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Free Trade vs. Protection

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'HE origin of this word shows the antiquity of protection and the hollowness and absurdity of the claim made by protectionists in the United States that it is an American system. Tarifa was a town and a castle, about twenty miles from Gibraltar, where Moorish pirates exacted tribute from passing vessels for about eight centuries during the Mohammedan sway in Spain. The same system has existed for centuries in China, under which "squeeze stations," so called, exacted and still exact tolls from every passing vessel. For ages the robber barons of European feudalism levied a similar toll on comAdam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations, says, "The protection of trade in general from pirates and freebooters is said to have given occasion to the first institution of the duties of customs." When Mr. Roosevelt, in his carefully prepared address in Providence in August, 1912, spoke of "the prize money" of protection, his language was "of

merce.

logical, though it conceded more than he meant to concede.

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As now carried out in this country, protection is the levying of a toll or tax, called a duty, for the benefit of those modern pirates and freebooters, the big interests and trusts. If objection is urged to the use in this connection of such hard words, we will soften our language by calling them, more politely, privateers," since they are licensed by law to levy this prize money, more of which, Mr. Roosevelt says, ought to go to the working class. But whoever gave to protection the name of "the American system was either ignorant of history or had unlimited audacity, for the system existed for centuries before the United States were dreamed of, and long before the laws of political economy were known.

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The particular meaning of protection, as the word is used in this country, is the system favored by Hamilton, for which much may be said in the infancy of a country, i. e., the development of manufacturing industries by means of discriminating duties upon foreign manufactured goods. But the term has a much wider meaning, i. e., all the means by which a country may undertake to secure the industrial and commercial development of all its resources. This

would include the broad field of the development of the welfare of the country, the making of thorough geological, botanical, and other surveys of the land, to discover and to open up the vast wealth of its natural resources in its mines, forests, fields, waterfalls, etc.; the establishment of experiment stations to test the usefulness of new crops and fruits; to study means for making all crops more bountiful, the improvement of stock, and the introduction of new kinds; the preservation of the country's wild animals, game, and fishes; the stocking of our forests and waters with game and fishes of improved quality; and, what is of more importance than all these, the care and improvement of the human race, mentally and physically; or, to sum it all up, the conservation and improvement of all the gifts of divine Providence.

A REAL AMERICAN SYSTEM

The true American doctrine is that of equal opportunities to all, so far as legislation is concerned, with no special privileges granted to any by legislation.

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The word "protection" is used in a very different sense, a much narrower one-one, indeed, that means the exhaustion, instead of the conservation,

of such of our natural resources as it has succeeded in bringing under its blighting influence. As opposed to free trade, it means the protection (a) of the capitalists engaged in manufacturing, mining, etc.; (b) of the laborers engaged in the mills, machine shops, mines, etc., of these capitalists; or (c) of the consumers of their products. The latter may be dismissed at once from further consideration, for it cannot be claimed that consumers get any protection under this kid of protection. According to the unexpressed ideas of protectionists, they exist for the purpose of being exploited by the producers.

Protection for the benefit of the capitalist producers, or for the benefit of the laborers employed in such production, or for the benefit of both, is claimed to be secured through duties on manufactured or raw products brought into this country from other countries, the ostensible object of these duties being the raising of revenue with which to meet the expenses of government. But these two objects are antagonistic and inconsistent, for if duties are high enough to protect, they yield little or no revenue, while if they are low enough to yield revenue, they fail to protect. Protectionists answer this by citing the large sum produced by the tariff, running up into hundreds of millions of dollars, while the very existence of this large sum is cited by other protectionists, especially by those wanting protection who have not yet got it, as proof that the duties are not yet

high enough to keep out foreign goods. What they want is not protection, but prohibition. The history of the tariff is, therefore, a history of the struggle between those who want a tariff for revenue (which, as we shall see, is free trade) and those who want a tariff for protection, even prohibition if necessary, to keep out foreign goods; and of the legislation enacted for the purpose of bringing about one or the other of these results.

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Like the word "protection," the words "free trade" have many meanings. Primarily, they suggest freedom, the opposite of slavery, i. e., liberty, the right to trade as one wills, without restraint or limitation. Such a conception of free trade is in keeping with our free institutions and with all the great principles of freedom of the Anglo-Saxon blood-a part of the very being of Englishmen and Americans, like free speech, a free press, free schools, a free ballot, a free church and churches. In the abstract, free trade is the application in economics of the principle of the freedom, the right, the liberty, of every member of the community to carry on any legitimate business as he pleases, with freedom to buy in any market and to sell in any market, free from interference. This is absolute free trade;

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