PROTECTION FOR EVER!

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 824, 22 September 1870, Page 4

PROTECTION FOR EVER!

JJPS following is extracted from a speech recently delivered in the United States Congress by Mr Cox, one of the members >—r *' Before free trade in England her .exports were stationary. In 1843 ihey were less than $250,000,000 (£47,250,000). In 1853, after free trade fairly began, her exports were doubled (£97,250,000); double the average of the twenty years of protection. In 1863 they were more than #800,000,000 (£160,500,000). In 1868 they had risen to $872,000,000. Whereas under protection $35,000,000 was the average amount of the carrying trade, under free trade it grew to 1250,000,000, employing thousands, and reaching to every part of the world. Her imports have kept pace with her exports and transportation; and France has kept nearly equal steps with her in both. No wonder that with free trade England is driving our ships from the ocean ; she is making the ships of iron on the Clyde for every nation but our own, and she is even threatening to rival our oriental lines on the Pacific. Her tariff is levied on a very few articles, while we levy on 4,000. She raises only $70,000,000 less than we do from customs. Whenever she reduced her tariff she increased her revenue, and aggrandised her greatness and prosperity. France did the same, Such facts illustrate the interdependence of nations. Between England and France there was more national and race hostility than exists between England and the United States. There was only a channel, not an ocean, to protect each other, for the ocean gives us 10 per cent, in transportation as natural protection. Yet in the face of these facts there are those who find our prosperity in our isolation. Their champion in this House is the gentleman from Pennsylvania (MiKelly). I am sure if I should ask him, " Do you oppose all foreign competition with what we can produce in the United States against cheaper production from abroad ? " he would in the interest of his State promptly reply, " Yes." If I again asked him, if the article from abroad was fabulously low, so as to injure trade and glut the market, whether he would either restrict its entry or prohibit it altogether, he would answer, " By all means re strict, prohibit!" When he so answers he would illustrate the parable of the French economist. He would close all windows, skylights, outside and inside shutters, curtains, blinds, bulls'-eyes. openings, chinks, clefts, and fissures, whereby the sun has entered to the prejudice of the meritorious manufacturer of candles, wax lights, lamps, candle-sticks, street lamps, snuffers, extinguishers, and the producers of matches, oil, tallow, rosin, and alcohol. (Laughter.) I shall not be surprised when the votes are taken by clauses, to find the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr Kelly) appealing for these manufacturers against the " sunbeam," as a freetrader, destructive of American in dustry. He will insist against the policy of cheap and plentiful light from abroad. He must care for the pro ducer of Petroleum ; he must stop this external competition from daylight! (Laughter.) He must reserve the national market for national industry! He would say: What right has this uppish, solar foreigner to rival the coal-gas of Pennsylvania? (Laughter). Is not the sun alien to Pennsylvania ? Is not his labor, though his beams come so far, cheap labor, pauper labor ? (Laughter.) Does he not inundate us half the time; and if some Joshua of Pennsylvania were to command him to stand still over the Alleghanies, would not the whole business of coal and gas be ruined ? (Laughter.) Is not the home market already glutted with his insolent commodity ? When he appears is not the market for brass candlesticks and gas-burners disturbed? (Laughter.) Is not trade dull ? Do not all consumers obtain, "without money and without price," their supply at this golden urn ? Is he not a secret enemy bought by foreign gold ? (Laughter.) In fact, does he not, like pther laborers, rather prefer our land Jo the foggy realm of England ? If his natural light be quenched will it not give an impulse to artificial light? flow encouraging, then, to domestic manufactures to keep out this cheap vet useful radiance ! How ramified,

