No. 216.] 547 



providential events, such as most unheard of dearth and famine, can 

 prevent their having yearly a large surplus of produce to dispose of; 

 and it is probable that Great Britian, if not France, must be their 

 consumers to a great extent. It is very clear, that some of the 

 most valuable American agricultural products which have lately, un- 

 der the so called " free trade" system of England, found their way 

 into that country, are not likely to be again kept out by a rebuilding 

 of the former barricades against them. 



It occurs to me, as I pronounce the words " free trade," what a 

 difference the Same phrase has in different places and times. 



We hear of free trade in our country as well as in England, at 

 the present time. 



In these times and in England, it means free trade in corn and 

 protection to manufactures; — for it is a fact too well known to be 

 disputed, that this English free trade is a measure forced from the 

 great landowners by the manufacturers, with Mr. Cobden at their 

 head. It is not, to be sure, to protect English manufactures against 

 foregn competition, for that they do not fear any more than our 

 agriculturists fear it in their breadstuffs and provisions, but to protect 

 them against the rapacity of the landed interest of England. 



It is protection to English manufactures, such as English man- 

 ufactures happen to need, and if they had required any other sort of 

 protection in reason, it would have been obtained, such as British 

 interests of every sort, agricultural, commercial, manufacturing and 

 national, are always sure to receive form a government alive to 

 British interests, and knowing how to preserve them and advance 

 them, and generally not particularly modest in taking care of their 

 own. 



In the present condition of the two countries in regard to the re- 

 lations between capital and labor, free trade in England is exactly 

 the same thing in its results, as protection in the United States. 



In both cases the thing protected is labor, which is cheaper than 

 ours; in England it is protected, not against foreign labor, against 

 which it needs no protection, but against capital vested in land. In 

 both cases the object is identical, to wit, the securing to labor of 

 remunerating wages, because, whether wages be remunerating, de- 

 pends, not wholly on the nominal amount, but essentially on the 



