294 [Assembly 



cnce, would compel us to rely upon foreign nations for that which 

 our own industry can furnish 1 



A system which admits the paui)er labor of Europe to compe- 

 tition with our own, degrades the American operative, and must 

 either destroy the great manufacturing industry of the country, in 

 its various branches, thus making us dependent for so much, or 

 it must reduce wage? from the remunerative scale which they 

 cow hold, to one of bare subsistence. In either case the farmer 

 suffers in common with the rest. The number of consumers of 

 agricultural produce is lessened, and the number of producers 

 will be greatly increased. The prosperity of one department of 

 industry is the prosperity of all, and tiie depression of any one 

 must be felt by all. 



It is the misfortune of this country that a measure so vital to 

 all its great interests, in every section, should ever have found a 

 place in the arena of party politics. It is a national, not a sec- 

 tional, or a party question — like that of the Union itself — though 

 alas ! both are becoming, in our day, involved In the strife of 

 parties. 



Not thus has the measure been treated by those nations with 

 whom we have most to do " Free trade," as it is called, is to 

 Engknd what Protection is to America. In both countries the 

 object to be attained is security to labor. In England the man- 

 ufacturers force the measure of free trade from the great land- 

 holders as a defence against their rapacity, and the measure is 

 in itself one of stringent protection to the operative. 



Ad-am Smith, a pensioned officer of that ministry who declared 

 that " not a hob-nail should be manufactured in America," while 

 he puts forth his beautiful theory for the benefit of other nations, 

 is careful to remark tliat '• itv»'ouldbe absurd to expect unlimit- 

 ed free trade to be adopted in Great Britain ;" and of the famous 

 Navigation Act, passed in the reign of Charles II, which was the 

 most fetriugent protective enactment ever framed, and to which 

 England owes her commercial supremacy, he says, " after all it 

 must be allowed that this act is the wisest of all the commercial 

 regulations of England." Such is the testimony of the father of 

 free trade to the falsity of his own theory, lest it should be adopt- 



