have maintained the
exports at a high figure, this flattering result has been due more to
the superabundant bounty of Nature than to the demand of other nations
for our protected manufactures.

For nearly the lifetime of a generation, therefore, American industries
have been thus protected, until the practice has assumed the force of a
tradition, and is clothed in the mail of conservatism. In their mutual
relations, these industries resemble the activities of a modern
ironclad that has heavy armor, but inferior engines and guns; mighty
for defence, weak for offence. Within, the home market is secured; but
outside, beyond the broad seas, there are the markets of the world,
that can be entered and controlled only by a vigorous contest, to which
the habit of trusting to protection by statute does not conduce.

At bottom, however, the temperament of the American people is
essentially alien to such a sluggish attitude. Independently of all
bias for or against protection, it is safe to predict that, when the
opportunities for gain abroad are understood, the course of American
enterprise will cleave a channel by which to reach them. Viewed
broadly, it is a most welcome as well as significant fact that a
prominent and influential advocate of protection, a leader of the party
committed to its support, a keen reader of the signs of the times and
of the drift of opinion, has identified himself with a line of policy
which looks to nothing less than such modifications of the tariff as
may expand the commerce of the United States to all quarters of the
globe. Men of all parties can unite on the words of Mr. Blaine, as
reported in a recent speech: "It is not an ambitious destiny for so
great a country as ours to manufacture only what we can consume, or
produce only what we can eat." In face of this utterance of so shrewd
and able a public man, even the extreme character of the recent tariff
legislation seems but a sign of the coming change, and brings to mind
that famous Continental System, of which our own is the analogue, to
support which Napoleon added legion to legion and enterprise to
enterprise, till the fabric of the Empire itself crashed beneath the
weight.

The interesting and significant feature of this changing attitude is
the turning of the eyes outward, instead of inward only, to seek the
welfare of the country. To affirm the importance of distant markets,
and the relation to them of our own immense powers of productio