workshop, I quote from one of the most distin- guished advocates of Free Trade in England — Henry Fawcett, M.P., Professor of Political Economy in the University of Cambridge. In his “ Political Economy,” extensively used as a text- book in this country and in England (page 133), after re- ferring to the prodigious increase of British exports, he adds : “ This increase of national prosperity has, as yet, effected no corresponding improvement in the condition of the laboring classes.” He then goes on to state that where there has been an increase of wages there has been a proportionate increase in the cost of living, so that one barely compensates for the other. He then refers to Mr. Brassey, who is another distinguished Free Trader. His book on “Work and Wages” Prof. Fawcett endorses as of the highest authority, as perfectly accurate, as evincing the most careful investigation. The following are some of the results : “ In the Canada Engineering Works at Birkenhead thirteen different classes of workmen are employed, such as fitters, turners, coppersmiths, etc. Of these thirteen classes, six were receiving less wages in 1869 than in 1854, three were receiving the same, and four were receiving somewhat higher wages.” In the Government Dockyard at Sheerness the result was even less favorable. From 1849 t° 1 8 59 these classes had an advance of sixpence a day, but from 1859 to 1869 no advance whatever. “ Wages were absolutely stationary throughout these years” (p. 134.) Twenty classes of laborers in private shipyards on the Thames showed the same wages in 1869 as in 1851. There was a temporary rise in ’65, but dearly purchased by the distress that followed. Mr. Brassey thinks the building trades are somewhat 6 better paid, but “ the increase in wages has not been pro- portioned to the increase in the cost of living.” Prof. Fawcett confesses that “ in other trades the con- dition of the laborer must have deteriorated.” But even in the very best-paid trades it must also have deteriorated, according to his own showing. It is a point of interest, and essential to a right judg- ment upon Free Trade in England, to know how great has been the increase in the expense of living during these years of its greatest development. Prof. Fawcett (p. 134) considers it not less than thirty per cent ! The best-paid laborers, who are comparatively few, have hardly held their own. What, then, is the condition of the multitude? What has Free Trade bestowed upon the English laborer in general, on the farm and in the workshop? Why, it is thirty per cent of loss ! It is the same as a decrease of wages during the last thirty years of almost one third. His condition, never very hopeful, is now hopeless. This, O England, is the demonstration of the blessings of Free Trade to thy laboring classes which thou art presenting to the world ! Thy hard-laboring millions can live while muscles are strong and lithe ; but when old age or disease comes, then the poorhouse and the pauper’s grave ! Has there been any improvement since the date of Prof. Fawcett’s work (Macmillan, 1876)? None what- ever in wages. In the condition of the operatives, tem- perance, co-operation, and post-office savings-banks have made a favorable change to some extent. We earnestly commend the consideration of these means to all working, men. But wages are as low as ever. Mr. Porter, correspondent of the New York Tribune (Jan. 24, 1883), shows that even in the great and magnifi- cent machine-shops on the Clyde, where we shall find the highest wages England gives, skilled labor is only $6.25 to $7.00 the week, and unskilled labor is not half that sum. In Dumbarton, where labor was exceptionally high, it was 15 to 18 shillings a week — 62^ to 75 cents a day. 7 Shall we reduce our artisans in our best machine-shops to this rate ? Let us not be in too hot haste for Free Trade until we have examined some other points. It is said by some that the only reason why the lot of the English laborer is so different from that of the Ameri- can is the abundance of uncultivated land in America waiting for the industry of man to improve it. But there are large tracts of land in England where the soil is good, but they are devoted to nothing but sheep-walks and pleasure-grounds. Aside from fens and rough hills, these are found all over England and Scotland. The men that we call farmers — the yeomanry of Eng- land — have disappeared. The English farmer is not the owner of land, nor does he do any farm-work. He is not a laborer. He does not belong' to the laboring classes. He often knows nothing about farming. He is a capital- ist. He rents land according to his means, and sublets it in small patches \to tenants. Or if he has a practical or theoretical knowledge, he cultivates' his rented f^rms by hiring farm-laborers. The farm-worker — the tiller of the soil — is never the owner