A PROTECTIVE TARIFF POLICY.

As things are, farmers must have fences, and they and others must have a tariff fence also. It was before college days that I found myself an American Protectionist. I could quote the common-sense words of General Jackson, who showed that the farmer wanted a near market, to be attained by the multiplication of factories where were cheap raw material, food for the operative, and motive power in coal mines, and water power ready to turn the wheels. Our government should defend enterprise, he believed, against the cheap labor of the old world, deluding us with the philosophy of raising the raw products while the cities, carriers and foreigners used the profits of fabrication.

Henry Clay, the most popular American statesman, not only echoed Jackson that "it was time to be a little more American", but was the eloquent defender of a tariff system which no president arraigned, down to Cleveland. In Vermont we were wool growers, and certainly partial to the rate of duty which brought gain to the flock master, the building of factories and the lessening of the price of goods, besides securing our independence of other nations.

Under even a high war tariff, no nation has so easily removed a colossal war debt and in a given period so enhanced its wealth as ours, winning the admiration of the statesmen of the world, the exceptional opinion of a Gladstone standing for a country too limited in area to furnish soil for the raw products, and food for the laborers.

A sharp, clear issue is near; duties levied for revenue only, or to give such protection that capital will unlock our native resources, enhancing the value of lands and securing better reward for labor. Our natural rivals would keep us in vassalage to the forge and the loom abroad, while burdening the producer with heavy freight charges, while the fabricator reaps large net profits. Mere book and college theories will not long mystify the masses, while in the study of personal interest and the road to the highest social independence and national wealth.

It is the world's common law that the land owner may protect his fields against the trespasser, and it is not less plain that a government may establish conditions on which rival nations may enter our markets. Extreme exactions will invite reform, but not the

waiving of a policy. Advantages must be equalized, and the avoidance of all which savors of favoritism. To invite capital there must be stable legislation. I am asked, "Did you see the catalogue of the millionaires, by Mr. T. G. Shearman?" I did, and the names allied to manufacturing as the source of wealth could not be found, to brand manufacturers as the great robbers. Invention, oil lands, coal and railway combination, gave an answer to the question, "How came these colossal fortunes?" It is not denied that high prices in war times added to the fortunes of millions, but the benefited class embraces farmers, bankers, railway builders and groups of citizens moving on with enterprise and hope. Monopoly is a canting terror used without reason.

Grave matters of public concern demand a fixed conclusion, not only by the reasoner, but a formulation to guide to a safe and practical legislative policy. It is a discredit, perhaps, to human nature that we fail to rise above the caprice of the hour, and a low grade of selfishness, to the broad plane of generous comity and enlightened statesmanship. Outside of political bias, personal interest, or pride of opinion, I have reached this conclusion, that a national policy should be as devoid of party strifes, as is the question of birthplace in the determination of true patriotism.

Reading, reflection and business experience, have all conspired to exalt the Hamiltons, the Jacksons, the Clays, the Greeleys, Henry Careys and Blaines, as financial leaders, if not demi-gods, to be studied and followed with the pride and ardor which pertains to American loyalty. What! do you give no credit for honesty and fidelity to conviction to those who advocate free trade? I assume that the New York press for the most part writes and prints for pay, and in the interest of a commercial city, which seeks to be the thoroughfare and port of commerce for a hundred millions of people. And I have no agreement, if conceding honesty, with the paid teachers of political science, who argue directly against the interests of wage-workers, and the farming classes. My contempt is beyond expression for the pretenders, with their money gains in bank or bonds, that declaim against American protection as a denial to buy where they can purchase the cheapest and sell their gold at the dearest rates. What are they but creatures who have turned their backs to the masses, for personal inordinate gain? The poor may have an excuse for a blind experiment, and a depression of prices to sate his hunger or clothe his body, but this does

not apply to those inheriting money or living upon fixed salaries. In a call for a verdict by the people on this question, the privileged can have no place in the jury-box and their specious pleas will be met with a becoming derision, as the mockery of patriotism.

Ah! but what will you do with the great preachers of universal brotherhood, who are for free trade as the normal condition and for the best welfare of nations? They are but theorists. It was my fortune and duty to tell the lamented Beecher, a great heart has muddled the financial brain that has a clear perception of parental duty, toward a child or family, involving more in providing for his own than for another household and nation. Fellow-countrymen, banded for protection and fortified against assault, have the first claim, else patriotism is a delusion, and natural affection a myth. We might well listen to the opinion of a Bismark, who sees in our protective policy the solution of the problems with which the wastes of war and debt confronted us, and the way by which we attained, in credit, wealth and power, the first place among nations. It is left for the politician to study the question of cheap foreign goods, linked with idleness at home, contrasted with an era of activity, expansion and independence, such as no other nation has achieved. The practical question will appear, to a rural people, shall the ore in the mountains, and coal, and all the powers and incidents to invention, be developed at home, under economic laws, or shall we be a dependent nation, dealing at arms-length with powerful rivals?

I must stand by my speech in Congress, without variableness or shadow of turning. I showed that, against all the rules of domestic and political economy, the raw material, like the hide of a beef, which left the prairies, passing through from six to ten handlings and commissions, would be proof of vassalage. The alternative was the fabricator, with his family, to move under fairer skies and where there was cheaper fuel and food, obtainable without the intervention of middleman.

The glove factory at Grinnell, the shoe-shops springing up in the West, the various factories, are the arguments for that policy which brings wealth to the nation, and must become the standing argument for the thoughtful farmer, who takes pride in the state of his adoption, and desires that standard of wealth and refinement which it has never been the fortune of a simple agricultural community or nation to attain.