of claret and burgundy in Scotland?" Certainly not. And it would also be manifestly absurd to attempt to raise tea, coffee, pineapples, and other tropical products, in New England. We here labor under natural disabilities, arising from peculiarities of soil and climate, which time and practice can never remove or essentially diminish. But Americans can profitably raise and manufacture iron, steel, wool, cotton, flax, and silk, for the production and fashioning of which we have as great advantages as the English, and even greater, skill and capital alone excepted. We can therefore profitably spend time, labor, and money in the acquisition of that skill and capital; that is, we can profitably submit, for a certain number of years, to an additional tax for this purpose, appearing in the additional price which we must for a while pay for the domestic products.

We may turn Adam Smith's favorite mode of illustration against himself, by asking if it be not as reasonable for a nation, as it confessedly is for an individual, to enter upon a course of education, or serve an apprenticeship, — though, during the period of discipline, the gains will be small, the labor severe, and perhaps the expenses heavy,- for the purpose of acquir ing an art or handicraft which may afterwards be exercised with great profit. We suppose that the art is one for which the individual or the nation is sufficiently qualified by nature, so that merely the tact and dexterity which can only be acquired by practice are wanting. The common answer of the advocates of free trade to this question, that when the proper time has arrived, and sufficient capital has been accumulated, manufactures will introduce themselves, without the aid of protective duties,' is evasive and insufficient. It goes upon the supposition, that want of capital is the only obstacle to the immediate commencement of manufacturing enterprise, whereas skill is also requisite; capital, we admit, may be accumulated in agriculture and other pursuits; but skill can be acquired only by actual experiments in manufacture, and those experiments can be tried only at considerable sacrifice. Individuals cannot be expected to submit to these sacrifices, when the results of the experiment, if successful, will not accrue to their exclusive advantage, but will be open to all. In truth, the acquisition of manufacturing skill is a national advan

tage, though it invariably occasions a loss to the individual who, first in his nation, attempts to acquire it; it is therefore justly paid for at the national expense, or by a protective duty, which insures the beginners for a limited time against overwhelming competition from abroad.

Even in Great Britain, where free trade may now be said to be the fashionable doctrine, though it has become so only within the last fifteen years, and in every other civilized nation, these principles are carried into practical application through the encouragement afforded to authors and inventors, by securing to them for a limited period the exclusive right to sell their respective writings and discoveries. Patents and copyrights, which no one thinks it improper to grant, are signal instances of the successful application of the principles of the protective system. They are strict monopolies, no one but the author or inventor, and his agents, being allowed to manufacture or sell the particular book or machine which is thus protected. Consequently, they are prohibitive rather than protective duties; any price can be set upon the articles which the owner of the patent or copyright sees fit to demand. And the public cheerfully pay the addition thus made to the natural cost of the commodity, knowing that, without such encouragement, few good books would be written and few useful machines invented, and that, at the expiration of a limited time, (in England and the United States, fourteen years for a patent and forty-two years for a copyright,) the right to make and vend the work will become general, and the community will then be the richer by the whole value of the original proprietor's genius and labor. But he who first introduces a particular art or manufacture into a country is as great a public benefactor, as one who subsequently invents a new process or a new machine for executing the work at less cost. In fact, it is only through the enterprise of the former that the latter acquires a field and an occasion for the exercise of his inventive genius. To the capitalists who built the city of Lowell, is fairly attributable much of the merit of the inventions which have been made in it, or have there first been reduced to practice; and these are probably more numerous and valuable than have been made within the same time in any manufacturing city in the world. According to the census of 1850, the introduction of

the cotton manufacture into the United States has given employment to nearly 100,000 persons, and that of iron to more than 60,000. What single invention made within the limits of this country has had equally important results, or has been carried out at equal hazard and sacrifice?

The reasonableness of granting patent rights and copyrights is thus frankly admitted by an able advocate of free trade, Mr. J. S. Mill. "The condemnation of monopolies," he says, "ought not to extend to patents, by which the originator of an improved process is permitted to enjoy, for a limited period, the exclusive privilege of using his own improvement. This is not making the commodity dear for his benefit, but merely postponing a part of the increased cheapness which the public owe to the inventor, in order to compensate and reward him for the service. That he ought to be both compensated and rewarded for it will not be denied; and also, that if all were at once allowed to avail themselves of his ingenuity, without having shared the labors or the expenses which he had to incur in bringing his idea into a practical shape, either such expenses and labors would be undergone by nobody, except by very opulent and very public-spirited persons, or the state must put a value on the service rendered by an inventor, and make him a pecuniary grant. This has been done in some instances, [as when Parliament offered a reward of £ 20,000 for a method of finding a ship's longitude at sea], and may be done without inconvenience in cases of very conspicuous public benefit; but in general, an exclusive privilege of temporary duration is preferable, because it leaves nothing to any one's discretion, because the reward conferred by it depends upon the invention's being found useful, and the greater the usefulness the greater the reward, and because it is paid by the very persons to whom the service is rendered, the consumers of the commodity.*