of the soil in England. The old English “yeomanry” have disappeared. This sad process of degradation is nearly complete. Now, this is the population that we have to inquire about. It is not the capitalist, but the laborer, whose con- dition we wish to know. The latter — the laborers — out- number the former a hundredfold. If the capitalist alone prospers and the laborer is uniformly wretched, the sys- tem under which they are working out the problem of life cannot be a good one. Now, what are the wages of a farm-laborer when he can get work? Fawcett tells us «from 12 to 15 shillings a week — that is, from 50 to 62J cents a day. Out of this he must provide for himself and his family ! And this not only during the seven days of the week, but during all the time he is out of work. His income for the year can- not average 40 cents a day, out of which he must pay 8 rent, fuel, food, and clothing for himself and family. If the family consists of six persons, the wages of the hard- working father will furnish six to eight cents a day, ac- cording to the times, for each individual, for all the wants of life, for necessities and luxuries. Every young man in America who smokes a ten-cent cigar, or its equivalent in viler stuff, smokes away an English laborer’s life and one half of his wife’s, as their life now is, under the meridian sun of Free Trade, after a forty years’ trial. An earnest advocate of Free Trade who has just returned from Eng. land, Dr. Lyman Abbott, admits that the end of the farm, laborer in England is generally the workhouse. (See Christian Union, March 30, page 296.) No wonder Prof. Fawcett continually berates marriage as the supreme curse and folly of the British workmen. He drags it in on every occasion in his work on “ Politi- cal Economy.” It is his bete noir of prosperous times. So soon as the workmen can get enough to live upon they will marry and multiply, and bring back distress. The blessing of God on the first pair in Eden is the chief and all-ruinous curse of Free Trade in England. This fatal and foolish increase of population haunts him con- tinually. He would evidently like to have a new com- mandment in the decalogue, “ Thou shalt not marry,” and have it put directly upon the conscience of the British workmen. The decalogue may possibly stand as it is, but Mr. Fawcett’s anxiety is quite amusing. Another relief measure proposed by Mr. Fawcett is much more reasonable. It is that woman should take her place in the field among the workmen as a farm-laborer. Under the painful and degrading conditions of her pres- ent life, I think he is right in his advice. It is better for her to work in the field than to starve at home in a wretched, damp hut, or to solace herself upon a stupefying mug of beer, if she can beg one. I have a strong impression that to some extent she is coming into that mode of relieving the gloom of her existence. I have met on the road, in rural districts, squads of men and 9 women seeking farm-work — young men and young bare- footed women asking leave to toil. There had been a long, long rain, and no harvesting had begun. They wanted a shilling to buy some beer. One young woman had a pair of shoes in her hand, and she was evidently proud of the possession, and keeping it choice for some great occasion. They did not want “ out- door relief,” they wanted work, and they probably found it — in the workhouse. They had passed by spacious fields of uncultivated ground ; and, in this case, the women who were ready for field-work could not obtain the boon they sought. They affirmed they had had no work for two weeks. They had probably lived on beer and bread, by begging, but especially on beer. They had the aspect of utter discouragement and stupidity. I have seen the peasantry of many countries, but I know of none so far depressed, so low, as the farm-laborers of England. The peasantry of Turkey, even, have more of the ordinary comforts of life. The future will prove whether Free Trade can reduce them to the English level. This condi- tion of agriculture in England after so long a trial of Free Trade is a very instructive fact. Let it not be supposed that this picture is overdrawn. On the contrary, the half is not told. I have seen such abject poverty upon a Christian nobleman’s estate as can have no parallel in this country. The great Scotch mis- sionary, Alexander Duff, had been there before me, and he poured out the vials of indignation upon the head of the nobleman in view of such contrasted wealth and pov- erty. The nobleman replied, “My dear sir, I rent my lands in mass. I have no more to do with the pay or the treatment of the laborers than I have with those on the estates of the Earl of Shaftesbury. I cannot touch this mass of England’s poverty.” I made no remark upon what I saw, but could not for- bear asking some questions. Prof. Fawcett shall here