Address. 9 



to pay these prices. Your protectionist thinks that it is a very good 

 thing for the farmers, and for the people generally, to have to pay 

 protective prices, hut he 'never likes to pay them himself. He has no 

 scruple in evading the payment of them, if he can do so by any pos- 

 sibility. He denies by his own actions, which speak louder than 

 words, Avhat he is constantly affirming in words, namely, that protec- 

 tion is a good thing. For example, there is in Hampshire County, 

 Massachusetts, a button factory, whose founders and promoters have 

 always been loud protectionists, ^proclaiming that they could not carry 

 on then- industr}^ nor build up their village, unless the people were 

 compelled by law to pay protective prices. Well; then they should 

 be willmg to pay protective prices themselves for the general good. 

 But alas! they have not been willing! Their practical opinion of such 

 prices has been precisely the same as the opinion of the detested free 

 traders. Their raw material is foreign cloth of a high quality. It is 

 subject to a protective duty under the Wool and Woolens tarifif of 

 1867. Instead of paying that duty, and thus proving themselves sin- 

 cere in their boasted protectionism, they evade it. They have always 

 evaded it. The cloth is punched, or slit, or cut, in such a way as not 

 to harm it a penny for covering buttons, but so as to enable them to 

 pretend at the custom-house that it is damaged cloth, and so ma}^ 

 come in without paying the regular duty! They have had manj^ a 

 controversy^ with the Government over this point, but somehow or 

 other they have gotten the better of the Government, and continue 

 to avoid the blessed duty. Here is testimony to the benefits of free 

 trade that is worth having. Not out of their mouths, bu£ out of 

 theii' hearts and their actions, do we judge them. It seems, that 

 the sauce for the agricultural goose is not good for the protectionist 

 gander. This is not an isolated instance, and these Gallileans are not 

 sinners above all the Gallileans, because they liave done such things. 

 The woolen manufacturers previous to 1867 kept persuading the 

 wool-growers not to ask for am^ protective duty on foreign wools. 

 The former did not wish to pay artificial prices to the latter. But 

 these got theii- backs up at last, and demanded protection for them- 

 selves, and threatened the manufacturers that, if it were not accorded, 

 they would move the abolition of the protective duty on cloth. It 

 was accordingly reluctantly accorded in 1867, and both classes have 

 been in the slough together for the most part ever smce. 



A word to the wise is sufficient. If the farmers see what their 

 true interests are in these premises, let them act accordingi}'. A few^ 

 rustic words m the ears of the candidates for Congress in theu' re- 

 spective districts would do the business effectually, and once done it 

 w^ould stay done. Whether the farmers see it or not, it remains a 

 fact — that they are the ass that bears most of the burden, and eats 

 least of the hay, of " protection." 



