entirely practicable to put these theories in force to regulate international commercial intercourse, and they are thus led to embrace these theories, which the wisest statesmen and the most powerful monarchs, and the most thrifty, moral, industrious and self-governing people among men, have been totally unable to establish even for a single day on their frontiers.'

The speculations and methods of book-learned men in reasoning out the benefits of that theoretically unrestricted intercourse between mankind, which they term free trade, always reminds one of those ingenious and curious automatons of the middle ages. Into these the inventors of those days put the most ingenious combinations of machinery, springs, pulleys, gear-wheels, cranks, etc., etc., to make the automatons perform curious and wonderful actions and movements imitating human life. But it was not human life, notwithstanding all this ingenuity, and was utterly valueless to mankind. So the free-trade philosopher, in his closet, constructs in imagination and describes in curious and wonderful logiç, his automaton communities and nations of men, all fitted with free-trade springs of action, freetrade pulleys of impulse, free-trade gears of inter-communication, and even free-trade cranks of reasoning. For forty years his books have flooded our libraries and dominated our colleges, but they are still automatons, which these illustrate, and not human international life and commercial intercourse, and hence they have proved as useless to the statesman as the automatons of the middle ages, and impossible to realize in practice.

These facts being thus established, it is quite apparent that it is useless to speculate upon these theories, which have proved so utterly valueless and impossible to realize in practice between nations. We can safely leave them to scholastic professors who, not understanding the practical, amuse themselves with the impossible, while we consider the actual system which is the nearest approximation to freetrade theories ever realized in international practice. This system has come to be called, in the absence of any more perfect realization

1 Mongredien, the authorized spokesman of the Cobden Club, says [History of the Free Trade Movement in England, p. 172, etc.]: "Is our present [British] tariff one from which every shred and vestige of protection have been discarded? Is it truly and thoroughly a freetrade tariff? That these questions must be answered in the affirmative it is easy to prove in the most conclusive manner." John McGregor, one of the joint secretaries of the British Board of Trade, after investigating the subject, says: "That England **** should have nothing but fiscal taxation — that is, duties for revenue only; have no protection at all.” These quotations serve to show that our term free-trade tarif" is recognized and used as correct, by the leading practical exponents of modern free trade, and that free trade is a system of tariff taxation, and synonymous with "tariff for revenue only."

of the term, "free trade," but is often more accurately designated as "tariff for revenue only," or "free-trade tariff."

We find, as the result of the experience of willing statesmen upon a willing people for forty-five years, that this is the nearest approach ever made to actual freedom of trade, even in Great Britain. It is as if setting out with a party from the Earth to visit the planet Mars, we had only been able to get as far as the Moon in these forty-five years, but the conductors of our party still continued to call the Moon Mars, and to indulge in rhapsodies on the beauties of the Martial continents and seas, and mountains and rivers before us, when, in fact, neither they, nor any one else, had ever been there, or ever actually seen them, but all is the barren landscape of the Moon.

From the above review we learn that "British free trade" is really "tariff for revenue only," or, in other words, a system of tariff taxation; that this is the nearest approach to absolutely unrestricted commercial intercourse between different nations which has ever been actually practised, and that all these beautiful theories which assume the contrary are impracticable in application and of purely imaginative existence.

On the contrary, modern experience has demonstrated that within the boundaries of a nation, unrestricted commercial intercourse between its citizens, within certain broadly defined limits, is advantageous. I say within certain broadly defined limits, because it cannot escape notice that even in this national field of commerce we have had, and always shall have, certain laws regulating matters pertaining to it. By national field of commerce, I mean that within the nation as opposed to international. For instance, we have laws relating to coinage of the money, in which the commerce within the nation is conducted, and laws in relation to carrying the mails by which commerce is transacted. We have laws providing for a uniform system of weights and measures to be used in commerce. We have laws, state or national, regulating the charges and modes of conducting those vital agents of commerce, the railroads. We have laws regulating the business of banking, without which a great internal commerce could not be carried on. These laws, especially those relating to railroads and banking, confer special privileges upon these branches of commercial industry. We also find that it is necessary to regulate internal commerce in gun-powder, nitro-glycerine, and oleomargarine. We also enact laws relating to corporations and

suppressing trusts. We have laws relating to the hours of labor of women and minors in manufacturing establishments, and on railroads, in some states.

All these laws, and others of like character, regulate the conduct of some part or class of the community in restraint of its conducting business in a particular prohibited way, for the general good, and many of them confer special privileges upon certain occupations, for the general good. In short, absolutely unrestricted commercial intercourse, internal or international, is unknown.