be our witness, and he will describe what I have seen. He testifies as follows : 10 “ There are few classes of workmen who in many re- spects are so thoroughly wretched as the English agricul- tural laborers. They are in many respects so miserably poor that if they were converted into slaves to-morrow it would be for the interest of their owners to feed them far better than they are fed at present. . . . Such wages (12 shillings a week) would not permit the slightest provision to be made either for sickness or the feebleness of old age. Throughout large agricultural districts not a single agri- cultural laborer will be found who has saved so much as a week’s wages. A life of toiling and incessant industry offers no other prospect than a miserable old age. Their ignorance is as complete as it is distressing.” (Fawcett’s “Political Economy,” 5th ed., pp. 192, 193.) A note to the above claims that there is now some im- provement in their condition, but they have not yet reached the physical comforts of life or the level of the Turkish slaves that have fallen under my personal obser- vation. But who are the English emigrants that in yearly in- creasing numbers flee from Free Trade England to Pro- tective America? They are not chiefly men seeking land. The farm-laborers are incapable, mentally and financially, of taking such a start in life unless they are sent over as paupers. The emigrants are mostly mechanics seeking work. They will become land-owners by and by. They leave a land of Free Trade and seek a land where labor is protected, and where, in spite of Mr. Fawcett, he can have and support a family. According to Prof. Fawcett, in England the laborer can live only by dehumanizing himself. If he should get fair wages for a little while he will marry. He cannot support a family, and thus he brings upon himself and others the greatest misery. The logical outcome of his political philosophy and economy is that the males should become eunuchs and the women should work in the fields. This is the only safe constitution of society for Free Trade. Is it a constitution or a destruction? If II carried out it would certainly result in a sufficient paucity of laborers to make wages decidedly high. Let us now examine another point. What have been the actual historical results of the introduction of Free Trade into communities that had lived under Protection? Have those communities reaped substantial benefits from the change ? This inquiry cannot be set aside as of no importance. The Free Trader stands upon his principles, and says he takes no interest in their application. The principles are self-evidently true, and that is all he has to do with them ! This may ail be very nice in the college lecture-room, but it will not satisfy practical men. If elsewhere, as in England, these principles work to impoverish the laborer and to benefit only the very few, nothing can save them from condemnation. Every reader will think at once of France. Cobden, the great apostle of Free Trade, persuaded Louis Napo- leon to adopt the Free Trade policy for a definite number of years. The time expired. Did F^rince make haste to renew the treaty? No. The French mind is so unphilosophical that not even experience can teach it the blessings of Free Trade. France refuses to renew the treaty! The Cob- den Club, with the consummate ability of men of the highest rank, talent, experience, and diplomatic skill, has utterly failed in its missionary work in France. France has made the experiment, and most ungratefully claims to know the results to herself, even better than the Cobden Club knows them. Whatever influence France has in sci- ence, philosophy, and government, it all goes against the Club, which is bent upon enlightening the two great and benighted republics, France and the United States ; but they love their own darkness better than the Cobden light. When I went to Turkey at the close of 1838, the policy of the government — so far as it had any financial policy — was protective, and there were many industries moder- 12 ately prosperous. There were no rich manufacturers, but the numerous workmen in their small workshops were much better off than the similar class in England. In one quarter of Scutari there were five or six thousand weavers of cotton goods for the home market. Copper- smiths were very numerous in this great city. The na- tive cutlery, carpenters’ tools, horse-shoes, donkey-shoes, stone-workers’ tools, combs for the empire, chibouks and narghileys for all smokers, amber work, oriental boots, shoes, embroidery, and many other domestic arts, em- ployed tens of thousands of industrious workmen in the great city of more than a million of inhabitants ; the pro- ducts of their labor went to all parts of the Marmora and Black seas, and to the Asiatic and African ports of the Mediterranean. England, under Cobden’s