COMMON SENSE AND THE TARIFF QUESTION. 599 



agriculture as compared with other occupations ; but after the 

 normal conditions have become established by long settlement, as 

 in Ohio, for instance — a State midway between the great prairies 

 of the West and the factories of the East — we find that, although 

 there is almost nothing produced in Ohio which could be imported 

 from any foreign country, except a little wool and a little pig-iron 

 — the two together constituting a small proportion of the product 

 of the State and giving employment in 1880 to only thirty-two 

 thousand out of one million persons then occupied for gain, rat- 

 ing persons in ratio to the relative value of products — the balance 

 of occupations is about the same as that which has established 

 itself on the average throughout the country. That average is 

 forty to forty-five per cent in agriculture ; ten to eleven per cent 

 in trade and transportation ; twenty to twenty-four per cent in 

 professional and personal service ; twenty to twenty-four per cent 

 in manufacturing and mechanic arts and in mining. 



The error which Mr. Gladstone has made in his article in the 

 North American Review, to which Mr. Blaine replied, is of this 

 nature. If I read his article correctly from his standpoint, I think 

 he holds to the mistaken idea that the conditions of this country 

 are more especially adapted to agriculture than to the manufact- 

 uring arts. A greater mistake could not be made. We possess 

 greater advantages in our natural conditions and resources for 

 the establishment of the mining industry, the mechanic arts and 

 manufacturing, than we do in agriculture ; and it is only due to 

 our own blunders that we do not take the paramount position in 

 the world in all these arts. 



On the other hand, the reply of Mr. Blaine is full of yet more 

 gross errors ; not errors of opinion, but errors in the statement of 

 facts. A more mistaken or erroneous statement of the course 

 of economic history not only in Great Britain but also in this 

 country, could hardly have been compiled than is found in Mr. 

 Blaine's reply to Mr. Gladstone. A complete review of these two 

 articles remains to be written. 



So much for the analysis by persons. Now, if we adopt the 

 theory so well laid down by Sir Robert Peel, after he had become 

 convinced of the necessity of tariff reform, that if our condition 

 had not been changed by our long persistence in a high tariff 

 policy, we might choose the subjects from which to derive our 

 revenue so as to interfere in the least degree either with com- 

 merce, agriculture, or manufactures — then the collection of our 

 necessary revenue either from customs or from excise, or both, 

 would become a very simple matter. 



Let us for a moment take up this subject as a matter of theory 

 and not of condition. Let us investigate our resources, and lay 

 out an ideal method for collecting the national revenue wholly 



