power in itself to lay duties or to regulate trade, and as the States would not agree upon a uniform rate of duty, each sought its own advantage at the expense of its neighbors, and, as a necessary consequence, the country at large fell an easy prey to foreign nations, which lost no time in passing such laws as they judged most likely to destroy our commerce and extend their own.

GREAT BRITAIN'S BARBAROUS POLICY.-Especially was this true of Great Britain, then as now, the most selfish and grasping commercial power on the earth. And her conduct during this period of the Confederacy was in conformity with the policy she has always maintained.

HOW GREAT BRITAIN TREATED THE COLONIES.-In 1699 Parliament decreed that "after the 1st day of December, 1699, no wool, yarn, cloth or woollen manufactures of the English Plantations in America shall be shipped from any of said Plantations, or otherwise laden, in order to be transported thence to any place whatsoever, under a penalty of forfeiting both ship and cargo, and £500 ($2,500) for each offense."

England went even further than to impose heavy fines and penalties upon the people of the Colonies, in some instances actually mutilating their bodies if they transgressed her barbarous export laws. For instance the following provision is found in the British statutes relative to wool (Stat. 8 Eliz. Cap. III., Sec. 1):

"No person shall send or take into any ship any rams, sheep or lambs, alive, to be carried out of any of the Queen's Dominions, upon pain that every such person, their abettors, etc., shall for their first offense forfeit all their goods, half to the Queen and half to him that will sue. Every such offender shall suffer imprisonment one year, and at the year's end shall, in some market town, in the fullness of the market, have his left hand cut off, to be nailed up in the openest place of such market; and every person offending against this statute shall be adjudged a felon."

In 1732 Parliament prohibited the exportation of hats from province to province, and limited the number of apprentices to be taken by hatters. In 1750, the erection of any mill or engine for splitting or rolling iron was prohibited under a penalty of $1,000 for each offense; but pig iron could be exported to England, duty free, in order that it might be manufactured there and returned to the Colonies. Later, Lord Chatham declared that he would not permit the Colonists to make even a hob-nail or a horseshoe for themselves, and his views were subsequently carried into effect by the absolute prohibition in 1765, of the export of artisans; in 1781, of woollen machinery; in 1782, of cotton machinery and artificers in cotton; in 1785 (when the States most needed them), of iron and steel-making machinery, and workmen in those departments of trade; and in 1799, by the prohibition of the export of colliers, lest other countries should acquire the art of mining coal. England's object was to keep the Colonists all farmers, so as to supply her home people, engaged mostly in manufacturing, with food and raw materials, and to compel the Colonists to take from her in return her manufactured products; also to pay profit both

ways; in other words, to compel them to sell to England all they had to sell their agricultural surplus-and to buy from her all they were obliged to purchase—all manufactured articles of any importance. This process was pleasing and remunerative to British manufacturers and capitalists; but it kept the Colonists poor, and almost ruined them. For, as has been shown, they were forbidden to manufacture anything themselves, and they were never able to raise an agricultural surplus sufficient to pay for what they had to import.

With no tariff on imports at home, but subject to such burdens on our exports abroad as was pleasing to those to whom we were obliged to sell, the imports of the Colonists in 1771 exceeded their exports by $13,750,000-an enormous sum in those days.

Is it any wonder that our forefathers rebelled? And not satisfied with these measures to prevent and repress all manufacturing enterprises in the States, she also attempted to destroy all our commerce by enforcing most barbarously iniquitous laws with respect to navigation.

By the Navigation Act Great Britain decreed that "No goods or commodities whatever, of the growth, production or manufacture of Europe, Africa or America, shall be imported into England or Ireland, or into any of the Plantations (American Colonies) except in ships belonging to English subjects, of which the master and the greater number of the crew shall also be English."

Our trade with her West Indian Colonies was prohibited; and, by the enforcement of these navigation acts, our commerce was nearly destroyed. As we had no tariff, foreign vessels and goods were freely admitted into our States; while our vessels and goods were burdened with heavy rates and duties in foreign ports. It thus happened that the prices of goods imported and the prices of our exports were subject to the will of foreigners. They demanded their own prices for their imports, and we had to pay them; and they offered us their own prices for our goods, and we had to take them; for, being without a national tariff, we were absolutely at their mercy.