inspiration, after many fruitless efforts introduced Turkey to Free Trade. All the industries I have mentioned, and many others, disappeared, or were reduced to insignificance with astounding rapidity. The cotton stuffs of Scutari were imitated in Manchester, with a nicer look, and poured upon the astonished people at less than half price. Every loom in Scutari ceased to work. The long, narrow buildings where they worked have rot- ted down. I had occasion in 1855 to hire one > but it was too much decayed to be easily repaired, and rot and rats drove me out. That large population per-' ished in wretchedness and misery extreme. Fawcett’s favorite remedy of checking population came in with a vengeance. There was no need of forbidding marriage. There seems to be a fatal incapacity in the uneducated oriental to change his employment. But he can suffer and die with the firmness of a martyr. Enforced idleness, rags, squalor, filth, want of food, prepare the way for all the destructive epidemics of the East. Malarial fevers, cholera, small-pox, soon disposed of these despairing wrecks of humanity, thrown up by the great wave of English Free Trade. So of all the other industries in a greater or less degree. This change has taken place not 13 only in the Turkish ports, but the disaster extends far into the interior. Even the excellent native work in cottons, so far east as Darbekr, on the upper waters of the Tigris, have succumbed, and their fast, unfading colors cannot be found. Cheap, gaudy, sleazy goods have crowded them out, at half their price and a quarter of their durability. But I will mention a single industry more particularly as an example of the whole. In 1841 I visited Brusa for the first time. Its most interesting industry, after its silk- works, was the weaving of the Brusa bath-towels. It was a large and flourishing industry, supporting thou- sands of busy hands. Free Trade gave Manchester a chance at this as well as at the Scutari works. The shag- towels of Brusa came pouring into Brusa itself. They were not durable like the native product, but this was not then known. They were sold so cheap that every Brusa loom had to stop. After the industry was thoroughly killed the prices of towels rose again, so that, in propor- tion to the wear that was in them, the people had to pay probably all of 25 per cent more for these goods than for the old goods of native make before Free Trade came in. I mention this in order to draw attention to one fact. The motto of the Cobden Club is “ To buy cheap and sell dear.” As soon as they have crushed an industry by under- selling, the market is in their hands. The workmen being dispersed and the industry discredited, it cannot readily rise again. The prices, however, will rise to that point that at length the old native industry will take courage and start anew, to be crushed again and blotted out. When I was last in Brusa, in 1873, the prices of the Man- chester-Brusa towels were so high that a few native looms were at work again and doing a good business, with the prospect of rapid increase. But Free Trade, or rather the agents of the Cobden Club, hold their fingers upon the pulse of the victim, and as soon as it beats with the promise of life the torture will be again applied. The prices will suddenly fall and the native looms will stop. 14 The cry that Free Trade will produce cheap goods is deceptive. It produces violent fluctuations, and the cheap labor of England, the unrequited toil of her half-starving millions, enables her to destroy almost any unprotected industry in foreign lands. Now if all this benefited the working classes of Eng- land, there would be some consolation in it. The labor- ing Turk would suffer, but the laboring Englishman would be benefited. The Turkish or Greek workman might not think it his duty to suffer for the benefit of a foreigner. He might strenuously object to having the bread taken from his children’s mouths and given to a for- eigner’s. The Free Trader, however, might reply that on the whole there is a gain, and the gain had better be in England than anywhere else. But in relation to the la- borers, the real producers, even this reply is impossible. The English laborer is not benefited. Both Fawcett and Brassey show’ conclusively that he is 30 per cent worse oft than ever. English exports in 1849 were ^60,000,000 — $300,000,000. “They now considerably exceed ^300,- 000,000 — $1,500,000,000 — per annum” (Fawcett, Polit. Econ., p. 133). In the amazing profits of this grand ex- pansion of industry the laborer has no share. His lot is harder than ever. His wages, perhaps, are not diminished, but the cost of living has increased 30 per cent. The pur- chasing pow 7 er of his wages has diminished almost one third. No wonder he emigrates to a land w'here labor is protected. English policy has exhausted and ruined Turkey. Those