Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 10.djvu/211

 REED

best for the United States of America alone concerns me now, and the first thing I have to say is, that after thirty years of protection, undisturbed by any serioiis menace of free trade, up to the very year now last past this country was the greatest and most flourishing nation on the face of this earth. Moreover, with the shadow of this unjustifiable bill resting cold upon it, with mills closed, with hundreds of thousands of men unemployed, industry at a standstill, and prospects before it more gloomy than ever marked its history — except once — this country is still the greatest and the richest that the sun shines on, or ever did shine on.

According to the usual story that is told, Eng- land had been engaged with a long and vain struggle with the demon of protection, and had been year ai::'='r year sinking farther into the depths, until at a moment when she was in her distress and saddest plight, her manufacturing system broken down, "protection, having de- stroyed home trade by reducing, ' ' as Mr. Atkin- son says, "the entire population to beggary, destitution, and want." Mr. Cobden and his friends providentially appeared, and after a hard struggle established a principle for all time and for all the world, and straightway England enjoyed the sum of human happiness. Hence all good nations should do as England has done and be happy ever after.

Suppose England, instead of being a little island in the sea, had been the half of a great X— 12 177

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