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much, as breadstuffs have been higher in England when Free Trade there said they would be lower, and as our own tariff of 1842 did better than that of 1846, in raising the prices of these articles, if either had any influence of this kind. But all know that legislation has had no more to do with this matter than it has with the profits of an epidemic to the medical profession, or with the want of such profits in the return of general health; and none but men of intellectual or moral obliquity would ever resort to such reasoning.

paupers of England, in 1834, into the manufactories; the next was the removal of duties on raw cotton, in 1845; and the third was the abolition of the corn laws, in 1846 all done on the principle of Protection, and to maintain the system of low wages, without which British manufactures, the soul and bulwark of the empire, must have fallen. It is now confidently expected and predicted, that, as soon as decency will permit, the wages of operatives in British manufactories will be reduced, by a measure equal to the cheapening of their bread, that the benefit of the abolition of the corn laws may accrue, not to the laborers, but to their employers; in other words, to the government; for the government support these great interests, that they may support the government. The amount of wheat used for paste in the cotton factories, is said to be equal to the supply of all the mouths of the operatives. Eight hundred thousand bushels are used annually for paste by members of the anti-corn law league, from the tax on which they are relieved by the abolition of the corn laws.

This great measure, therefore, which has been bruited far and wide, to the great astonishment of mankind, as a Free-Trade measure or the movement of a great nation in a philanthropic career, to give the poor cheaper bread-turns out to be the movement of British manufacturers, to bar the necessity of raising the wages of their operatives, and in the end to cheapen them; and of the British government to sustain and protect the British manufacturing system, as the great bulwark of the empire. Sir Robert Peel saw, that the British corn laws, or the manufacturing system, must fall, and he wisely sealed the doom of the former, to save the latter.

It will be seen, then, what this flourish of British Free Trade amounts to, viz., that at bottom, in principle, and in its ultimate practical design, it is directly the opposite of Free Trade, and that it is one of the most comprehensive and most effective measures of Protection ever devised by a statesman.

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CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE CONTINGENT DESTINY OF THE UNITED STATES.

The Contingencies of Free Trade.-Review of our Commercial History, as it discloses Contingencies.-What makes a Sound Currency.-As a Man that fails frequently in Business can not get rich, so neither can a Nation.-The possible Destiny of the Country, under a Protective System, grand and glorious.-Free Trade devours all, and then eats up itself.

THAT the destiny of the United States is contingent, is evident enough contingent as to whether the nation will adhere to its original principles; contingent as to whether it will continue for ever a republican empire, or degenerate into monarchy; and contingent as to whether it will maintain a protective system, or abandon it for Free Trade. It is this last-named contingency only which we propose to consider. It is believed that the preceding chapters afford sufficient data to run out the line which this contingency indicates.

As to the alternative of adopting the policy of Free Trade, one would suppose that we have had experience enough to render that morally impossible. But no one can tell beforehand what folly a nation will be guilty of, nor predict the misfortunes into which, by such means, it may be plunged. Since the federal administration has so recently, and for the first time in the history of the country,. abandoned the policy of Protection, declared itself for Free Trade, and caused to be adopted corresponding measures, it must be confessed that such facts are not ominous of good. But as the bitter experience of past measures of the same kind can not but be again renewed ere long by the operation of these, there are many chances that the lessons of this schoolmaster, which, as one has said, "charges high wages," will avail much to rectify the views of the public mind, and bring back the nation to its senses. If the history of the past is reliable evidence of the future, that like causes will continue to produce like effects, it is not difficult to determine the destiny of the United States, under a Free-Trade policy. The commercial embarrassments of the country from 1783 to 1790, under the confederation, for want of power in the states to unite in a system of protection, constitute a formidable class of facts, shedding light on this point. The period of some five to seven years

antecedent to the tariff of 1824, is another melancholy cycle of our commercial history, replete with general distress and ruin, all for want of a protective system. And is it necessary to bring to view again the facts of like character, several times presented in this work, which so disastrously signalized the period of some halfdozen years antecedent to the tariff of 1842, and which brought the country to the brink of commercial ruin, all for want of a protective system? Can the future fail to justify the past? Is there not light enough in this history?-We have before us, then, the certain destiny of the United States, under a system of Free Trade.

Of all reasons that can be urged in favor of a protective policy, no one perhaps can be named of greater cogency than its necessity for a good and adequate currency. The currency of the country -a sound currency-does not depend on banking, or the modes of banking, or whether banking be done by a national institution, or by state corporations, or by both, or by neither, though doubtless there is a choice in modes-A BETTER WAY. There can be no sound currency where there is no money; and there never can by money enough for the currency of a country which is constantly sending off more than it brings back-unless one of its products be money, as has been the case with Mexico and some of the South American states. In that case, money is not the medium, but an article, of trade. But the United States do not produce money in any quantity sufficient to rely upon, either as an article, or basis, or medium of trade. We are obliged, therefore, to depend on getting and keeping money enough by trade to answer the purposes of a currency.

