education, science and the arts are rapidly enlarging the means of social happiThe progress of our country in her career of greatness, not only in the vast extension of her territorial limits, and in the rapid increase of our population, but in resources and wealth, and in the happy condition of our people, is without an example in the history of nations."

With the election of Polk as President in 1844 the Free Traders were once more in power and a low tariff took the place of the protection one that preceded it. The Southern Democrats were all-powerful in Congress and they were persistent in their demand for free trade. Fortune favored the Democracy at this period, or rather it was partly fortune and partly misfortune. Shortly after the passage of the low tariff act of 1846 the Mexican war broke out and caused an outlay on the part of government that put $100,000,000 in circulation. Then came the Irish famine in 1847, causing a great demand for breadstuffs; the European revolutions of 1848, with a similar result; the discovery of gold in California in 1848-9, and shortly afterward the Crimean war.

These events caused an immense demand upon our country, particularly for our agricultural products; gave us increased prices for them, and brought large sums of money from those countries to pay for them; and, of course, this money was widely distributed, and tended to make the times apparently prosperous. But when their influence was gone, depression followed and brought about the great financial crash of 1857, just as the panic of 1837 had been brought about through the repeal of the protective tariff in 1832. In 1857, the Democrats, urged on by the South and by their natural tendency to free trade, as repeatedly shown in their national platforms, again reduced the duties, already too low, to the lowest rates we have ever had since the adoption of the Constitution; and again financial revolution, appalling in its widespread severity and distress, involved the nation and for more than four years tortured and impoverished our people, and exhausted our resources.

Both of these latter tariffs (1846 and 1857) were intended as tariffs for revenue only. From 1847 to 1857 the expenditures of the government exceeded its revenues by $21,790,909, and the public debt increased in the same period $13,149,629. Yet, notwithstanding these facts, the Act of 1857 kept in force the principles of that of 1846, and reduced the duties upon all articles that involved the doctrine of protection. From this time to 1861, when a protective tariff was enacted by the Republicans, the public debt increased nearly $46,000,000, and the expenditures exceeded the receipts by $77,234,116 in the same time.

James Buchanan, the last Democratic President before the Rebellion, in his Annual Message, said officially of that distressful free trade period : "With unsurpassed plenty in all the productions and all the elements of natural wealth, our manufacturers have suspended; our public works are retarded; our private enterprises of different kinds are abandoned; and thousands of useful laborers are thrown out of employment and reduced to want. We have possessed all the

elements of material wealth in rich abundance, and yet, notwithstanding all these advantages, our country, in its monetary interests, is in a deplorable condition."

The fourth free trade period came to an end in 1861, when the Republicans enacted the Morrill tariff and the country found itself once more under the system of protection to American industry.

XVI.

Prosperity of the Country from 1861 to 1865 not wholly due to Protection-Vast Expenses on Account of the War-Efforts of Great Britain to destroy Industries of Other CountriesOpium Trade in China-How England built up her Industries by rigid Protection-Cause of her Change of Policy-Hon. Thomas H. Dudley and Hon. James G. Blaine on this Subject-British Statistics of Trade and Manufactures-Comparative Growth of Manufactures in England and the United States-Quotations from British Authorities-Value of Home Markets-How the Farmer's Prosperity is assured-Growth of the Country under Protection-Comparative Cost of Living in England and the United States-Cleveland's Theory "the Tariff is a Tax "-Reciprocity and its Results-"Why I am a Protectionist."

T would not be fair to attribute to protection alone the prosperity of the country in the four years following the enactment of the Morrill tariff in 1861. The demand for maintaining and supplying our armies in the field was very great. Immense quantities of food were required for the men under arms, and corresponding amounts of forage for horses, and these requirements gave a great impetus to agriculture. Arms, equipments, clothing, cannon, wagons and many other things were needed, and these needs caused the establishment of new factories, foundries, and workshops, or the restarting of old ones that had come to grief under the free trade policy that prevailed previous to the war. Had we been living under a low tariff, or no tariff at all, during the war period there would have been just as much industrial prosperity as there was under the high tariff, provided of course the government credit could have been maintained. But all this would have come to an end with the cessation of hostilities and the disbanding of the armies. But our splendid tariff of 1861, and the amendments thereto in connection with these things, gave our farmers and manufacturers an assurance of enduring prosperity after the close of the war; provided employment for all who wanted it; furnished us with an unequaled and remunerative home market, and made it possible for the country to carry on and close the

war, and safe for our own people to undertake such expensive works without fear of ruinous competition from similar productions and manufactures in foreign lands. Indeed, it is now admitted by every intelligent person, except Free Traders, that without that high tariff we never could have raised the means to conquer the Rebellion; and also, that we never could have established permanently those magnificent industries which have made us so strong, so wealthy, and so prosperous. Is it strange that the Free Traders of the South and of England hate and condemn a protective tariff?

