COMMON SENSE AND THE TARIFF QUESTION. 447 



ice, or of service for product, in order that those who are displaced 

 from one kind of work by the application of science and invention 

 may be most ready, able, and competent to take up some other 

 kind of work less arduous, less exhausting, and more conducive to 

 human welfare. 



What is the object of exchange ? How few people ever ask 

 themselves that question ! If each one of us did not save himself 

 by exchange from some part of the necessary work required to 

 sustain life, there would be no exchange ; each one of us, and every 

 other man, would live and work for himself alone. All this is ele- 

 mentary. It becomes perfectly clear when considered as between 

 man and man. Does not the same rule govern the commerce of 

 nations ? What is the commerce of nations, except the sum of 

 the exchanges between man and man ? Unless each nation gains 

 by the exchange, does not the trade stop ? If both gain by the 

 exchange, does it not hurt both to stop it by legislation ? By ob- 

 structing exchange, we may make work where we might save it ; 

 but that nation loses most from such obstructions in which the 

 greatest abundance of product is attained at the least cost of labor 

 and at the highest rates of wages. If there were such a thing in 

 the world as pauper labor, that nation which exchanged the great- 

 est amount of the product of skilled labor for the greatest amount 

 of the product of pauper labor would save itself the most work. 

 Daniel Webster once said, when in his prime, " The people of this 

 country can not afford to do for themselves what they can hire 

 foreign paupers to do as well for them." This is true not only in 

 respect to the price of labor, but to the kind and quality of the 

 work which is to be done. 



There are many branches of industry from which science has 

 not yet removed the noxious or bad conditions of the work. Dip- 

 ping sheets of iron or steel which have been treated with acid 

 into melted tin for conversion into tin plates is one of the arts 

 which it would be most undesirable to introduce into this country 

 until, by way of science and invention, its noxious conditions have 

 been removed : then it will come here itself ; the conditions will 

 then be equalized ; we can then afford to take up what it would 

 now be injudicious for us to undertake. 



When we consider the obstructive and injurious effect of many 

 of our taxes, light although they may be in money, we find that 

 they are a heavier burden than those of almost any other nation 

 except Russia, Turkey, and Spain. 



They have not increased the profits in the arts which were in- 

 tended to be promoted by their imposition, except for short or 

 variable periods; they have reduced wages in the protected 

 branches of industry below those which are attained in occupa- 

 tions which can not be subjected to foreign competition, while 