w r ho ascribe all the ruin to bad govern- ment should remember that Turkey has always been badly governed. The new element in her case is follow- ing English advice in her financial policy of trade. If we go to Egypt we find the same ruin there, until recently, at length, a native party arose to throw off, if it could, the yoke. The great English colonies — Australia, New Zealand, the Dominion — have all found that Free Trade was inju- rious to their interests, and in the face of the Cobden i5 Club have adopted more or less of a protective policy. This is a very significant fact and extremely dishearten- ing to the future of Free Trade. But Mr. Fawcett, the great political economist and Free Trader, makes another admission worthy of the closest consideration. It is that the price of the raw ma- terial of a manufactured article forms only a small portion of the entire value of the finished article (p. 338). He also admits that a rise in the price of the raw material produces but little effect upon the price or profits of the manufactured article. It is evident, then, that the pro- ducer of the raw product has but a very small share in the profits of manufactures. He must remain compara- tively poor while the manufacturers, not the workmen, acquire enormous wealth. We will take as an illustration the great woollen-works at Saltaire, England. The late Sir Titus Salt became a titled millionaire from the ability with which he man- aged the Cobden principle of buying cheap the raw ma- terial and selling dear the manufactured article. Free Trade enabled him to destroy a Turkish industry im- mensely to his own advantage, and to the impoverish- ment and misery of Armenians, Greeks, and Turks. The long, silky, beautiful Angora goat’s hair attracted his attention, and he invented modes of working it alone and with other material so that he could undersell the unprotected native products. He thus became for a long time almost the sole purchaser. His manufactured goods also controlled the market in Turkey and obtained an im- mense sale elsewhere. His agents buy the raw material in Angora, and he sends back most beautiful fabrics, skil- fully adapted to the oriental taste. I asked one of his agents what one pound sterling in raw material produced in the finished article. He replied, from fifteen to twenty pounds sterling. The account stood thus: Turkey re- ceives from Sir Titus £1 for raw material and pays him £20 for the finished article. Balance in favor of England, £19. Which is growing rich — England or Turkey? The 1 6 wealth of Sir Titus ten years ago was estimated at twen- ty-five to thirty millions. But his workmen have no share in it, though he may be, and is, an exceptionally be- nevolent master. England has contributed chiefly to the bankruptcy of Turkey. She has bound her hand and foot, and she has neither the capital nor the intelligence to extricate her- self. Egypt has been ruined in like manner, but not to the same degree of exhaustion. Turkey has lost her industries and become simply a raw producer, and is condemned thereby to poverty and servility. The manufacturing country will carry out her programme without mercy, will buy cheap and sell dear, and the raw producer, writhe as he may, will be con- demned to buy dear and sell cheap. This is what the Cobden Club hopes to see the United States inveigled into, by inciting the farmers against the other industries. The hope is vain. Our tariff needs careful revision. It is doubtless in some things absurd, but the dream of Free Trade with the United States, which every English millionaire indulges in, is such stuff as other dreams are made of. The United States are under no obligations to make England richer than she is, to the injury of the American laborer, especially if the progress of things is to continue on the line of the last fifty years : the English laborer growing poorer and the great capitalist growing richer. But there is another question besides the single one of the Cobden Club — the accumulation of wealth — and that is the distribution both of wealth and of industries. Prac- tical men will always regard this question as of supreme importance. The nation, like the family, has certain home duties that are imperative. It cannot allow a for- eign nation to crush those industries that are necessary to self-defence in time of war. We shall manufacture our own ships of war, our own naval stores, our own arms, our own powder — and “ keep the powder dry.” The mer- chant might as well leave his safe unlocked as a nation 17 leave itself without means of defence. The Cobden Club would gladly have us depend on England for all these, while she would kindly “sell dear and buy cheap” our but- ter, cheese, meat, fruit, grain, and cotton. There is little probability that the nation will ever be persuaded to do this. The faith of the Cobden