I have not time to-day to more than refer to the ruinous effect of protection upon our carrying trade. In 1856, seventy-five per cent. of the total value of our imports and exports was carried in American vessels; while in 1879 but seventeen per cent. was carried in such vessels, and in 1880 the proportion was still less. In 1855, 381 ships and barks were built in the United States, while in 1879 there were only 37. It is a question of very few years at this rate until American vessels and the American flag will disappear from the high seas. Protection has more than all else to do with the prostration of this trade. It accomplishes this result (1) by enhancing the price of the materials which enter into the construction of vessels, so that our ship-builders cannot compete with foreigners engaged in the same business; (2) by increasing the cost of domestic production so that American manufactured goods cannot profitably be exported; and (3) by disabling our merchants from bringing back on their return trips foreign cargoes in exchange for our products.
Nor will I say any thing as to the increase of the crime of smuggling under protection, a crime which has done incalculable harm to honest dealers, particularly on the border, and a crime out of which some of the largest fortunes in the country have been made.
There are many who will admit the abstract justice of much that I have said who profess to believe that it will not do to disturb the tariff now. But for the protectionist that time never comes. When the depression in business was universal, they said you must not disturb the tariff now, because the times are so hard and there is so much suffering. Now, when business has improved, they say you must not interfere with the tariff, because times are good and you may bring suffering again. When the present tariff was first levied it was defended as a temporary expedient only, required as a necessity by war. Now that a quarter of a century nearly has passed by and peace has been restored for fifteen years, the advocates for protection are as determined to hold on to the government bounty as ever. If they are to be consulted upon the subject as to when the people shall have relief, the system will be perpetual.
It is said we must not disturb the tariff because we must raise so much revenue. I do not propose to disturb it to diminish revenue, but to increase it. The plan I propose will add one fifth at least to the revenue of the country. It is protection I propose to get rid of, not revenue. It has been well said that revenue ceases where protection begins.
It is claimed that by taking away protection you will embarrass many industries by compelling them to close up and discharge their employees. I do not believe that the changing of the present tariff to a revenue tariff will produce this result. I believe that at once every manufacturer will make more in the diminished cost of production than he will lose in the taking away of protection. But if there should be danger to any industry I would provide against it in the law which changes the tariff so that if there should be any displacement of labor there will be no loss in consequence.
No more perfect illustration of the effect of free trade has been shown than in the history of the United States. Very much of our prosperity is due to the fact that the productions of each State can be sold in every other State without restriction. During the war the most potent argument for the cause of the Union was found in the apprehension that disunion meant restriction of commerce, and particularly the placing of the mouth of the Mississippi River under foreign control. The war was fought, therefore, to maintain free trade, and the victory was the triumph of free trade. The Union every day exhibits the advantages of the system.
Are these due to the accident of a State being a member of that Union or to the beneficent principle of the system itself? What would prevent similar results following if, subject only to the necessities of government, it were extended to Mexico, to Canada, to South America, to the world? In such extension the United States have everything to gain, nothing to lose. This country would soon become the supply house of the world. We will soon have cattle and harvests enough for all nations. Our cotton is everywhere in demand. It is again king. Its crown has been restored, and in all the markets of the world it waves its royal sceptre. Out of our coal and minerals can be manufactured every thing which human ingenuity can devise. Our gold and silver mines will supply the greater part of the precious metals for the use of the arts and trade.
With the opportunity of unrestricted exchange of these products, how limitless the horizon of our possibilities! Let American adventurousness and genius be free upon the high seas, to go wherever they please and bring back whatever they please, and the oceans will swarm with American sails, and the land will laugh with the plenty within its borders. The trade of Tyre and Sidon, the far extending commerce of the Venetian republic, the wealth-producing traffic of the Netherlands, will be as dreams in contrast with the stupendous reality which American enterprise will develop in our own generation. Through the humanizing influence of the trade thus encouraged, I see nations become the friends of nations, and the causes of war disappear. I see the influence of the great republic in the amelioration of the condition of the poor and the oppressed in every land, and in the moderation of the arbitrariness of power. Upon the wings of free trade will be carried the seeds of free government, to be scattered everywhere to grow and ripen into harvests of free peoples in every nation under the sun.