FREE TRADE IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 54, 3 February 1872, Page 15

FREE TRADE IN AMERICA.

♦ j The American Free Trade League has j issued the following address : To the American people,— ’ Our country occupies an advanced position on the question of personal rights. Yet in some instances other nations go further than we do in permitting to the individual liberty of action. The most valuable right of man is the right to enjoy the fruits of his owu labor. This right is essential to his best development, physically and morally. It is not enough that the farmer should be free to raise all the grain he can grow ; nor the mechanic be free to exert his skill and 1 handiwork ; they should be free to procure, in exchange for what they have produced, the utmost of all other things that the want. In defence of this right the American Free Trade League is working. If there were no protective tariffs, the great crop of the west, so much of it as is not consumed at home, would procure for the men and women who have produced it personal comforts of double measure compared with those they now 1 get from it. So also of the crops of cotton and tobacco. If the whole surplus crop of the west in grain and pork, and beef, so much as is exported, could be put into the hands of one agent, and he be authorised to carry it abroad and there sell it and bring back the proceeds in the shape of goods free of duty at our Custom House, we would get for the surplus crop twice as m any bl an ket s, t wi ee as many clothes, tw'iee as much railroad iron as w T e now get. The great want of the country—increased railroad transportation—would be much more cheaply and therefore much more rapidly supplied. On the other hand, protective tariffs can, in no way, and in no degree, increase the prices of our grain, pork, beef, cotton, tobacco, or other articles which we export, for the prices of these abroad are regulated by the general specie prices of the woild, and the prices here at home of our exports must necessarily be governed by the prices of these things abroad. Nor do protective tariffs do good in the main towards developing manufactures among us. The occupations which are of themselves profitable at this period in this country will be undertaken without any stimulus from Government. The interference of Government with natural laws in this respect simply wastes labor. The Free-trade League asks that Custom house duties shall be laid simply for revenue, and shall cease to be laid for the purpose of keeping cheap goods out of the reach of our people. The farmer and the laborer would then be free to buy foreign clothes or domestic clothes, foreign blankets or domestic blankets, foreign iron or domestic iron, whichever he might find cheapest. Until he is allowed this free choice lie is not a free man in the use and disposal of liis labow The Free-trade League hold that no Government ever was wise enough or ever will be wise enough to regulate the private business of the people so as to prescribe to them what they shall buy and what they shall not buy, or to what market or what shop they shall go to buy what they need. We oppose a tariff framed with the view of legislating money out of the pockets os the many into tne pockets of the few.

The experience of England and France under the commercial treaty promoted by Cobden is, that with a reduction of one-third in the rate of duties the revenue of both Governments has increased and the condition of the people in both countries has been greatly improved by spreading more widedly among them the comforts of living. We have the most skilful shipbuilders and the best ship carpenters of any in the world, and yet we are unable to build ships. Our shipbuilders are idle. Why ? Because the Custom-house duties on the materials out of which to construct ships are prohibitory to our mechanics and protective to the foreign workman. Of the vast fleet of steamers running between Europe and America not one now carries the American flag. A nation which, like ours, has its borders upon two oceans, cannot safely permit itself to be driven from the seas by its own bad legislation. We ask your support in behalf of

your own interests to the principle we advance, to wit—that every man should be left free to buy with his labor what he may need wherever he can buy it cheapest; that the prosperity of the community is best promoted by Government letting private business alone ; that all men are entitled to equal protection from Government, and that for Government to give special protection to some interests is to rob all others ; that to tax labor for the special benefit of the owners of coal mines and iron mines, of foundries and factories, is to make all other classes of the community work for these few, to make all others, in fact, so far slaves to the avarice of these few. By order of the American Free trade League. The following statement of opinions held by the league is attached : The league holds that every man has a natural right to dispose of the product of his labor, wherever he can obtain in exchange for it the most of what he desires. That he should be free to seek his own welfare in his own way, so long as he does not infringe on the rights of others. That so far as he is deprived of these rights he is in slavery. It holds that every country has its peculiar natural advantages, and that to produce what can be most easily produced in it, and to exchange such products for what is more easily produced elsewhere, is the most profitable exertion of its industry. That the true means of encouraging home industry and of lessening poverty, is to remove every obstacle which hinders the free exchange of the products of labor. It holds that the “ protective system,” so called, is only ignorant national selfishness, which defeats its own ends. That it is contrary to the wise and benificent laws of Providence. That it diverts capital and labor from the most efficient occupations to others proved less efficient by their need of artificial support. That it is an odious form of class legislation. That it is a fertile source of social, sectional, and international discord. That it encourages commercial and official dishonesty and corruption. It holds that free trade with all the world will conduce to our highest welfare, and it is pre-eminently worthy of the American people, who should be foremost in breaking down every social and commercial barrier. The Free-irade League submits to taxation and duties to meet the necessities of government, but denounces as robbery and tyranny all taxation for the benefit of special classes. The league urges all who agree with these principles to unite with it in obtaining complete emancipation for industry and commerce. Life membership, 2odol. ; yearly membership, 2dol. Members receive all the publications of the league. W. C. Bryant, President. W. B. Scott, 44 Pine-st,Treasurer.