Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/75

Rh It interrupted the prosperity of the country only for a short time, except where speculation had been most general and reckless. But the revenue of the government fell off in an embarrassing degree, and measures had to be taken to replenish the National Treasury. In the session of Congress of 1859-60, a revision of the tariff was undertaken to that end. The result was the so-called Morrill tariff. In introducing it in the House of Representatives, Mr. Morrill, who was always a protectionist on principle, and who on this occasion described the progress of England from protection to free trade, spoke these remarkable words:

In this very process of education, a comparison of our own tariffs of 1824, 1828, 1832, 1842, 1846 and 1857 will show that we have made more rapid strides in cheapening manufactures, and therefore lessening the necessity of incidental protection, than ever England made herself in any equal period of time. Having more than two centuries the start in their industrial enterprise, we are now not more than fifteen years in her rear. The pupil will soon overtake its mistress.

Fifteen years? This was said in 1860. In Mr. Morrill's opinion, then, this country would have been ripe for free trade in 1875. And what did he propose to bring about this consummation? A tariff of which he himself said that while the specific rates proposed in it gave somewhat surer protection, yet these “specific rates were only equivalent for the tariff of 1846, or a change of form rather than of substance.”

No stronger testimony could be given for the beneficent influence of the low tariff of 1846 upon the manufacturing industries of the country. But not even this return from the still lower tariff of 1857 to that of 1846 was asked for by the manufacturers. Mr. Rice of Massachusetts, who,