What Is Free Trade?

effects of the internal tax, which weighs down domestic produce. It is still then but the question of equalizing the facilities of production. We

oduction of an equivalent value of something else-laissez faire. Individual interest will soon learn to choose the lesser of two evils. I might refe

an any in the world? Have I not a right to look upon your argument as a mere pretext? But I am not of the number of those who believe that prohibitionists are guided by interest, and not by conviction. The doctrine of Protection is too popular not to be sincere. If the majority could believe in freed

the Sophism drawn

e justice and order; we have the security which they give, the time which they save for us; and it is most probable that production is neither more easy nor more active among nations, where (if there be such) each individual takes the administration of justice into his own hands. We pay, I grant, many millions for roads, bridges, ports, steamships; but we have these steamships, these ports, bridges, and roads; and unless we maintain that it is a losing business to establish them, we cannot say that they place us in a position inferior

ir evil effect is to be neutralized by the addition of individual taxes to public taxes. Many thanks for the c

consumer. Is it not then a singular argument to say to him, "Because the taxes are heavy, we will raise prices higher

is precisely those who keep up the unproductive taxes (according to our present hypothesis) who attribute to th

its nature and effects, might have taken the form of a direct tax, rai

sold in our market at $16, but not lower

s in which the State can secure the

less than $26; $16 for the indemnifying price, $10 for the tax; and at this price it must be driven from the market by American iro

ld in either case be equally a protective measure. Foreign iron would, according to both systems, be alike excluded; for our iron manufacturer could

I frankly confess my preference for the second system, which I regard as more just, more economical, and more legal. More just, because, if society wishes to give bounties to some of its members, the whole community o

y taxes for the army, the navy, the judiciary, the public works, the debt, &c. These amount to more than 200 millions.

fforts; you cannot give money to one without taking it from another. If you are absolutely determined to exhaust the funds of the taxable communi

t out all the fallacies of this Sophism. I will therefore

and therefore ask for a protective duty which shall raise our price of sale:" what is this but a demand on their part to be allowed to free themselves from the burden of the tax, by laying it on the rest of the community? Their object is to balance, by the increased price of their produce, the amount which they pay in taxes. Now, as the whole amount of these taxes must enter into the Treasury, and the increase of price must

rd; always adding to the burden of the mass of society. You thus only create interminable complications. If you can prove that the increase of price resulting from protection, falls upon the foreign producer, I grant something specious in y

much as possible, the burden which we bear. Is it not an incontestable maxim in political economy, that taxes must, in the end, fall upon the consumer? The greater then our commerce, the greater the portion which will be reimbursed to u