THE FREE TRADE SHAM EXPOSED 189 

 ing a rational and reasonable fiscal policy because — 

 foreign nations may resent it. Of all the insane objections 

 to necessary amendment of our fiscal laws to suit 

 national purposes, this is, perhaps, the feeblest. Did Ger- 

 many and America ask our permission when they built 

 around their trade and industries a wall of tariffs so high 

 and broad as to render our chance of ever scaling it 

 absolutely impossible? 



Do they ever ask our permission whenever they find it 

 necessary to impose new tariffs or alter others to suit 

 their own ends? 



Does any country in the world ever ask our permission 

 in regard to the alteration or continuance of existing 

 fiscal laws or the making of new ones? 



And if these questions cannot be answered in the 

 affirmative, why should we care one straw what other 

 nations think; why consult their interests when they 

 never consider ours? 



Do not let any consideration, any argument, however 

 plausible, turn us from our determination to right the 

 cruel wrong that has been done to us by supporting in- 

 dustries in foreign countries instead of planting them in 

 our own midst for the support of our own people. 



" Support Home Industries " is a perfectly in- Home 



Industries 



telligible cry, and quite good enough for us; and al- 

 though political economists tell us that, according to all 

 the rules of economic law, it is better for us to buy 

 £150,000,000 worth of goods annually in foreign coun- 

 tries, we know that such teaching is specious and false. 

 The application of this law has, in fact, resulted in no- 

 thing but disaster, inasmuch as it has deprived tens of 