Before this Navigation Act was passed, the Colonists had sent their trading ships to all the known ports of the world, and their commerce had become considerable and valuable to them, but by that Act it was annihilated at a blow. Even Burke declared in Parliament that "by it the com merce of the Colonies was not only tied, but strangled." Is it not true that England was and is the most selfish of nations? Her object will be stated further on.

HOW THE STATES WERE AFFECTED.-In the comparative condition of the United States and Great Britain, after the close of the Revolutionary War, not a hatter, a boot or shoemaker, a saddler, or a brass-founder here could carry on his business, except in the coarsest and most ordinary production, under the pressure of this foreign dictation. Thus was presented the extraordinary and calamitous spectacle of a successful Revolution wholly failing of its ultimate object. The people of America had gone to wor not for names, but for things; to redress their

own grievances, to improve their own condition, and to throw off the burden which the Colonial system had laid on their industry. To attain these objects they had endured incredible hardships, and borne and suffered almost beyond the measure of humanity.

And when their independence was attained they found that, by the ungenerous, uncivilized and unchristian legislation and action of Great Britain, it was merely a piece of parchment. The industry which had been burdened in the Colonies had been crushed in the Free States, and the mechanics and manufacturers of the country found themselves, in the bitterness of their hearts, independent but ruined.

DANIEL WEBSTER in a speech on the 8th of July, 1833, affirmed the truth of the foregoing statements when he said: "From the close of the War of the Revolution there came a period of depression and distress on the Atlantic coast, such as the people had hardly felt during the sharpest crisis of the war itself. Ship-owners, ship-builders, mechanics, artisans, all were destitute of employment, and some of them destitute of bread. British ships came freely, and British ships came plentifully; while to American ships and American products there was neither protection on the one side, nor the equivalent of reciprocal free trade on the other. The cheaper labor of England supplied the inhabitants of the Atlantic shores with everything. Ready-made clothes among the rest, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, were for sale in every city. All these things came free from any general system of imposts. Some of the States attempted to establish their owr partial systems, but they failed."

GEORGE BANCROFT, on page 432, Vol. I. History of the Constitution, paints the picture of this period (1785) even a darker shade when he says:

"It is certain that the English have the trade of these States almost wholly in their hands; whereby their influence must increase; and a constantly increasing scarcity of money begins to be felt, since no ship sails hence to England without large sums of money on board, especially the English packet-boats, which monthly take with them between forty and fifty thousand pounds sterling." Again on page 439 we find this:

"The scarcity of money makes the produce of the country cheap, to the disappointment of the farmers, and the discouragement of husbandry. Thus the two classes, merchants and farmers, that divide nearly all America, are discontented and distressed."

GREEDY SELFISHNESS OF GREAT BRITAIN.-It may be remarked in passing that it has always been the leading object of Great Britain to manufacture for the world, to monopolize the bulk of reproductive power, and, if possible, to keep all other countries in a state of industrial vassalage, by means of her great capital, her cheap labor, her skill and her mercantile marine. Her policy has been, and is, to force all other countries to compete in her home markets for the sale of their so-called raw materials. Why? To enable her to fix the price of what she buys. It has also been, and is, her policy to force all other nations to come her home markets for the purchase of her finished produ

enable her to fix the price of what she sells. Of course that is business; and if England can enforce such policies she will, indeed, become the mistress of the world. This policy she enforced upon us under the Confederacy.

In proof that this selfish policy has prevailed in England, many of he ablest public men might be quoted; but two or three will suffice at this time.

Years ago Lord Goderich publicly declared in the English Parliament: "Other nations know that what we English mean by free trade is nothing more nor less than by means of the great advantages we enjoy to get the monopoly of all the markets of other nations for our manufactures; and to prevent them (the foreign nations) one and all from ever becoming manufacturing nations."

