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FREE TRADE.
It is well when countries learn wisdom
fromethe folly of others; but there is a won.
derful indisposition to profit by example,
and a strong inclination to run into mis
chievous courses. People in England held
up their hands in amazement when Victoria
propounded a protective policvy; " fools and
madmen " were the epithets used in relation
to the promoters of an exploded and mis
chievous system. Although it is now well
known that the tariff was the real cause of
the fratricidal war in the United States, that
England never before prospered as she has
done since she adopted free trade, and that
the nations on the Continent of Europe are
emancipating their commerce as fast as pos
sible; yet in the face of all this there was
the melancholy spectacle of a young country
requiring commodities from every quarter of
the world on the easiest terms resolutely
abutting them out, ignoring all experience,
and becoming a candidate for abstinence and
poverty. Time will tell its own tale, and
the laboring mon of all others will be the
first to feel the evil effects of "protection to
native industry" in the increased price of
the conmmodities they require, mnd the inferior
substitutes they must accept. On a recent
occasion we referred to the decline of ship
building and shipowning in the United
States. Formerly America supplied England
with a large number of American built crnft
every year. Now scarcely any are construct
ing in consequence of protection, and the
high rate of wages. Even the carrying trade
of America is done by foreigners, although
under free trade she threatened to monopolise
the carrying trade of the world. Let us
take wiuning by the example of the United
States, and impose duty on a few articles
only solely for purposes of revenue.
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