SKETCH OF EDWARD ATKINSON. 117 



had been raised upon American soil by the hands of native-born 

 men and women, since every one of them has been or mnst be paid 

 for by an exchange of some domestic product for it, whether it be 

 cotton, oil, gold, cheese, or wooden clocks ; and the only reason 

 why this exchange is ever made is that we have too much of the 

 things made upon our own soil, and too little or none at all of 

 those things of foreign origin for which we make the exchange. 

 Production is but a leading forth ; it is but movement. We move 

 the cotton-seed to the soil, the cotton to the Northern mill, the 

 cloth to the seaboard ; then, by the steamship, we move it to 

 where it is more needed than by ourselves ; we move back the 

 tea, and the tea is but the final product of the labor of the freed- 

 man, the operative, and the sailor, each of whom is or may be our 

 countryman, and each of whom is counted as a representative of 

 home industry. . . . 



" We once established the manufacture of furniture, so that 

 our mechanics, working at from $2.50 to 83 per day, yet supplied 

 many foreign customers ; but we have taxed the wood, the var- 

 nish, the oil, the paint, the tools, the food, and the fuel of these 

 men forty per cent on all those portions which are of foreign 

 origin, and thus they have lost their customers. Privation of 

 imports is prohibition of exports. Protection to the mechanic is 

 to be found only in the repeal of bad taxes." 



The far-reaching nature of the evil of wrongful taxation is illus- 

 trated in the case of the taxation of tin plates, for which revenue 

 the Government has no use whatever, but by the operation of 

 which " we leave England and France to supply the world with 

 canned meats and fruits, while we only put up enough for our 

 own use." This result is brought about by the tax adding to the 

 cost of the domestic product into which the tin enters as a con- 

 stituent element ; " and if this increase amounts to only two or 

 three per cent of the value of the finished product, it amounts, as 

 we have proved, to a tax on the income of capital of from two 

 or three up to ten or twenty per cent. Hence, foreign capital 

 takes the business, and home labor ceases to be employed ; diver- 

 sity of emi^loyment is prevented ; wages are lowered, and the cost 

 of subsistence increased ; and all this is done in the name of pro- 

 tection to labor ! " 



The visible in protection — what one sees, " is that we prosper 

 in spite of all the privations inflicted under due process of law ; 

 such are the boundless resources with which the Almighty has 

 endowed this land." The invisible, what one does not see, " is the 

 far greater prosperity which we might have, except for the igno- 

 rance of those who make these unjust laws, and in the name of 

 protection inflict privation. What one does not see is the prog- 

 ress in the arts of peace and good-will with all nations which 



