5,000. They
are carried to the West India Islands, where staves are in demand, and
exchanged for sugar or molasses. The ship returns, and after duty paid
the owner sells his sugar and molasses at a profit of $5,000. Here more
has been imported than exported. Upon this transaction the protectionist
would say that the balance of trade was against us $5,000; the free
trader says that the sum represents the profit to the shipper upon his
traffic, and the true balance in our favor.

Suppose that after it has set sail the vessel with its cargo had been
lost. In such case five thousand dollars' worth of goods would have been
exported, with no importation against it. The exportation has exceeded
the importation that sum. Is not the balance of trade, according to
the protection theory, to that amount in our favor? Then let the
protectionist turn pirate and scuttle and sink all the vessels laden
with our exports, and soon the balance of trade in our favor will be
large enough to satisfy even most advocates of the American protective
system. The true theory is that in commerce the overplus of the
importation above the exportation represents the profit accruing to the
country. This overplus, deducting the expenses, is real wealth added to
the land. Push the two theories to their last position and the true one
will be clearly seen. Export every thing, import nothing, though the
balance of trade may be said to be overwhelmingly in our favor, there
is poverty, scarcity, death. Import every thing, export nothing, we
then will have in addition to our own all the wealth of the world in our
possession.

Secondly, it is said that a nation should be independent of foreign
nations, lest in time of war it might find itself helpless or
defenceless. Free trade, it is charged, makes a people dependent upon
foreigners. But traffic is exchange. Foreign products do not come into a
country unless domestic products go out. This dependence, therefore, is
mutual. By trade with foreign nations they are as dependent upon us as
we upon them, and in the event of a disturbance of peace the nation with
which we would be at war would lose just as much as we would lose, and
both as to the war would in that regard stand upon terms of equality. It
must not be forgotten that the obstruction of trade between nations
is one of the greatest occasions of war. It frequently gives rise to
misunderstandings which result in serious conflicts. By removing these
obstacle