6 Housatonic Agricultural Society. 



Southern agriculture ^ It was not then pretended that the farmers 

 could be -'protected/' It was assumed and admitted that the pro- 

 tective duties would compel the cultivators of the soil to pay more 

 than theii- natural price for their farm implements and other sup- 

 plies ; and the fallacy had not then been invented, that protection in 

 some mysterious way enlarges the ^^home market'' of the farmers. 

 That fallacy has come in since, and it has played quite a part in pro- 

 tectionist literatiu'e, and it will take but a moment in passing to ex- 

 plode it. Unless it can be shown that Protection, that is to say Re- 

 striction, increases the number of births or diminishes the number of 

 deaths, it is in vain to claim that there are any more mouths to be 

 fed by the farmers than there would be under Freedom. Wonderful 

 works and miracles past belief have indeed been ascribed to Protec- 

 tion, but when it is remembered that this wonder-worker is nothing 

 but a scheme of cumbrous taxes which the home people have to pay, 

 it requires a mountainous faith indeed to see how this scheme can 

 multiply the ])opulation. If it be said that these onerous taxes — 

 these prohibitions laid on the people to make profitable exchanges — 

 induce emigration from other countries, and so enlarge the "home 

 market,'' the question becomes very pertinent, Would not the aboli- 

 tion of these taxes, the removal of these prohibitions, induce greater 

 emigrations, and so make a still better "home market" for the farmers ? 

 Fisher Ames of Massachusettss, in the first great debate on the 

 tariff in the House of Representatives in 1789, unconsciously un- 

 covered the great wrong done to the farmers by protective duties, 

 and in the same breath explained the grounds of the emigrations to 

 this country. He said: ^' From the different situation of the nian- 

 ufacturers in Europe and America.^ encouragement is necessary. 

 In Europe the artisan is driven to lahor for his bread. Stern ne- 

 cessity yyith her iron rod compels his exertion. In America.^ inmtOr- 

 tion and encouragement are needed. Without them., the infayit man- 

 ufacture droops^ and those xnho might he employed in it seek toith 

 success a competency from our cheap and fertile soil.'" Here it is in 

 a nut-shell. The competition which the manufactui'ers feared then, 

 and which they have feared ever since, has not been, as alleged, the 

 "pauper labor" of Europe, which by the way they have always been 

 glad to get for themselves at the cheapest j^ossible rate, but the larger 

 returns which their men could get by the same effort "from our cheap 

 and fertile soil." Here is the explanation of the comparatively high 

 wages that have always prevailed in this country in all branches of 

 emploj^ment: people have been able to "seek with success a compe- 

 tency from our cheaj^ and fertile soil," and, therefore, the induce- 

 ments have had to be considerable to withdi'aw them into other em- 

 ployments; and just about one-half of the people of the United States 

 draw their support directly from the soil. Here too is the explana- 

 tion of the constant emigration to our shores: the abundance of cheap 

 and fertile land is the magnet that draws the crowds from the old and 

 and over-populated world, and the}^ would come in still greater num 

 bers and with still brighter prospects if they were allowed, as they 

 are not, to sell their produce freely against the products of the world. 



