14 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hands, "but we have thus lost opportunities of export. If an 

 American locomotive is shipped, as many have been, to the Ar- 

 gentine Republic in competition with English engines, it has to 

 be sent in English boats via Liverpool, our people standing the 

 disadvantage of the additional charges, time of transport, and 

 interest. Under these circumstances we lose all trade except that 

 gained by great superiority, as in the case of locomotives. Thus 

 the very duty intended to benefit the iron industry reacts. It 

 secures the home market for the manufacturer, but destroys the 

 foreign market, and in times of inactivity, or when the market is 

 glutted by overproduction, there is no opportunity for relief by 

 recourse to a foreign customer. Again, if our manufacturers 

 wanted a machine not to be obtained in America, or raw materials 

 to be had here only at great expense, the Government taxes them 

 at a fearful rate. I am credibly informed that it is for this reason 

 that Mecham & Co., glass-manufacturers of Pittsburg, have re- 

 solved to locate in Belgium, where they can get their materials 

 and machines free. So with the Rochester tumbler- works, which, 

 I am also informed, are about to leave an illiberal country. It is 

 thus that we may see one reason for the existence of the great 

 American business colony in Europe. This country pays a pre- 

 mium to many industries to get out of it. Obviously, too, our 

 railway lines lose heavily by the diminished volume of exchanges, 

 just as they would if State or country tariffs were set up. They 

 pay thirty per cent extra for their supplies, and, by way of com- 

 pensation, are deprived of part of their natural trade. Turn 

 where we will, we find derangements, if not actual loss. Placing, 

 as protection does, everything upon an unnatural footing, liable 

 at any moment to give way, it would be irrational to expect sound 

 and healthy industrial growth. The hysterical fear of some of 

 the protectionists, that English competition and "pauper labor'' 

 will " crush " American industry, is rather ludicrous, in view of 

 the history of the American and English competition. If there 

 has been any instance where English competition has not been 

 successfully met in America I do not know it. Indeed, Cobden 

 himself recognized that the United States were the great and only 

 menace to English commercial supremacy. Not to mention others, 

 Mr. Gladstone is quoted as saying, in a public speech : " I will say 

 this, that as long as America adheres to the protective system 

 your commercial primacy is secure. Nothing in the world can 

 wrest it from you while America continues to fetter her own 

 strong hands and arms, and with those fettered arms is content to 

 compete with you, who are free, in neutral markets." 



That protection has any effect in fostering " trusts " has been 

 vehemently denied, but so have many other obvious propositions. 

 Protection lessens the number of possible competitors, and conse- 