We do find, however, that it is expedient and perfectly feasible, within the national boundaries, to abolish tariffs and custom houses, as between the several parts of the nation. But this was no discovery of the advocates of free-trade tariffs. It is found enunciated in that provision of the national constitution, which enacts that no state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws, or lay any duty of tonnage. It was inserted in that instrument by the authors of it, who believed in protection, and who established the national power to carry the protective system into force on our national boundaries, by that constitution.

We gather from all this experience of mankind, both under free trade and protection, on the one hand the absolute practical impossibility of abolishing tariffs and custom houses along the national frontiers of any civilized nation for raising revenue, and on the other hand the perfectly feasible practice of abolishing such tariffs and custom houses as between the different parts or sections of the same nation, which benefits its citizens; and finally, we discover that both these conditions were established and recognized, as parts of a protective system, long before the adoption of any system of free-trade tariffs as a practical guide to economic administration in any nation.

The measure of freedom of commercial intercourse between the several states of the Union is, therefore, a part of our protective system, and not of "free trade," so called. It is here feasible, while not feasible and utterly impossible to put in practice between independent nations, as the experience of the last forty years shows. It is not "free trade," and the free-trader has no right to claim it as such, meaning "free trade" as it now exists between different nations. Hence, we see the entire fallacy of assuming that

the benefits of the freedom of commercial intercourse, existing between our states of the Union, can be realized between different nations.

If, as we have shown, this freedom of commercial intercourse cannot be practically established between different nations, then its benefits cannot be realized between them, and it becomes utter folly to argue as if they are so realized, or what would happen to the world, or to us who live in it, if they were. Let the theoretical free-trader first show that he can practically establish between two independent nations this same freedom of commercial intercourse existing between the states of our Union, with its total absence of tariffs and custom houses. He has tried forty years, under the most favorable conditions, to do it, without success. Then, and then only, will it be in order to argue what benefit would accrue to mankind from doing it. Before that is done, to so argue is merely like an attempt to reason from the possible to the impossible, and from the known to the unknowable; an attempt which every other system of philosophy, except the theoretical free-trade system, has abandoned long since.

The theoretical advocate of free trade is like the advocate of perpetual motion. The latter points to some finished and beautiful machine, working by the power of steam, from coal, and says: "See what a benefit my idea will be to mankind when I run this machine without the expenditure of all this fuel. It will then do the same work, and its beautiful, finished parts will run on in the same way when it is attached to my perpetual-motion mechanism. And then the latter is so simple, too; it only consists of a few parts, and is cheap and so economical in operation." To all this we merely answer, "Show us the actual, existing, working perpetual-motion motor first, and then we will discuss the beauties of its benefits to mankind."

Just so the theoretical free-trade advocate points to the beautiful and perfect operation of the existing system of commercial intercourse between different nations—in which the markets of each are supported and kept desirable by the efficient government of each nation, and each and every government is kept efficient by the duties on imports which sustain it-and he says: "See what a benefit my idea will be to mankind when I run this commercial machine without the expenditure of all this fuel in the shape of tariff taxes. It will then do the same work, and its mechanism will run on in the same

way when it is attached to my economic perpetual-motion system, 'free trade.' And then the latter is so simple, too; for it only consists of a few maxims, and is so cheap and economical in operation." To all this we merely answer, "Show us any system of absolute free trade without tariff taxes in actual operation between two nations first, and then we will discuss its beauties and benefits to mankind afterwards." Tariff taxes are as much the fuel which drives the mechanism of government of "free trade" nations as of protected nations.

What the advocate of free-trade tariff reform actually presents as his usual argument is, in the first place, the statement that England has "free trade," referring, of course, to her tariff system, whereby, by custom houses and tariffs, she has for forty years collected $100,000,000 per year, mostly out of the food and drink of her people. Next he says, we certainly have "free trade" between the different states of the Union, because we have no custom houses or tariffs between them. Therefore, he argues, in conclusion, that all the benefits of our interstate freedom of commercial intercourse without tariffs would ensue to two independent nations if the British system of free-trade tariffs were adopted. The fallacy and sophism of this system of argument lies in properly calling one system, i. c., the British system of custom houses and tariffs, "free trade," and then improperly calling another system, i. e., our internal system of no custom houses or tariffs at all between the states of the Union, "free trade," and then, lastly, assuming that the blessings of the latter system within this nation would enure equally by the application of the former and different system between two different nations. This argument is like calling an octopus a fish, and then saying, "The mackerel in our harbors and bays is certainly a sweet and wholesome food fish, and you see how advantageous it is to men to catch them. Therefore, my friend, go out into the deep sea and catch the octopus, and enjoy these blessings which come from fishing."

Some nations, as we shall hereafter show, have tried the experiment of catching hold of the British free-trade tariff octopus, to their

sorrow.

This designation, free trade, is too firmly attached to the British system of tariff taxation to be severed from it and, therefore, we shall continue to employ it to designate that system, first cautioning the reader not to fall into the error of supposing that so used it means no