Suppose Europe were equally afraid of the poor Kaffir, and protected itself against his wool, what would become of it? No one would give him wheat or any other commodity for it; he cannot eat it or wear it, and it is the only thing he can raise; if he cannot sell it, he must cease work, cease progress, relapse into barbarism-all the missionaries in creation couldn't save him. Yet if protection against the Kaffir's wool is good for America, it is good for Europe and ought to be adopted. Is it not true, then, that the logical result of protection is to cramp civilization and check the spread of Christianity?

But, says the advocate of protection, when driven from the prohibitive doctrine, we only want such incidental protection as will come from a revenue tariff. The answer is that there can be no such thing as protection in a true revenue tariff, because just so far as a tariff stimulates the home production of the commodity upon which the duty is imposed, just so far it prevents the importation of that commodity, and therefore it so far fails to yield revenue. A true revenue duty must always be at a rate less than the one which will carry the cost of the commodity so high as to induce its production at home.

There can, it is true, be no tariff, except one that simply imposes duties on commodities which cannot be produced at all in the country which imposes it, without its affording some stimulus to the production of articles which would not otherwise be produced, and this is the protection incidental to a tariff. But it is a fault in the tariff as a revenue measure, and not a merit.

Take the case of the Kaffir's wool again. Ten cents worth of wheat will buy of him a pound of wool. The Ohio farmer can furnish ten cents worth of wheat, we will say, by one hour's labor; but a pound of wool will cost him two hours labor, or twenty cents.

Now, if you put a revenue duty of eight cents on the wool raised by the Kathir, it will still come; as its total cost in the United States will still be only eighteen cents. The Ohio farmer will still make wheat to exchange for it, only we shall get less wool for the wheat; but, if you impose a duty which involves any incidental protection or any other kind of protection, it must be over ten cents so as to raise the cost of the Kaffir wool to over twenty cents. Suppose you put the duty twelve cents, then the Ohio farmer is protected, and can make it for less than its cost plus the duty; the Ohio farmer gives up raising wheat, but expends twice the labor on wool; commerce with the Kaffir ceases; woolen clothes cost double; the Govern ment has no revenue; the civilized man has put his two hours labor against the Kaffir's one, and by means of protection has won the game; the Kaffir relapses into barbarism, and that is the end of it: but is the civilized man any better off than he was before? He has now to pay a direct tax for the support of the Government, and has less time to work it out than he had before. And this leads us to the second point, viz., that a tariff is a tax under another name, and that a tax of any kind can only be more or less of a burden upon those who pay it.

I may be more stupid than other people, and, at the risk of being considered so, I must say that the common arguments used in regard to a tariff, by the advocates of what is called protection to American industry, would lead an ignorant man to suppose that the Government was conferring a great favor upon the people by making the commodities which

they wish to purchase of foreigners cost them more than the foreigners are willing to sell them for.

The first question to be asked is, what is the object of a tariff? To which question I think very few men would make the one answer which is complete, viz., to raise a certain amount of money with which to pay the expenses of the Government. Very many would qualify this answer by adding, "To raise money, and to develope the resources of the coun try." But let us look a little deeper. Would any nation impose a tariff of duties, if it had no expenses to meet, if it had no money to raise? The answer is simply, no, of course not. Why not, if by a tariff the resources of the country will be developed? Can any one reply to this?

Next, let us examine into the nature of the expenses of Government. They are, 1st, The support of the army and navy. Are they productive? Not at all: their purpose is war, which is destruction. 2d. Interest on the national debt. Is it productive? No; it represents only the des truction of capital caused by the late war. 3d, The pension list and the expense of the civil service." Are they productive? Not at all; the pensioners are still representatives of the destruction of war, and the civil officers of the Government, while necessary to give organization and production, do not themselves add anything to the aggregate of material product, but simply consume a portion of it.

All the material of war, and all the dwellings, food and clothing of the officers of the Government must therefore be provided by the labor of the people. "But," answers some one [who is still in the state of haziness which obscured the vision of the writer for a long time] "if all those expenses are paid by a tariff, how are they provided by the labor of the people?" Because all foreign commodities imported are the result of the labor of the people of foreign countries, for which we exchange commodities which are the result of the labor of our own people (two of our commodities or products being gold and silver); and, if the Government adds to the cost of the foreign commodity by the imposition of a duty, it will take so much more of the home commodity to pay for it. Let us suppose that we can produce a given quantity of wheat with the expenditure of a less number of days labor than are required in England, and England can produce a given quantity of iron with a less number of days labor than are required by the United States: of course we shall exchange wheat for iron. The Goverment then imposes a duty upon iron, its object being to procure money for the payment of its expenses. If any revenue is expected from the duty on iron, it must represent less than the difference in the labor required in England to produce iron as compared with the labor required in the United States.

