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middle schools by Scotland, which has caused the upper classes to send their hopeful progeny to Harrow and Oxford, where, if the education is not more solid, it has both a greater reputation and a higher reward-all these causes combine to gnaw at the roots of a truly national culture in Scotland, and to render the production of men of a distinctively Scottish type, such as Walter Scott, Lord Cockburn, and Dr. Guthrie, more and more difficult every day. To all this must be added the complete neglect of all patriotic traditions and national furnishing in the principal schools and universities. In the University of Edinburgh not a single professor of history exists; in the best schools, as in the fashionable saloons, it is rare to hear a good Scottish song sung; the rich store of wit and wisdom contained in the melodious heritage of the Scottish people, and ennobled by the names of Burns and Scott, Tannahill and Ballatine, and such noble ladies as Mrs. Cockburn of Fairnilee, Joanna Baillie, and the Baroness Nairne, is flung aside in favor of the latest London, French, or German novelty, which may tickle the itching ear, strain the ambitious throat, or coddle the sickly sentiment of the singer, but is utterly destitute of power to warm the blood, brace the nerve, and form the character of a patriotic Scotchman. So much easier is it to juggle a people out of its proudest heritage by the enervating seductions of a pseudo-civilization, than to spoil them of it by the rude arts of conquest and oppression; and thus it may come about in another generation or two that the Union of 1707 shall have achieved what the embattled ranks of the Plantagenets at Stirling and Bannockburn tried in vain-the absorption of little Scotland into big England, as Samnium was swallowed up by Rome.

JOHN STUART BLACKIE.

WHO IS BENEFITED BY PROTECTION?.

AT a time when the anxious might look from the west front of the Capitol down upon two opposing armies, some one was credited with saying that the cradle and the grave were robbed to fill the ranks of one army, and taxed to feed, pay, and equip the other. In such a crisis, at midsummer in 1864, the heaviest money burden of the war was imposed, with the quieting assurance that "this is a war measure, a temporary measure." the days of the aged Senator Morrill, who gave this assurance, be prolonged that he may see his promise kept? This " temporary measure" was the fifth war increase of his protective tariff.

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Internal taxes had already been laid on the gains, income, occupations, and business of the people. Of these, nine-tenths have been removed. Of all the many objects of internal taxation, but two remain-liquors and manufactures of tobaccoand the taxes on these are greatly reduced. Of the articles subjected to war-tariff taxes, including substantially all used by our people, the few which yielded revenue, but no bounty to favored interests, are on the free list. Of the many others, the tax has been reduced on some and on some increased. Substantially, war-tariff taxes are undiminished, and the receipts from customs are, for the current year, the largest in our history.

The same statecraft which established and maintains this scheme of taxation bonded our debt at interest in excess of the current government rate, and so postponed the date of payment that we may not use receipts from excessive taxation to reduce the debt, without payment of premiums equivalent to half the interest. We are therefore burdened with unnecessary taxation, yielding an increasing surplus to a dangerously plethoric treasury. We must find relief in the purchase of bonds at large premiums, which is unpopular; in wasteful expenditure, which is criminal; or in lower taxation, which is both just and politic.

The hinderance to this relief is found in the demands of protection, which insists that the temporary war tax shall be maintained, or increased, as a measure of permanent policy. We therefore ask, Who is benefited by protection?

Congress has made this inquiry times outnumbering the years of our national existence. No President has failed to give information on the subject or to recommend such measures in relation to it as he judged necessary and expedient, except perhaps Mr. Lincoln. Yet in our politics protection never had definite meaning. Our first tax bill imposed an import duty (five to seven per cent.) on such articles as cotton and woolen cloth, with a proportionate duty on such as tea and coffee. To this bill protectionists habitually point as evidence that theirs is the ancestral policy. To-day, it may be fairly said, protection demands for home manufactures a monopoly of domestic markets, and this it seeks to obtain through the imposition of such a tax on foreign wares that none may be imported. Protection is thus the first purpose of the tariff, revenue a secondary consideration.