Allusion was made in the preceding chapter to the efforts which Great Britain has made at various times to crush the industries of other countries in order to preserve or increase her own market. Her policy has been as consistent as it has been persistent; it is the British theory that British trade must prosper whatever may be the consequences to other people. To this end she made war upon China to compel that country to admit the opium which was annually destroying many thousands of lives. Opium was the chief source of revenue in British India, and unless it could find a market there would be a financial crash in Hindostan; hence the drug was forced down the unwilling throats of the Chinese at the point of the bayonet and the muzzle of the cannon. In the same spirit England has bullied, bribed or cajoled the rest of the world to follow her policy of free trade, well knowing that with the general adoption of such a policy she would have great advantages.

For a long period England devoted herself to building up her industries by one of the most rigid systems of protection that was ever known. In some instances she not only prohibited importation, but prohibited the export of machinery under a penalty and passed laws to prevent the emigration of her expert or skilled labor. She carried protection so far that in some instances it was made a punishable offense even to sell or use commodities manufactured abroad. She maintained this system down to about 1840, when she had brought it to such a state of perfection that she could compete safely with the rest of the world, and then she adopted the new policy of free trade. She was like the pugilist who secludes himself from the rest of mankind to go through a process of "training" that will develop his muscle to its fullest capacity and enable him to compete with fair prospects of success with any other devotee of the noble art of manly disfiguration. When his training is complete he emerges from his seclusion, issues his challenge to a contest for the champion's belt, assumes a fighting attitude, and defiantly says, "Come on, all you fellers!"

In 1846 she repealed her Corn Laws and adopted the other system, a tariff for revenue, or, as she calls ft, free trade. Some other nations of Europe for a time followed England in her system of free trade, but these nations have all abandoned it and returned to the protective system; so that to-day there is no free trade civilized government in the world except England. except England. England as a free trade country thus stands alone. Even the English colonies, which she has planted from time to time in different parts of the globe, have all adopted the protective system. New South Wales in Australia had the policy of free trade for a long time, but finding herself falling behind the other colonies of the antipodes in prosperity she has recently (1891 and 1892) adopted a protective tariff. Some of the British colonies have established tariffs of such a high character that they are almost prohibitory, and are worse, from the Free Trader's point of view, than our much-despised McKinley Bill.

If free trade is such a blessing as our Democratic friends claim it is, England should be the most prosperous country in the world and her workingmen the best paid, best fed, and happiest. On this subject let us listen to Hon. Thomas H. Dudley, formerly United States Consul at Liverpool, who has carefully studied the merits and demerits of England's tariff policy.

"By the official statistics as published by the English Parliament in the year 1874, the acreage of wheat in Great Britain was 3,630,300 acres; in 1890 the acerage in wheat had declined or shrunk to 2,386,336 acres, being a loss of 1,243,964 acres, more than one-third in the seventeen years. Wheat is regarded as the standard crop, and is, therefore, taken as the representative agricultural product.

"The acreage in permanent pasturage in 1874 was 13,178,012 acres; in 1890 the permanent pasture lands had increased to 16,017,492 acres, an increase of 2,839,480 acres in permanent pasture over cultivated land. To this extent had agriculture declined. The average harvest in Great Britain is only about 70,000,000 bushels of wheat per year, less than two bushels per capita. In the United States in 1891 the yield was over nine bushels per capita.

"The population of the United Kingdom in 1881 was 34,848,842; in 1891 it was 37,740,283, the increase being 8.2 per cent, the smallest percentage of increase for the last thirty years, while in the United States from 1880 to 1890 the increase in population was about 25 per cent. The population of Liverpool, one of the chief commercial cities of England, in 1881 was 552,508; in 1891 it was 517,951, being a loss in population during the ten years of over 34,000 people.