7-42, and that of 1857-61. They direct
further attention to the complementary fact that, in each of these
cases, financial prosperity was regained through the agency of a
protective tariff, the operation of which was prompt and beneficent.

On the other hand the panic of 1873 and the depression which lasted
until 1879 undoubtedly occurred after a protective tariff had been
for a long time in operation. Free-traders naturally make much of
this circumstance. Protectionists, however, with confidence and
with strong array of argument, make answer that the panic of 1873
was due to causes wholly unconnected with revenue systems,--that
it was the legitimate and the inevitable outgrowth of an exhausting
war, a vitiated and redundant currency, and a long period of reckless
speculation directly induced by these conditions. They aver that
no system of revenue could have prevented the catastrophe. They
maintain however that by the influence of a protective tariff the
crisis was long postponed; that under the reign of free-trade it
would have promptly followed the return of peace when the country
was ill able to endure it. They claim that the influence of
protection would have put off the re-action still longer if the
rebuilding of Chicago and Boston, after the fires of 1871 and 1872,
had not enforced a sudden withdrawal of $250,000,000 of ready money
from the ordinary channels of trade to repair the loss which these
crushing disasters precipitated.

The assailants of protection apparently overlook the fact that
excessive production is due, both in England and in America, to
causes beyond the operation of duties either high or low. No cause
is more potent than the prodigious capacity of machinery set in
motion by the agency of steam. It is asserted by an intelligent
economist that, if performed by hand, the work done by machinery
in Great Britain would require the labor of seven hundred millions
of men,--a far larger number of adults than inhabit the globe. It
is not strange that, with this vast enginery, the power to produce
has a constant tendency to outrun the power to consume. Protectionists
find in this a conclusive argument against surrendering the domestic
market of the United States to the control of British capitalists,
whose power of production has no apparent limit. When the harmonious
adjustment of international trade shall ultimately be established
by "the Parliament of man" in "the Federation of the world,