PROTECTION v. FREETRADE.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17220, 10 August 1921, Page 8

PROTECTION v. FREETRADE.

TO THB BDITOE Of "THE PBESS." Sir,—Conceraing my quotation of President Lincoln under the abow headinsr in. your issue of 9th, and your request for my authority- I regrot my inability, to recall the publication, which in no way, however, affects the validitv of the dictum. In support of which 1 contend—1. That to import goods a country can manufacture ia a crave injustice to

its dependent, wage-earners. 2. That a commission should be appointed, or the duty assigned to some other body, to determine what industries a country is capable of conducting. 3. That Governments should foster those industries either by bounties or protective tariffs. 4. That self-containment as far as possible should be the ideal of State and individual alike. The last being not only compatible with humanitarian inteivsts and with export trade, but in my judgment the only true foundation .upon which an ideal humanitarian structure can he built, and in which foreign exchanges, to which you give so prominent a place, would be but a detail. Moral excellenc.- being by far before financial credit as an ideal, or as the basis of an ideal, to which the latter would soon adjust itself automatically. But assuming financial credit to he the main or basic consideration to the end of human- well-being, what better example eould b.> cited of the eiScacy of protection to the'attainment thereof than the United States thereunder, and of the successive periods of depression and distress m that country under freetrade. "Where the virtue of low prices, it may be asked, without the purchasing power ? Low prices by all- means let there be, but un'der. statutory restricted rates of profit; which would needs give impetus to both trade and employment; but certainly not at the expense of employment of our own people.—Yours, etc., ECONOMIST. . [Our correspondent should not attribute random remarks to Abraham Lincoln. The "validity" of the dictum he qVioted wo have shown to be nil.—Ed. "The Press."]