TARIFF REVISION 447 



whole world appears arrayed against it. The reason of this tendency 

 of free trade to advance industry, as I pointed out, in an address before 

 the International Free Trade Congress in London last summer, is 

 " that every agency for reducing and obstructing importations must at 

 the same time, a little less directly but precisely as powerfully, obstruct 

 and reduce exportations." 



It is altogether fallacious to treat the interest of the manual laborer 

 as if it were something apart from that of the people as a whole — as if 

 it were not practically identical with that of the consumer generally. 

 Yet it seems peculiarly absurd to sunder the two in this case, because 

 the main interest of the consumer, in cheaper and more abundant pro- 

 duction, is one that necessarily and especially involves a great and 

 steady increase in the demand for labor. That helps us to understand 

 what so puzzled our great-grandfathers, the tendency of labor-saving- 

 machinery to bring prosperity instead of ruin to the working people. 

 Free trade, now feared on exactly the same grounds as our ancestors 

 feared labor-saving machines, will be sure to work the same way, as is- 

 proved by the last half century of English history. 



A pretended connection of low-tariff legislation with panics and 

 hard times has again and again been brought forward to befog the 

 people's minds. It might be thought that the example seen a year and 

 a half ago, of a business crisis occurring under the untrammeled sway of 

 unmitigated Dingleyism, would cure any such notion. But since custom 

 seems to devolve upon the tariff reformer the duty of accounting for 

 all financial crises, it is worth while to say that the best explanation of 

 that of 1907 appears to be the unnatural stimulus to protected indus- 

 tries given by the Dingley tariff, resulting in overproduction and a 

 consequent glut, with which the inelastic currency system still surviv- 

 ing to curse our country was powerless to cope. But we must limit this 

 degree of connection : if people are diligently enough taught to re- 

 gard anything — no matter what — as the cause of panics, the appearance 

 of that thing will produce a panic as the direct effect of the teaching. 

 There is hardly even that connection between political economy and 

 political boundary lines. It is everywhere conceded, probably, that a 

 free exchange of goods is a benefit to our citizens throughout our 

 northern territory, as far as the Canadian border. But why should 

 there be an abrupt change across that artificial line, where conditions 

 — except the color of bunting floating from buildings — are all the same ? 

 This reminds me of an old story of a German who lived, or thought he 

 lived, in Pennsylvania, before the boundary was settled by Mason and 

 Dixon. The border line, which he had believed to be just south of 

 his house, was finally fixed a few lines north, and Hans was told 

 that he now lived in Maryland. He replied : " I'm very glad of it, for 

 I am told it is warmer in Maryland than in Pennsylvania." 



The tariff, like national questions generally, ought to be settled oa 



