exed England in 1842, but protection for
every thing and every body, from the landlord and the mill-owner to the
kelp gatherer. Every species of manufacturing industry had asked and
obtained protection. The nation had put in force, logically and
thoroughly, the principle of denying themselves any share in the
advantages which nature or art had conferred upon other climates and
peoples, (which is the principle of protection), and with the results so
pathetically described by Miss Martineau. The prosperity of British
manufactures dates from the year 1846. That they maintained any kind of
existence prior to that time is a most striking proof of the vitality of
human industry under the persecution of bad laws.]

As these pages are going through the press, a telegram announces that
the French Government has abolished the discriminating duties levied
upon goods imported in foreign bottoms, and has asked our government to
abolish the like discrimination which our laws have created. Commercial
freedom is making rapid progress in Prussia, Austria, Italy, and even
in Spain. The United States alone, among civilized nations, hold to the
opposite principle. Our anomalous position in this respect is due, as I
think, to our anomalous condition during the past eight or nine years,
already adverted to--a condition in which the protected classes have
been restrained by no public opinion--public opinion being too intensely
preoccupied with the means of preserving the national existence to
notice what was doing with the tariff. But evidences of a reawakening
are not wanting.

There is scarcely an argument current among the protectionists of the
United States that was not current in France at the time Bastiat wrote
the _Sophismes Economiques_. Nor was there one current in his time that
is not performing its bad office among us. Hence his demonstrations of
their absurdity and falsity are equally applicable to our time and
country as to his. They may have even greater force among us if they
thoroughly dispel the notion that Protection is an "American system."
Surely they cannot do less than this.

There are one or two arguments current among the protectionists of the
United States that were not rife in France when Bastiat wrote his
_Sophismes_. It is said, for instance, that protection has failed to
achieve all the good results expected from it, because the policy of the
government has been variable. If we could have a steady course of
pro