Inconsistency Of Self-styled Reformers

A baslc error in the Free Tradei'a attitude is li is Insistence that tbe economie policy of this country should bc made to conform to rulea prescril)ed by foreign statesmen and writers aB best for couutries nltoxether different! circumstanced. Henee the majority of free trailc areuments are repttltJons from writers whosc experienco was limltvd to nations of restricted resources and nocessarily ilcpcndent upon other conntrles for tlie uieans of subsisting tlicir peoples. Tlie conceplion of a continental nation like tl. e United otates, with a population combining the ingeuuity and ntclliücnco required in uil lines of manufacture?, and the necessary resources of soil and climate for producing everything required by its people, aside from a few strictly tropical products, had 110 place in tlie vibions of the writers who ai e now daily quotcd as authority for the universal free trade toward whicli thé teachings of self-styled reformera are directed. Inspired by the Cobden Club, it is but natural that attorneys for tariff reform sliould peristently cite the Uritish policy as a model for all other nations. This is to deiuand that a nation which Is manufacturing more tlian it can utilizo, while dependent upon other countries for producís with whicli to fecd and clothe its peoplo, shall Mand as models for the United States, with more food products tliuii its people can consume, and as yet tuit iiiaiiiifiicluring all their clotliing and household necessities. The absurdity of the proposition becoines evident in the face of the fact that the entire Kingdoin of Qrcat Britain and Ireland, with a population of 3C, 000, 000, bas less area than tlie two states of Iowa and Kebrska,and prob:ibly not more thau half the quantit.y of tillable land. But still thls proposition is persistently repeated by both the Briti8h and Amorican attorneys for free trade. There is, however, a point at which tbe Ameiican contingent omits a portion of the nruument found potent on the other side. Mr. Qladstone and otlier foreign advocates of reform in our tariff policy are candid cnough to adinit that the result of followlnu; thcir advice would be to make the United States a producer of cheap breadstuffs and other farm products and permit Enjjland to become the workshop of the world. Free trade advocates this side the Atlantic deern it pru. dent to withhold this evldently correct forecast until such time as voters have been prevailed on to tear down the defeuces of domestic manufactures, and tlieir rehabilitation has been rendered exceedingly remote, if not altogother itnpOBsible.