CHAPTER III. 



FREE TRADE MAY BE SELFISH AS WELL AS PRO- 

 TECTION ; OR, THE INEFFICIENCY OF 

 FREE-TRADE MOVEMENTS. 



In working out our ideas of justice to the farmers of 

 America, in reference to the matters treated of in the 

 chapters on taxation, and on free trade in natural products 

 only, we arrived at the conclusion that it is quite within 

 the range of possibility for what passes for free trade to 

 be altogether selfish in its aims ; that it is within the 

 scope of probability that compromises will any day be 

 made, as they have been in the past, between the manu- 

 facturers and their political friends, and those interested 

 in commerce and their friends, by which free trade will 

 appear to have scored a triumph for the people, though 

 the very opposite is the actual result. By these com- 

 promises the evils of protection may not be lessened one 

 iota, or the load of taxation be removed in the slightest 

 degree ; may, in fact, be increased. 



Free-trade movements, to be successes, must take 

 higher grounds than they have done hitherto ; they must 

 aim at justice to all ; equality in the benefits of the 

 greater freedom, and equality in the bearings of taxation. 

 These are the matters of vital interest to the great 

 majority of the people. The commercial questions in- 

 volved are of great importance ; little, however, com- 



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