Club in its power to change our policy shows occasional signs of weakening. We in- fer this from the occasional notes of warning given from this country by the correspondents of the great English newspapers. The “own correspondents” of the London Times within the last year or two have bemoaned the fad- ing hopes of Free Trade in the United States. An article in point may be quoted from Blackwood's Magazine , found also in the March number of the Eclectic , on “Finance West of the Atlantic.” The following extracts state the subject clearly : “ Let us first deal with the United States. It is useless for an observer to seek to disguise from himself the fact that the doctrine of Free Trade is no longer what is called ‘a live issue’ in the slang of American politics. As late as ten years ago, when the writer of this article was first in the United States, the Free Traders, though in a hopeless minority, still existed as a party ; but the hard times from 1873 to 1878 killed them.” . . . “The Free Trade party has lost both its political and real advantages — the latter, at all events, permanently.” . . . “ What probability or chance is there, then, of such a Free Trade movement as convulsed England a generation or two ago ? In America the workingman has just passed from a cycle of bad into a season of good years — i.e., good wages, good and cheap food, lodging, and education — due, he is told, to a protec- tive policy. Prominent Democrats and Free Traders ad- mit that one of the main causes of General Garfield’s vic- tory over General Hancock, at the last Presidential elec- tion, was the adoption of a plank savoring of Free Trade in the latter’s political platform ; and the significance of the fact that the phrase ‘Tariff Reform’ has taken the i8 place of ‘.Free Trade’ in Democratic electioneering speeches must not be overlooked.” Much more to the same effect might be quoted, but the above is enough for our purpose. The same writer draws attention to the fact that Canada also has adopted a Pro- tective policy, which is “ the most unkindest cut of all ” to the Free Trade theory. It should always be kept in mind that there is great danger of exaggeration in a Protective policy. Every powerful industry will exaggerate its claims. If the Free Trade “ doctrinaires,” though perhaps never destined to rise to the dignity of a party, can nevertheless do some- thing toward moderating the excesses of Protection, they will not labor in vain nor spend their strength for naught. The theory of Free Trade shows beautifully in the lecture- room, where all comment and awkward questions can be avoided ; but practical men, farmers and mechanics, North and South, East and West, grow more and more disposed to distrust its application to this country. There are certain contradictions of method in the ad- vocacy of Free Trade well worthy of notice. One method is to ignore facts, to claim that Free Trade prin- ciples are self-evident scientific truths, and if facts do not agree with them so much the worse for the facts ! This method ignores also national interest. The simple fact of accumulation, no matter where, by whom, by what na- tion or people, fills the whole field of view. It is nothing worth a thought if Free Trade makes England rich and America poor, if only more wealth be produced. It is nothing to them that the English laborer grows poorer and poorer, and by the statements of the most eminent Free Traders has fallen behind 30 per cent in 30 years. It is enough that vast fortunes have been made, never dreamed of before. Mammon is a god that must be wor- shipped to the sacrifice of reason and patriotism. The other method is the direct opposite. It may be called the gorgeous method. It rushes into statistics be- wilderingly. It demonstrates the whole world to be l 9 fools, England only excepted. It is like Leviathan. It makes the ocean of statistics to boil like a pot. Years ago the Cobden Club issued an appeal to American farmers, and spread it over all the West. It is safe to say that mil- lions of copies were distributed. It went up over all the land, and helped the farmers light their fires. Its aim was to stir them up to revolution by showing them that every farmer consumed $200 worth of manufactured goods every year ! If there are 5,000,000 of farmers, this would make $1,000,000,000 of manufactured goods annual- ly. English greed, not stopping to inquire into the absurd- ity of such a statement, set its eyes upon that one billion of dollars annually. Out of pure benevolent regard to the American farmer, with whose hard lot it deeply sympa- thized, it would be willing “ to sell dear and buy cheap’' in order to furnish the vast supply, dismiss all the Ameri- can mechanics to farming, and thus overstock the grain market to the delight of England and the Cobden Club. All this is put forward with charming