Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851Various
History
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 69, No. 423, January 1851
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
system, and are prepared to defend Protection to the last drop of their
blood. The rulers of such a people know, that to deprive their labour
of Protection is but to inaugurate the reign of Communism, to establish
anarchy, and to insure their own immediate downfall.
So much for the Liberal states of Europe. Let us next turn to America,
wherein no corrupt aristocracy sheds its baneful influence upon
society; where an unsectarian and generous instruction is given by
the State to all; where no standing army is at hand, first to inflame,
and then to gratify the unwise lust of conquest; where the people are
really the source of power, and a free press enlightens them as to its
proper exercise. There surely, if anywhere, we shall find political
economic truth enshrined in the heart and tariff of the nation, and
the pestilent heresies of Protection given up to the ridicule of a
wise and discerning community. A glance at the present tariff, and an
examination into the relations between "the plough, the loom, and the
anvil," on the other side of the Atlantic, may consequently afford some
useful information to us who are now subjected to a policy which is
sacrificing the first to the two other members of that great industrial
triad. Mr Carey, the well-known statistical writer of America, has,
in _The Harmony of Interests_, supplied us with ample materials for
conducting such an inquiry; and we can safely recommend his remarkable
work to all who wish to investigate the causes of the progress and
decline of industrial communities.
Governor Pownell in 1769, arguing in the House of Commons against
taxing our North American provinces, had the prophetic wisdom to
foresee--what some few American politicians of the present day, and
the leaders of our own Manchester school do not yet seem rightly to
comprehend--that the time must inevitably come when America would
cease to depend upon English industry for manufactured goods. "They
will abominate," said he, addressing himself to the people of England,
"as sincerely as now they love you; and if they do, they have within
themselves everything requisite to the food, raiment, or dwelling of
mankind; they have no need of your commerce." A dim perception of this
truth has at last impelled the Manchester Chamber of Commerce--the
oligarchy by whom the destinies of this empire are swayed at the
present time--to despatch a Commissioner to India in search of
cotton-growing districts, whence they may obtain certain supplies
of the raw material, and, we hope, of markets for the manufactured
products thereof; for to us it is evident, that the "model republic" is
henceforth to be relied on for neither the one nor the other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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