5 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which are necessary or useful for the sustenance, comfort, and 

 advantage of human life." There can be no dispute on this point. 

 It is a self-evident truth. Aristotle tells us that he who rejects 

 self-evident truths has no surer foundation on which to build. 

 It follows, as a natural conclusion, that whatever interferes with 

 or checks the natural flow of goods and commodities from one 

 region to another, and from one class of men to another, is a de- 

 cided loss to both classes. " If," adds Mr. Gladstone, " every coun- 

 try produced all commodities with exactly the same degree of 

 facility or cheapness, it would be contrary to common sense to 

 incur the charge of sending them from one country to another." 



It has been the aim of protective legislation to offset those 

 special aptitudes of production which foreign nations possess by 

 artificial barriers. Such legislative acts have constituted, virtu- 

 ally, a leveling process whereby the natural flow of trade has been 

 stopped. This has necessarily been attended with expense and 

 loss of wealth. The premises may be stated in a different way. 

 Since trade produces wealth, whatever increases trade increases 

 wealth, and that which restricts trade restricts the production of 

 wealth. Protection is restriction. Hence, protection hinders the 

 production of wealth. It may be varied in another way : The 

 growth of wealth is proportional to the growth of trade, and the 

 growth of trade is proportional to its freedom from restraint. 

 Hence the growth of wealth is proportional to the freedom which 

 trade enjoys. Similarly, that monstrous statement that " protec- 

 tion does not tend to keep up prices" may be thus exploded; by 

 stating the fact that free competition tends to reduce prices, and 

 that protection hinders free competition. Ergo, protection hinders 

 the reduction of prices. The premises here laid down are as self- 

 evident as any truths regarding trade can be. In fact, they are 

 contained in the definition of the words " free trade " and " pro- 

 tection " themselves. The protectionists have admitted them 

 again and again, but yet so blinded have they become by their 

 own method of induction, that they have been prevented from 

 following out what reason dictates. The question is analogous 

 to that of slavery. It was an argument used repeatedly during 

 the Southern dispute that the slaves were better off under the 

 slave trade. Numerous instances were given where the slave 

 preferred to remain in slavery than to accept his freedom. Nev- 

 ertheless, the question was decided on general principles, and the 

 moral course has proved the economical one. 



The party of protection, instancing the growth of the United 

 States during the last quarter century corresponding with the 

 operation of the Morrill Tariff Act challenges comparison with 

 any period of equal duration in the world's history. It is doubt- 

 ful if history could show any period which would stand compari- 



