for this protection laws are enacted, legislators are corrupted, electors are bribed, and the purchasers themselves have voted.

When the miners in search of gold in California had gone beyond the reach of established government and found their camps infested by robbers, thieves, and murderers, they organized for protection. Can you imagine them finding themselves buying things too cheaply and so organizing to protect themselves against this evil?

The pilgrims on the Mayflower organized for protection. Was it to protect themselves from buying too cheaply?

Just when in the history of the free American citizen did it first become a crime for him to buy goods cheaply, so long as he bought them honestly and paid the owner's price?

Natural Protection.-Unnatural as it may seem, or otherwise, it is none the less a fact that some men engaged in producing wares or goods have wished, and some still do wish, to be protected from competition by others from a distance. Well, nature has protected them.

The farmer in New England was once protected against the farmer in Ohio, so that he obtained a dollar for a bushel of wheat while the Ohio farmer was selling for less than one fourth this sum. The natural obstruction to transportation gave him a protection equal to the difference, and the New England purchaser of wheat had to pay for the protection. Did the whole people love this protection and seek to increase it? On the contrary, they constructed canals, and thereby destroyed half the protection. There was still a protection of forty cents, which the New Englander paid. Did they seek to increase it? Instead railroads were constructed and the

protection reduced to half a dime. Do you hear any urgent demand that the railroad shall increase the protection?

Every manufacturer in America is now protected against competition by our customers in Europe, who buy from $400,000,000 to $700,000,000 per annum of our products by the difficulty of transporting across the ocean. Why in the name of all reason should we, the 60,000,000 purchasers, seek to increase this protection and pay it ourselves for the sake of enriching less than a half million who are in any way benefited by the protection? (I use these numbers advisedly, and will prove them before I am through.) Or if we approve the pro

tection, why not do it in a natural way by increasing the difficulties, dangers, and expense of crossing, instead of fining ourselves for trading? The effect would be the same. If we abandon lighthouses, prohibit steam navigation, and suffer pirates to infest the ocean, European goods would come as high perhaps, i.e., if the dangers were sufficient, as under our present tariff, and our manufacturers would have precisely the same advantage they now have and which they have planned and worked so efficiently to secure.

FREE-TRADE THEORY.

"After all, is not free trade a theory of school men while protection is the practice of nations ?"

Free trade is natural trade. Nations do not trade; trade is entirely between individuals. If left to himself, every man will naturally trade where it is most profitable to him, and in the aggregate, of course, most profitable to all. It needs no theory; it is a practice as natural to man as to put food to his mouth.

If we accept the definition of theory in Webster's

Dictionary, "An explanation of the general principles of any science, the philosophical explanation of phenomena," I confess that free traders are the best theorists; but if we mean by theory mere speculation, or a pretended demonstration of what is really fallacious, then we shall learn that the protectionist is the theorist, the only theorist, the absolute theorist. He found us trading at our own sweet will, each man selling where he could get the most, whether the goods should go far or not, just as every man still seeks to do, and buying where he could get the most for his money, just as every man still seeks to do. He came with the beautiful theory that we were sending altogether too far and getting things too cheap, that this would become a "dumping ground" for all the good things we desire, that if we would just put a tariff on his product for our benefit it would make his goods cheaper than the "dumped goods" when we bought them, but would make them very high when he sold them; that the high price at which he would sell goods would lead him to pay high wages, and that the low price at which his laborers would buy his goods would enable them to pay more for wheat than we were getting in Europe. A beautiful theory, truly; and the most wonderful thing about it is, that he found able men to advocate it for him, and found intelligent men among us to believe it. Did he believe any of it himself? What think you? Every protectionist tells us the protection on his goods is going to make them cheaper. Did a farmer ever ask for protection on wheat, corn, tobacco, or wool, believing it was going to make his product cheaper? Did a manufacturer ever ask protection on his product, expecting it would make it cheaper? Did any employer ever ask protection, ex

pecting it would make him pay higher wages? If they believed the theory which they and their paid politicians teach us, would they not every one be set dead against protection?

THE THEORIST.—

"Are not free-trade advocates mere theorists, while practical men advocate protection? Is not free trade a 'boy's size' philosophy, taught in school, while protection is the philosophy of men ?"

College professors, outside of their specialties, are not always the wisest or most practical of men, and it does not require an immense intellect to repeat a sneer at them as theorists." Astronomers were theorists when they offered a "philosophical explanation of the phenomena" of the rising and the setting sun. The man who put a stone on top of a flat stump, and watched all night to see if it fell off in the night and dropped back when the earth righted up, was certainly a practical man.

Chemists are theorists, but when the practical miner would know the composition of his ore, he trusts implicitly the knowledge and research of the chemist.

The entomologist is a theorist, but when a new insect pest infests the wheat, every intelligent farmer expects the professor who has given his life to the study of insects may know more of this pest, or, not knowing, can investigate and learn of its habits and enemies, much better than can the man who has never studied in this field of natural history. In short, practical men practically regard these same professors as the most practical men procurable, i.e., in the practice of their professions.

If the political economists are not esteemed by us, may it not be because we sustain much the same relation

to them that the masses did to the chemists and astronomers when it was thought pert to sneer at them as theorists ?

If it is not the brightest of boys who are sent to college, it is the brightest of them who remain to complete the course, and the brightest of these who are asked to remain as tutors, and only the ablest of these who become professors; and of all scientific research it is certain that political economy requires and employs as high order of intellect to intelligently consider its intricate problems as any science.

"The history and discussion of the results of the experience of mankind in getting a living and in securing an abundance" requires as philosophic research as the history of the experience of mankind in shooting each other. A professor who has not an extensive knowledge of history, an accurate knowledge of statistics, a logical method in his deductions, cannot maintain himself and secure a following among the learned. We all know that sometimes a very ignorant man or boy has assumed to teach grammar, and sometimes in college classes a professor of botany may be called to teach history for a time, when he knows but little of it; and sometimes a venerable theological professor may attempt to teach political economy, when he has no conception of its simplest elementary principles. But he does but little. harm. His pupils have no regard for his opinions. But the men who establish reputations for themselves, and secure followers among the intelligent, must be as certainly right as are the chemists or astronomers.

Practical men are those who understand their own business. In all things else they may be most thoroughly unpractical. No better illustrations of this truth can be