308 THE QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 



portation, but in profits, the profit of middlemen necessarily 

 increasing as tlie market is more distant. 



8. That wages are made liigher, and that even if no greater, 

 in purchasing power, per unit of time employed, by reason of 

 the general increase of prices, their aggregate purchasing power 

 is greater by reason of more constant employment. 



9. That, as a matter of fact, our natural exports being so 

 largely agricultural, and likely for some time to remain so in 

 the absence of protective legislation, we are making undesir- 

 able drafts on our natural resources, and that it is better that 

 some larger portion of our population be employed in other 

 industries. 



10. That since a tariff for revenue is a fixed part of our 

 fiscal policy, such industries as are taxed at all are protected 

 to that extent, and it is therefore only just that all industries 

 have equal protection, and as we know that as a matter of fact 

 all industries will seek and many obtain a greater protection 

 than the necessities of the treasury would require, the surest 

 way to assure justice to all is to protect all to such a reasonable 

 point as will not entirely cut off revenue by preventing impor- 

 tation, while giving the public the benefit of free trade on such 

 commodities as we can never produce. 



11. That import trade in such commodities as we can pro- 

 duce is wholly unnecessary in such a country as the United 

 States, whose vast extent gives ample scope for domestic 

 exchanges which move freely, and that as a matter of fact the 

 more our foreign trade increases in the face of the stress of 

 competition, the greater our necessity for vast naval expenses 

 to protect that trade under the danger of the international 

 clashes of interest which are always arising; the more we 

 expand our export trade the greater difficulty we shall have 

 in maintaining our traditional policy of freedom from foreign 

 entanglements. To the extent, therefore, that a protective 

 tariff diversifies our industries, and directs our efforts to 

 domestic exchanges, it is a wise political policy.* 



*I do not cumber the text with the argument for protecting an "infant 

 industry," until fairly established, with the intent of removing the protection 