A man may have a very large estate, well stocked, well worked, and be making extensive improvements; but if he buys more than he sells, his money, or active capital, is all the while growing less; and unless he has a great deal of it, he will soon find himself embarrassed. When this state of things arrives, he is precisely in the condition of a nation that has been guilty of the same improvidence. Without money, neither he nor a nation can do business to advantage. AN INCOME is as necessary to a nation as to a private individual; and the income of a nation is the money it gets by selling more than it buys. While this is the case, it is impossible that the currency of a nation should be bad or inadequate. A bank here and a bank there may fail, as private individuals do, and for like reasons of mismanagement or misfortune; but there can

be no such thing as a general bank suspension when the public policy is such as to secure the coming in of more money than goes out, or when there is enough in to prevent more going out than comes in. These results, in one case or the other, are always contingent on the sufficiency or insufficiency of the protective policy.

The intimate and indissoluble relation of the protective policy to the currency of the country, commends it, therefore, as a point for consideration too important to be overlooked. No man can trade safely, and with a warrant of prosperity, except on the basis of a credit which solid capital affords, and with such means as that credit will constantly supply him. The moment his means, and with his means, his credit, fail, he is stopped. There is no use in his trying to go on; it is impossible, except by a transient career of fraud, which only makes it worse when he is found out.

It is precisely the same with a nation in its trade with the rest of the world. When, for the lack of an adequate protective policy -which is the same thing as the improvidence of a spendthriftit is habitually buying more than it sells, and its money goes off to settle balances, its means of trade, domestic as well as foreign, are all the while growing less and less; and without a change, a reform, that nation must fail. Its insolvency is as inevitable as that of an improvident individual who conducts business on the same principles. The way in which the insolvency of a commercial nation shows itself is, first, by a scarcity of money, which everybody feels: as a consequence, a general contraction in all monetary operations, by which business is carried on, necessarily drawing along with it commercial inactivity, dulness; diffidence in all credit transactions; and at last, if no relief comes, the banks suspend. This last act is the consummation of a nation's commercial insolvency. The banks, at the moment, and during the whole time of suspension, may be sound, as the specie in their vaults is not the exponent of their capital. Being allowed by their charters to issue more paper than they have specie, the heavy commercial exchanges against the country operate directly on their vaults, to draw off the specie into foreign parts, and they are compelled to suspend, or part with the last cent. Even then they must suspend, so long as they have more paper out than specie in. It is the unfavorable state of foreign exchanges, the large commercial balances against the country, which occasion a general bank suspension. It is because there is not money enough in the country to pay its debts; and like a merchant, who finds himself in a like condition, to avoid complete and

irretrievable ruin, that would incapacitate the country for all trade, the banks stop payment, to the injury of their own credit and the credit of the country. They can not help it. They are forced into it by the effect of the policy of the government, which tempts the people to buy more than they sell, and the nation to do the same, till, after repeated and long-continued drafts on the money of the country, the pressure begins to be felt; and before the remedy can be applied for it is too late when the effects of such improvidence have already come-the whole community is involved in the general calamity. It is only for the want of an adequate protective system. So long as an industrious and producing nation does not buy more than it sells, it is impossible it should be involved in general commercial distress-absolutely impossible in the nature of things. A nation of such resources and wealth as the United States, with such an enterprising population, can bear a great deal of loss in its foreign trade, and yet prosper. Think of seven hundred millions of loss in a half-century, as appears from the facts exhibited in chapters xxiv. and xxv. (see p. 402). This has been more than the nation could bear; and hence its frequent calamitous vicissitudes. Under an adequate and uniform protective policy, such disasters could never come. There can not be an effect without a cause. Such a country as the United States, which is a world in itself, and capable of producing everything essential to the complete and perfect independence of a nation, in articles of luxury as well as necessity, ought never, by the improvidence of legislation, to be in debt to other nations. There is no apology for it. It has sometimes been said that such a state of things comes from the fault of the people. But this will not answer, so long as the government permits the foreign factor-who is not a citizen, and who has no other interest than to make his fortune, and then carry the money away-to bring his goods and merchandise, without paying for the privilege; or, if he pays, pays nothing adequate to protect American citizens in the same business; and thus tempts jobbers, and jobbers tempt retailers, and retailers tempt the people, till the latter are in debt, which can only be discharged by a remittance through the same channels backward; and the foreign factor departs with the money of the people in his pocket. The parties concerned in all the stages of the trade, have doubtless profited by it; but the people are ruined, because their money has gone out of the country, and they have little or nothing left to pay other debts, and do business with.

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