Having conceded thus much, Mr. Mill finds himself obliged by consistency of reasoning to make the following additional admission, which really covers the whole ground usually claimed by the advocates of a protective system in the United States. "The only case," he says, "in which, on mere principles of Political Economy, protecting duties can be defensible,

* Mill's Political Economy, Vol. II. p. 497.

is when they are imposed temporarily, (especially in a young and rising nation,) in hopes of naturalizing a foreign industry in itself perfectly suitable to the circumstances of the country. The superiority of one country over another in a branch of production often arises only from having begun it sooner. There may be no inherent advantage on one part, or disadvantage on the other, but only a present superiority of acquired skill and experience. A country which has this skill and experience yet to acquire, may in other respects be better adapted to the production than those which were earlier in the field; and besides, it is a just remark, that nothing has a greater tendency to promote improvements in any branch of production, than its trial under a new set of conditions. But it cannot be expected that individuals should, at their own risk, or rather to their certain loss, introduce a new manufacture, and bear the burden of carrying it on, until the producers have been educated up to the level of those with whom the processes are traditional. A protecting duty, continued for a reasonable time, will sometimes be the least inconvenient mode in which the nation can tax itself for the support of such an experiment."

Now with reference to the great manufactures of cotton, wool, iron, flax, and silk, no one affirms that Great Britain has any natural and inherent advantages for prosecuting them which are not enjoyed, in an equal or greater degree, by the people of this country. The English have "only a present superiority of acquired skill and experience," resulting from the fact, that, in some of these branches of production, they had over two centuries the start of us, and in all the others, they had been at least fifty years in the field before manufacturing enterprise began in the United States. Even their larger command of capital is needed only for the purpose of supplying foreign markets, the resources of our countrymen in this respect being fully adequate for the home supply, and the exclusive control of the home market is all that can be given by protective duties. We have vastly larger supplies of iron ore and coal, and at least equal facilities for raising wool, flax, and silk. Cheap land and abundant water-power are also important natural auxiliaries of manufacturing industry in this country.

* Ibid., pp. 487, 488.

In respect to the cotton manufacture, we enjoy an obvious natural advantage over Great Britain, as the raw material must be exported to that country, and then brought back again in the manufactured state, and sold here at a cost enhanced by the expense of twice carrying it across the ocean; here, it may be spun and woven on the spot where produced. For the coarser cottons, also, our period of apprenticeship in the art of producing them is finished; we can export them, as already mentioned, and undersell the English in all foreign markets. This branch of industry was first introduced into the United States under the protection afforded by the war of 1812-15, when, our ports being virtually closed by blockade, the manufacturer really had a monopoly of the home market. After the peace, as it was apparent that the infant manufacture would be entirely destroyed by foreign competition, Congress passed the tariff of 1816, which imposed a duty of twenty-five per cent on all cotton fabrics, requiring also that they should be taken at a minimum valuation of twenty-five cents a square yard. By the acts of 1824 and 1828, this minimum valuation was advanced, first to thirty, and then to thirty-five cents the square yard, and so continued with little modification till 1834, when the reduction of the duty commenced. But before the tariff of 1842 was enacted, the cheaper cottons had ceased to need any protection, and began to be exported. In the course of only thirty years, the infant manufacture had grown to maturity, and ceased to need the aid of government. What is more, the same fabrics which, thirty years ago, were held at a minimum valuation of thirty-five cents the square yard, are now sold at from five to eight cents, and the annual exports of them in 1853 amounted to nearly nine millions of dollars. There is every reason to believe, that an equally efficient protection, rendered for an equal period, to the manufactures of wool, flax, and iron, would produce a similar effect. These great branches of industry, also, if carefully nursed during the period of their growth, might subsequently repay the country tenfold the cost of their temporary protection.

Against the favorite dogma of Adam Smith and his followers, that individual and national interests are identical, I have already quoted the decisive remark of Mr. Rae, that "individuals grow rich by the acquisition of wealth previously existing;