David Syme, another prominent English free trader and Member of Parliament, openly said:

"In any quarter of the globe, where competition shows itself as likely to interfere with English monopoly, immediately the capital of her manufacturers is massed in that particular quarter; and goods are exported there in large quantities, and sold at such prices that outside competition is effectually counted out. English manufacturers have been known to export goods to a distant market and sell them under cost for years, with a view of getting the market into their own hands again, and keep that foreign market, and step in for the whole when prices revive."

No comment is called for at this time; but historical facts establish the accuracy of the statement as to the selfishness of Great Britain beyond all question, and her conduct toward this country after the close of the War of the Revolution as well as after the close of our second war with that power will be found instructive.

RESULTS OF SUCH A POLICY.-And so the years from 1783 to 1789 were lovely, halcyon days for the merchants and statesmen of Great Britain. In about three years' time nearly all the money of the country had passed into the pockets of British merchants and manufacturers, and we were left "poor indeed;" for not only did they take from us our money, but they took also our good name for integrity, independence and common-sense, which we had won in the Revolutionary War.

As there was no tariff to prevent, foreign nations literally poured in upon us their products of every kind and description, in such quantities and at such prices that our people could not compete with them.

Our domestic industries were suspended. The weaver, the shoemaker, the hatter, the saddler, the rope-maker, and many others, were reduced to bankruptcy; our markets were glutted with foreign products; prices fell; our manufacturers, generally, were ruined; our laborers beggared; our artisans without employment; our merchants insolvent, and our farmers necessarily followed all these classes into the vortex of general financial destruction.

"Depreciation seized upon every species of property. Legal pressure to enforce payment of debts caused alarming sacrifices of both personal and lestate; spread distress far and wide among the masses of the people;

aroused in the hearts of the sufferers the bitterest feelings against lawyer the courts and the whole creditor class; led to a popular clamor for sta laws and various other radical measures of supposed relief, and final filled the whole land with excitement, apprehension and sense of weakne and a tendency to despair of the Republic. Inability to pay even nece sary taxes became general, and often these could be collected only by lev and sale of the homestead." (Mason.)

Such were the ruinous results that necessarily followed the adoptic of a free trade policy under the Confederacy.

A writer of that period says: "We are poor, with a profusion material wealth in our possession. That we are poor needs no other pro than our prisons, bankruptcies, judgments, executions, auctions, mor gages, etc., and the shameless quantity of business in our courts law."

HILDRETH'S HISTORY, page 465, Vol. III., speaking of th period, has this true but terrible indictment: "The large importatio of foreign goods, subject to little or no duty, and sold at peace prices, w proving ruinous to all those domestic manufactures and mechanica employments which the non-consumption agreements and the war ha created and fostered. Immediately after the peace, the country had bee flooded with imported goods, and debts had been unwarily contracted, fc which there was no means to pay."

In Bolle's Financial History of the United States, Vol. II., page 437 will be found these instructive words: "From 1783 to 1789 the trade of th thirteen old States was perfectly free to the whole world. The result wa that Great Britain filled every section of our country with her manufac tures of wool, cotton, linen, leather, iron, glass and all other articles use here; and in four years she swept from the country every dollar and ever piece of gold."

Our imports from Great Britain alone were $30,000,000 in 1784-8: while our exports to her were only $9,000,000—a frightful balance on th wrong side. They drained us of our last dollar and left us for a circula ing medium only orders on State tax-collectors and depreciated certif cates of State and Federal debt, themselves worthless.

OTHER CALAMITOUS RESULTS.-The distress became universa and alarming.

In the District of Maine a Convention was held for the purpose o revolting from the State of Massachusetts. In New Hampshire the peop! surrounded the building where the Legislature was in session and declare that it should not adjourn till it had passed measures to abolish debt, or t relieve the people in some other way.

In Massachusetts fully one-third of the population joined in Shay Rebellion on account of the abject poverty and distress of the people, an nothing less than military force was able to repress all these lawles demonstrations and revolts.

Among the causes that led to Shay's Rebellion Hildreth mentions "The want of a certain and remunerative market for the produce of th

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