654 The Proposed American [November, 
Time was — or rather, perhaps, certain amiable enthusiasts 
such as Elihu Burritt, dreamed of a time when commerce, 
based upon the division of labour, should be a bond of union 
between nations, the prosperity of one being essential to the 
well-being of its neighbours. It was supposed that one 
people might say to another, “ I have a fertile soil and a 
genial climate. I do not care to live cramped up in cities 
amidst the dust and dirt and din of manufactures ; let me, 
therefore, supply you with corn and fruits, wine and oil, 
healing drugs and dye wares, whilst you in return furnish 
me with hardware and clothing, glass and pottery.” 
This spirit, if ever it existed, has almost entirely exhaled. 
Almost every nation aims at being entirety self-supplying at 
once with raw materials and with manufactured goods. In 
order to exclude foreigners from its markets, as sellers, it is 
even willing to pay a notably higher price for many of the 
requisites of civilized life, thus paying what may be called 
a subsidy to its manufacturers and a kind of poor’s-rate in 
augmentation of wages to its workmen. 
Into the wisdom or folly of these arrangements it is not 
the place of the “Journal of Science ” to enter. A nation 
may, perhaps, find it advantageous to bear severe losses and 
sufferings in the hope of inflicting severer losses and suffer- 
ings upon a rival. This is the very rationale of war, and I 
notice it merely to show how completely modern competitive 
industrialism is, in its very essence, war ! 
In their endeavours to exclude foreign goods from their 
markets the United States have been more systematic and 
more determined than perhaps any other nation. They are 
the champions of protectionism as decidedly as Britain has 
been the representative of free trade. Perhaps it may be 
said that they legislate for the world as they find it, whilst 
we are given to regulate our laws and our institutions in 
accordance with some Utopia existing only in the dreams of 
orators. Be this as it may the United States even impose 
taxes on foreign scientific books and journals, lest the 
American paper maker, printer, &c., should suffer some 
infinitesimal loss by being thus exposed to a fractional com- 
petition with European countries. And such taxation still 
finds its advocates in a country where the revenue shows no 
signs of falling off. 
American protectionism, moreover, seems to be especially 
directed against Britain. If we read the many flourishing 
trade journals published in the United States we cannot 
fail to be struck with the bitterness of spirit in which the 
question of free trade versus protectionism is discussed. To 
