dies, and literally destroyed fair competition, and
created for herself a practical monopoly in the building of iron
steamers, and a superior share in the ocean traffic of the world.
But every step she took in the development of her steam marine by
the payment of bounty, was in flat contradiction of the creed which
she was at the same time advocating in those departments of trade
where she could conquer her competitors without bounty.

With her superiority in navigation attained and made secure through
the instrumentality of subsidies, England could afford to withdraw
them. Her ships no longer needed them. Thereupon, with a promptness
which would be amusing if it did not have so serious a side for
America, she proceeded to inveigh through all her organs of public
opinion against the discarded and condemned policy of granting
subsidies to ocean steamers. Her course in effect is an exact
repetition of that in regard to protection of manufactures, but as
it is exhibited before a new generation, the inconsistency is not
so readily apprehended nor so keenly appreciated as it should be
on this side of the Atlantic. Even now there is good reason for
believing that many lines of English steamers, in their effort to
seize the trade to the exclusion of rivals, are paid such extravagant
rates for the carrying of letters as practically to amount to a
bounty, thus confirming to the present day (1884) the fact that no
nation has ever been so persistently and so jealously protective
in her policy as England so long as the stimulus of protection is
needed to give her the command of trade. What is true of England
is true in greater or less degree of all other European nations.
They have each in turn regulated the adoption of free-trade by the
ratio of their progress towards the point where they could overcome
competition. In all those departments of trade where competition
could overcome them, they have been quick to interpose protective
measures for the benefit of their own people.

The trade policy of the United States at the foundation of the
government had features of enlightened liberality which were unknown
in any other country of the world. The new government was indeed
as far in advance of European nations in the proper conception of
liberal commerce as it was on questions relating to the character
of the African slave-trade. The colonists had experienced the
oppression of the English laws which prohibited export from