(To be Continued.)

TRADE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES.

COTTON, BREADSTUFFS, PROVISIONS, ETC.

The British Board of Trade returns for the first quarter of the present year indicate that notwithstanding the apparent slackness which has existed in Great Britain for the last few months, the export trade of the country is still quite satisfactory. In comparing these figures, however, with those for 1866, it should be remembered that the trade of the United Kingdom last year was more than usually animated. Very large purchases were then being made by ourselves, the declared value of the exports to United States ports, in the first three months being as much as £8,000,000, against only £3,000,000 in 1865. This year, in the satne period, the shipments have reached a total value of £6,113,600, so that, as compared with 1866, there is a dimunition of nearly £2,000,000, but as compared with 1865, an increase of rather more than £3,000,000. Neither of these comparisons, however, can be considered fair, for during 1865 our purchases were much below the average, while last year our merchants were taking more than an average supply. If therefore, we extend the comparison to the year of 1864, we shall find that the declared value of the exports of British and Irish produce and manufactures to the United States was £6,500,000, showing a dimunition this year of £400,000 only. This country still ranks as the best customer that England possesses for her manufactures, nearly one-fifth of the total shipments being on United States account.

The principal decline in the exports to this country in the first three months of the present year is in cotton piece goods, which show a falling off to the value of £410,000, in linen piece goods £46,300, and in woolen and worsted manufactures £789,000. Haberdashery and millinery, cutlery, linen thread, bar iron, wrought iron, iron hoops and boiler plates, tin plates, silk manufactures, and alkali, also exhibit a considerable reduction; but, on the other hand, there is an important augmentation in the shipments of railroad iron, the increase in the export of this article being nearly £233,000. In the annexed statement will be found all the leading articles of export to the United States, together with the aggregate value of these shipments hence during the first three months of each of the last three years:

EXPORTS OF BRITISH AND IRISH PRODUCE AND MANUFACTURES TO THE UNITED STATES FROM JANUARY 1 TO MARCH 31.

In the first two months of the present year, the total computed real value of the principal imports into the United Kingdom was £24,281,084 against £26,457,723 last year, and £19,253,701 in 1865. Of these the value of the cotton imported was as under:

The import of cotton in March was 883,840 cwt., of which 512,988 cwts were from this country, 228,871 from Egypt, and only 50,521 cwt. from the East Indies. The total supply received last year was 872,827 cwts., and in 1865, 621,673 cwt. For the first three months of the present year the imports were 1,815,219 cwts., against 2,026,409 cwt. in 1866, and 1,433,274 cwt. in 1865. Annexed are the particulars of these imports:

The exports of cotton during the three months have fallen off to the

extent of 188,000 ewts., while as regards cotton goods there is a decline of about 40,000,000 yards. The following statement shows the extent of the exports of cotton and cotton goods to al! quarters, from Jan. 1 to March 31:

At the date of our latest advices, the wheat trade in England was very quiet, but very firm. This arose out of the circumstance that a considerable inroad had been made into the stocks of old wheat, which had been held over from the fine harvests of 1863 and 1864, but as the weather was fine, and as the harvest prospects were good, while the imports from foreign countries were on such a scale that supply and demand were pretty equally balanced, millers exhibited great caution in making purchases, and hence the quietness of the trade. So long as the state of the weather justifies millers in believing that a good crop of wheat may be anticipated, there seems to be no doubt but that they will continue to pursue their present cautious policy. It may therefore be expected that, with the prevalence of fine weather, the wheat trade in England will assume a position for several weeks quite devoid of interest; but if unfavorable weather intervene, between now and harvest, there seems to be room for a considerable rise in prices. In the Board of Trade returns, this country still continues to exhibit a very inferior position with regard to our shipments of cereals. In the first three months of the present year, out of a total import of wheat of 6,061,852 cwts., 2,789,245 cwts were received from Russia, 901,117 from Prussia, and only 508,244 cwts. from this country. The total import of flour was only 885,183 cwts., being nearly 1,000,000 cwts. less than in 1866, and of this quantity only 59,560 cwts. were received from the United States. The annexed statement shows the imports of cereals into the United Kingdom from January 1 to March 31, 1865, 1866 and 1867:

IMPORTS OF BREADSTUFFS INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM FROM JANUARY 1 March 31.