The opposite policy lays and collects taxes of whatever kind for revenue to the public treasury. By protectionists this is declared to be free trade. Rightly applied, this system taxes heaviest articles used by those best able to pay taxes-things the use of which is largely voluntary-and taxes least the things used by those least able to pay. Whenever practicable, it leaves untaxed things crude in form, and of which other things are made. These opposite policies are based on financial and political considerations, which subject them to modifications, but to men of advanced opinions policies are always in view.

Judge Kelley, the venerable godfather of the existing tariff, with the abominations it perpetuates, apprehended danger to protection from internal revenue, and early struck for its repeal. At last his imitators, both the laggard and the wily, are abreast with him. And just now protection demands the removal or the reduction of the tax on manufactures of tobacco and on liquors, which means cheaper indulgences and excesses, and cheaper vices. "Revenue reform" demands the reduction of taxes on clothing, food, and the tools of the craftsman, and the

removal of taxes on ores, wool, hemp, wood, and fuel, which means new markets for the products of industry, and more comforts for the laboring poor.

Under the English system the chief source of revenue is the excise or internal tax, though the amount received from imports is also considerable, being derived largely from goods not produced in Great Britain. Something is also derived from duties on articles imported which are produced in the country, such as liquors; but the excise on the home product cuts off protection, and England has effectual free trade in all products of home industry. Neither the English system of free trade nor anything akin to it has ever had any place in our revenue policy. Our first resort was to impost duties. This was in accord with our necessities, for commerce was then the best, if not the only resource. It was in accord with our prejudices, for England's king had "cut off our trade with all parts of the world." It has ever been, and continues to be, our chief reliance for revenue, and our sole reliance for the ordinary expense of administration.

Neither "free-trader" nor friend of reduced taxes has proposed or now proposes to change this ancestral policy. The receipts from liquors and manufactures of tobacco are fifty millions below the current annual expenditure on account of the war, in sinking fund, interest, and pensions.

Professor Dodge, Statistician of the Agricultural Department, in his last report says: "A mortgage may be a blessing. It represents capital." Again: "The tendency of the times is toward lower rates of wages in all kinds of industries in the United States." And he comes to the conclusion that the burden of debt on farmers is "relatively less than it was ten years ago," and that "on the whole the situation is hopeful" for agriculture. Professor Dodge is scarcely less zealous as a protectionist than as a statistician, and it is reasonable to believe his report to be as favorable to the interest of protection as he could honestly make it.

Going more into detail as to the agricultural interest in New York, the second State in the value of agricultural products, the statistician informs us, on the authority of the State agent, that

New York farmers are more in debt than they were ten years ago; that the average depreciation of farming lands is fully onethird in ten years; that probably one-third of the farms in the State would not sell for more than the cost of the buildings and other improvements; that thirty per cent. of the farms are mortgaged for two-thirds of their estimated value. This State is first in the magnitude of its manufactures and in the advantage of markets, at home and abroad, for agricultural products. It is not unfair to say that agriculture is as prosperous in New York as the average for all the States. If nearly thirty years of protection leaves the farming interest in the condition which this report shows it to be, protection does not benefit agriculture.

In Pennsylvania Professor Dodge considers the agricultural interest prosperous, and the local markets of the State the source of that prosperity. The State is nearly self-supporting; it neither buys nor sells agricultural products, but consumes its own. Upon facts such as are reported to exist in Pennsylvania, and which the protectionists say may exist in all the States, it is claimed that protection benefits all interests, including agriculture. "Develop manufactures," say they, "and extend markets for agriculture; extend manufactures, make a home market for agriculture, and be prosperous." This advice would have a semblance of honesty if farmers could consume the coal, the iron, and the fabrics produced by those who consume the farmers' food. If this could be done, then, by denying ourselves coffee, tea, tin, and a few other things that this country does not produce, we could dispense with one of Mr. Jefferson's pillars of prosperity, commerce, and all be prosperous on the Pennsylvania plan.

But the plan is faulty because the agriculture of Pennsylvania cannot consume the manufactures of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvanians, who consume all the farm products of their State, make more than half the iron made in the country, and supply twenty-five millions of people beside their own; they supply steel rails for more than half the people of all the States and Territories, and make woolen and cotton cloth and mine coal for millions of people in other States. Suppose Missouri and Iowa, following the example of Pennsylvania, should so develop

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