rise to misunderstandings which result in serious conflicts.  By removing these obstacles and making trade as free as possible, nations are brought closer together, the interests of their people become intermingled, business associations are formed between them, which go far to keep down national dispute, and prevent the wars in which the dependent nation is said to be so helpless.  Japan and China have for centuries practised the protective theory of independence of foreigners, and yet, in a war with other nations, they would be the most helpless people in the world.  That nation is the most independent which knows most of, and trades most with, the world, and by such knowledge and trade is able to avail itself of the products of the skill, intellect, and genius of all the nations of the earth.

A third erroneous impression sought to be made upon the public mind is that whatever increases the amount of labor in a country is a benefit to it.  Protection, it is argued, will increase the amount of labor, and therefore will increase a country’s prosperity.  The error in this proposition lies in mistaking the true nature of labor.  It regards it as the end, not as the means to an end.  Men do not labor merely for the sake of labor, but that out of its products they may derive support and comfort for themselves and those dependent upon them.  The result, therefore, does not depend upon the amount of labor done, but upon the value of the product.  That country, therefore, is the most prosperous which enables the laborer to obtain the greatest possible value for the product of his toil, not that which imposes the greatest labor upon him.  If this were not the case men were better off before the appliances of steam as motive power were discovered, or railroads were built, or the telegraph was invented.  The man who invents a labor-saving machine is a public enemy; and he would be a public benefactor who would restore the good old times when the farmer never had a leisure day, and the sun never set on the toil of the mechanic.  No, Mr. Chairman, it is the desire of every laborer to get the maximum of result from the minimum of effort.  That system, therefore, can be of no advantage to him which, while it gives him employment, robs him of its fruits.  This, it will be seen, protection does, while free trade, giving him unrestricted control of the product of his labor, enables him to get the fullest value for it in markets of his own selection.

The protectionist, relying upon the propositions I have thus hurriedly discussed, urges many specious reasons for his system, to a few of which only do I intend to call attention to-day.