2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the citizens of CMcago do not attempt to raise their wheat in their 

 own " back yards," but send their money into distant parts and 

 bny it ; while, on the other hand, the farmers of whom they buy 

 do not attempt to make their own clothing, their furniture, or 

 even their own flour. They buy them at Chicago. They do not 

 think it good economy to expend $100 worth of their own labor 

 for what costs but $10 in Chicago, but wisely prefer to use it in 

 creating what will bring $100 in Chicago. So, too, rising in the 

 scale of comparison, Iowa and Kansas do not "protect" them- 

 selves against New York and Massachusetts, nor do they attempt 

 by legal means to " foster industries " which exist in the latter 

 States. The national Constitution, fortunately, forbids such a 

 course ; and, as a party, the protectionists have not yet taken it 

 on themselves to say that a " protection " policy would be for the 

 advantage of the granger States as against the manufacturing 

 States. But the moment we come to that imaginary line known 

 as the national boundary, this simple and beneficent process ceases. 

 The farmers of Manitoba would naturally buy their clothing, 

 furniture, tools and machinery, and much of their food, at Minne- 

 apolis and St. Paul. The merchants of those cities would like to 

 sell to the Manitobans, but the two Governments prevent it. 

 Only last year the Manitobans had a very good potato-crop, while 

 that of Minnesota was a failure ; and, on the other hand, fruit was 

 plenty in Minnesota and scarce in Manitoba. It would have been 

 natural to have sold American fruit in Manitoba, and to have 

 brought back potatoes. But no ; protection "protected" the peo- 

 ple of Minnesota from potatoes that year, and the Manitobans, as 

 they tried to imagine that their superfluous potatoes were apples 

 and pears, doubtless consoled themselves with the idea that they 

 were growing rich, because no Yankees were selling them fruit 

 and taking their money away. 



It is useful to recur to these every-day facts of universal ex- 

 perience in order that we may have the great and complicated 

 question before us in its simplest elements. I think the homely 

 illustrations I have used at the outset will lend certainty and sig- 

 nificance to the results of a survey of the effects of protection in 

 the larger and vaguer field of our national life. Let the reader 

 keep in mind the consequences which would ensue if I did not buy 

 my shoes of a neighbor — the poor shoes I would have, and the 

 great labor with which I obtained them. Let him imagine the 

 result of the Chicago people attempting to raise their wheat in 

 their own " back yards," or of the farmers of Iowa refusing to 

 buy any cloths or machinery not produced in their own neigh- 

 borhood. Let him imagine the poverty and want which would 

 prevail in the frontier States if from the moment of settlement 

 they adopted the policy of prohibiting all these importations from 