too, is the business he .interferes with ! He destroys the tallow business! (Laughter.) That is a blow at agriculture, at hogs, oxen, and sheep! (Laughter.) It is a foul blow at meadows, meat, wool, hides, manure-r----those fouidations of agriculture! He destroys the oil market! He plugs the gushing oil wells. He thus interferes with transportation, throws out of work, workmen innumerable, and reduces wages. He goes further and does worse. He invades Alaska. There are 15,000 people there depending on seals for a livelihood. These Aleuts might become a burden on a Federal bureau, unless protected in time. Under the precious seal skins there is a valuable adipose deposit, from oue to five inches ! It is malum prohibitum to destroy these seals; but for purposes of oil and light and commerce they are killed ; cow and bull seals alike fall before our enterprise ! Although the sun does not invade those realms with that ardour which he illustrates in Penn> sylvania, yet he must affect the business to some extent. But the gentleman from Pennsylvania says, " Keep away this foreign element of competi tion ! " The sealmen of Pribolov must applaud the efforts of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, and drink long life to him in that fluid for which they hanker. Even the 4,000,000 seal's practising the Mormon doctrine will forget the gentleman's vote on Utah, and extend him their thanks with their flippers ! (Laughter.) Besides, if this protection idea fails, what becomes of the whaling adventurers of New Bedford and Nantucket ? Where is the Nantucket member ? (Laughter.) The very whales themselves will blubber no more over their lost lights. (Laughter.) The heroes of the harpoon will become lost in the twilight of romance unless the gentleman from Pennsylvania draws the curtain of protection over the impudent heavenly competitor. Again, what would become of the gildings, bronzes, crystals, lamps in the spacious saloons of the rich ? Why not close the lighted Dome of this capital ? Why allow these stately escutcheons above us to be illuminated with sunlight ? As they are framed in Pennsylvania iron and pictured on Pittsburg glass, let them be lit eternally with gas from Pennsylvania coal! Down deep in the galleries of the Schuylkill mines there is but partial employment because of this solar radiance 1 Why not build an opaque roof ribbed with steel over the land, regardless of expense —(laughter)—that every coalbank and mine may furnish material for an American made gas retort. And then there is the manufacturer oi matches ! Is that business to be for ever discouraged by the sun ! Shall the lighting of cigars alono furnish a daily livelihood for the maker of locofocos ? Forbid it, almighty Congress 3 Let employment be increased ! Let labor thrive ! Down with the sun ! Up with night! " I reject," says the Pennsylvania member, " the gratuities of nature ; I reject natural wealth itself when its productions are cheap. I repel all foreign products, even raw material like pig iron and coal, be cause they approximate to gratuitous gifts! I exclude, on the same logic, everything foreign which is cheapest, that we may enjoy the luxury of making our own commodities with in creased cost of production and increased favor of patriotism 1 " So say all the delegates from Pennsylvania. Mr Haldeman : I beg the geutle man from New York will not be so general. I am not to be included. Mr Cox: I am happy to except the honorable gentleman, and I hope many of his Democratic colleagues ; but the other gentleman from Pennsylvania must be consistent, especially the gentleman from Philadelphia (Mr Kelly). He must make Government continue to pension his people. The rich men of Pennsylvania are now splendid paupers of the Government. He forgets who pays their score. Hi; forgets that all that Government owes his people is security; and that it owes to the people of the East, West, South, and North the same; that when it takes from one to help another it is fraud; that in this case it io fraud almost amounting to common law force; that Government should hold a balance among all interests and sections equipoise ; that if it left business and work to the laws of trade, to de

mand and supply, no encouragement is required and no restraint is needed. 1 Is not public injustice, as Dr Wayland says on this point, " the prolific parent of private violence ? " Does not oppressive taxation, the most odious form of tyranny, in the end, exile capital, kill production, and render a people desperate ? Does not the gentleman know that when he asks protection, he asks for something,, and when he asks for that he asks it for Pennsylvania ? He asks it to be given from whom ? Is not our people made of individuals ? Does it not come from one to go to another ? And if he takes it thus, and not for revenue which is another matter, he simply robs if he does it knowingly. Have not his friends here robbed the people of other States out of every dollar over and above what has been used for revenue ? Has he not robbed it from the farmer who buys his plough, the blacksmith who buys his hammer, and the carpenter who buys his chisel ? Has he not robbed it of the ship-builder who must have copper, iron, lumber, salt, canvas, and neuip for his ship ?