innocence, not dreaming that any one will ask questions. How many dollars can the English farm-laborer spend for manufac- tured goods? Can he spend one fourth or even one eighth of that sum on an average ? Surely it is a blessed land where the farmers can indulge their taste and secure comfort at that rate ! The American farmer read, and laughed at, and burned the pamphlet. But still others followed, and do follow, in the same strain. Added to the gorgeous statistics is the vituperative method. I have before me some Free Trade writings — not Prof. Perry’s — in which I find the terms “slaves,” “ fools,” “ lobbyists,” “ log-rollers,” “humbug,” “atrocious oppression,” A bribery,” “outrageous fraud,” “licensed pillage,” “ enormity of outrage,” and so on ad nauseam . Those who allow themselves to condescend to such lan- guage are either conscious of a weak cause or intent upon stirring up malignant feelings. There is also a singular vein of self-refutation in much of the Free Trade reasoning, except it be regarded from 20 an exclusively English view. They point us to the greater wealth of the manufacturing over the farming States. The great English Free Trade teacher, Fawcett, clearly shows, as we have seen, that the raw product is but a small part of the value of the finished article. The logi- cal inference is that the farming States should be also manufacturing States. Variety of industries is a princi- ple in all political economy. But instead of that the Free Trader shouts “Freedom!” Let all the mechanical in- dustries that can’t live here go to England. Now that would be excellent for England. Her labor being 25 to 50 per cent cheaper than ours, she would have all that advantage against our mechanics. We should, perforce, become raw producers. As .England’s demand for bread- stuffs is both a limited ^Wnefy and a variable, her good years demanding a small supply, where would our exces- sive production of grain find a market? England would then, indeed “ buy cheap,” but where could our farmers “sell dear”? Not only would they find the English mar- ket limited, but they must meet the concentrated competi- tion of the black lands of the Azoff, of the Crimea, South Russia, Rumania, Servia, Bulgaria, and the Dobrudscha; all of these lands being as rich as the very richest lands of the West. English foresight is pouring into all these regions amaz- ing quantities of the most improved agricultural imple- ments, many of them our own inventions. A few years since I entered a vast magazine, apparently designed for government stores, in the city of Galatz, Rumania. 1 was filled with amazement at the piles of ploughs, cultivators, reapers, mowers, threshing-machines, winnowers, tedders, harrows, etc., etc. I asked, in astonishment, if those arti- cles found a ready sale. The agent assured me that the sale was increasing. The people were slowly learning to use them ; broken pieces were so easily replaced that they were acquiring confidence, and that some large farms had doubled their harvests without increase of ex- penditure. Unless bloody revolutions shall prevent, this 21 century will not close before our farmers will find a most powerful competitor in the grain markets of the world. The Western farmer understands this. He prefers diver- sified industries at home to make his market secure and at hand. Otherwise he will be exposed to powerful fluctua- tions and competitions. But the Free Trader, with a sweet innocence, asks him to shut his eyes to all this with the deceptive hope of getting a cheaper coat and cheaper shoes! The Free Trader asks the farmer to let England perform upon us the same operation which she has per- formed upon Turkey, Egypt, Japan, India, but which she cannot perform upon France, Germany, this country, or even upon her own colonies ! On the whole, we feel dis- posed to pardon to the Free Trader his spirit of vitupera- tion. If that is all the comfort he has, it would be cruel to take it from him. NEW YORK ASSOCIATION FOR THE Protection of American Industry. At the great Mass Meeting at Cooper Institute February ist, 1883, under the auspices of the asso- ciation the following resolution was adopted, to which the attention of all friends of the cause of Protection to American Industry is earnestly invited : Resolved, That in view of the activity of the friends of British policy in forming free-trade organizations, we recom- mend that organizations of the character of this for the Protec- tion of American Industry and Labor be formed in all the cities and towns of the Union, and that we proffer to them in advance our warmest sympathy and earnest co-operation. Correspondence upon all matters connected with the business of the Association should be addressed to GEORGE B. BUTLER, Secretary N. Y. Association for the Protection of American Industry, No. 44 EAST 26 th STREET, New York City. 1