States which founded the Zollverein, nor of those States forming the American Union.

The German Customs Association had for its object to put an end to material difficulties which do not exist between the American nations. Prussia, which took the initiative in this union, was experiencing very serious commercial embarrassments on account of the irregular configuration of its territory. Its provinces of the north were completely separated from those of the west by the territories of Hanover, the two Hesses, of Frankfort-onthe-Main; others were completely wedged in between neighboring States. Its own territory inclosed foreign possessions: Oldenburg, the Duchies of Anhalt, etc. The same difficulties existed in the same degree for all the States which successively adhered to the Zollverein. In constituting this Customs Union they consequently overcame economical difficulties of such importance that it was impossible to pay too dearly for such a benefit, even if it was necessary to purchase it at the price of some sacrifice on the ground of industrial protection.

No such difficulties exist between the American nations. On one or the other ocean we have at our command, to insure our commercial relations with foreign lands, immense ports which even in a hundred years will probably surpass our needs.

Nevertheless, and this is an essential point on which wer should fix our attention, did the members of the Zollverein consent to any real sacrifice in abolishing those inferior custom-houses with which the territory of Germany bristled? Remember, gentlemen, that the States to which reference is made here were peopled by men of the same race, speaking the same language, educated in the same universities, formed to manufacture and commerce in the one school of the Hanseatic League, arrived at the same degree of intellectual culture of mechanical dexterity, of commercial activity, men belonging in reality to one and the same nation, to Germany, of which this Customs Union only prepared the political unity which we have seen as an accomplished fact in less than half a century after the creation of the Zollverein. No serious interest of an 563A-14

economic order divided these peoples, of which the workmen could pass and did pass over the frontier as soon as the slightest variation in the rate of wages made it advisable for them to do so.

It is this precisely which is now the case between the States of the American Union. The relative independence which each of these States enjoys in the administration of its local interests exercises no restrictive effect on the fact of natural unity.

The liberty of trade between the various States or Provinces of one and the same nation is the natural outcome of the free circulation of capital and of mercantile skill under the protection of one and the same flag. Here the citizens of the United States, who desire to devote themselves to agricultural labors and do not find sufficient farming land in their vicinity, carry to the West their energy, their talents, and their capital. The weaver of the North avoids competition, and spares the expenses of transportation of the raw material of his industry by going to establish his looms in the middle of the cotton plantations of the south. The man from Maryland does not leave his country by setting up his tent in California; he from Maine is still in his country when he leaves his pine forests to go and work in those of Oregon or Alabama. Outside of material obstacles, overcome more and more in our days by the powerful intervention of steam and electricity, the citizens of one nation thus move constantly about guided by the natural tendency of manufacturers to come closer to the agriculturists who furnish them with the raw material, or of the consumer, who puts himself in direct contact with the producer. It is this movement, this activity, which is the fountain-head of the interior commerce; it is the very life of the people. It is also by this motion, by this constant and rapid diffusion of capital and talent that the prosperity of a nation is measured; I might almost say its degree of civilization.

To take away from one's country all the obstacles which oppose this circulation; to spread over it general and, above all, professional instruction; to assure to all, natives and strangers, the greatest possible security for their persons

and their goods; to render accessible, by the construction of railways and of canals, all these rich and virgin lands which yet abound in Latin America, only awaiting the hand of man to produce immense and incalculable riches; to bring closer and ever closer to the agriculturist the manufacturer who will utilize the raw material extracted from the ground; to diminish the cost of transport, which is the most powerful obstacle which opposes the progress of human society; to diminish them by putting the consumer and the producer in direct contact by the creation of the greatest possible number of centers of population. in the interior of each State; to diminish them yet further in giving on the spot, as nearly as possible, the last manufacturing finish to the material extracted from the ground, thus reducing the weight and volume of the matter to be transported, to be delivered to the commerce of the world; such, gentlemen, I dare to say, is the formula of the economical problem which will impose itself, which does today impose itself, on the attention of statesmen in nearly all of Latin America.

Let us throw a glance on the economical situation of those States. What do we see? Here is exported a quantity of raw wool and is imported all the cloth which is used. There hides are sent away in a raw state at the expense of the producer, and travel thousands of miles over the seas to receive the finish of the tanner or shoemaker, and return in the shape of shoes. In other countries, as well as my own, it is the cotton which is carried away in a raw state which returns as cloth.

The honorable delegate, Mr. Henderson, has stated to us that no amount of protective tariff is sufficient to prevent the rich American from having his clothes made in London or in Paris. This is absolutely true; but in a country where the poor man is also clothed from a foreign country, not on account of taste, but on account of necessity, that statesmen should begin to agitate for it is a sure sign that there are channels which are closed and which should be opened to the manufacturing activity of the commonwealth.

Do you think that the home free trade which causes the

cotton spinner of the North to go to the South of the United States would suffice between different nations to attract him beyond the limits of his own country and send him to the plains of Hayti? Would free trade alone establish factories under the American flag in Chili or in the Argentine? Intelligent workmen only leave and above all only expatriate themselves under the conditions we see them arrive from Europe to the United States, and since some time to the great Latin Republics, drawn hence by the bait of higher profits, by the perspective of a more rapid fortune than they could hope to realize in their own country.

To buy in the cheapest possible market is an attractive but fallacious theory. I only take as a proof the unheard · of and wonderful prosperity realized by the United States by the aid of the highest protective tariffs known. The most powerful element of prosperity for a people is the division of labor; it is also the most solid basis of all social peace.

When a sufficient number of channels for the industrial activity of the citizens are not found in a country, not only this country has no advantages to offer to intelligent. foreign workmen, and thus deprive itself of the most simple and efficacious means of initiating itself in the progress of science, of the arts, and of industry, but in addition this activity which finds no outlet flows back to the head and to the heart of society. For the want of something better each one aspires to govern the State, and thus one has before him the shocking spectacle of a population of a few hundred thousand souls exhausting itself in periodical struggles without any apparent aim on a territory where millions of human beings should live in comfort.

No, I do not deem desirable a system the result of which might well be to prevent, or at least to retard, the direct contact of the consumer and the producer, which might cause cotton and wool to be indefinitely produced on one side of the equator and cloth and blue jeans on the other side. Perfect reciprocity can not exist where a perfect equality in the conditions of production do not exist.

I am not at all a systematic protectionist, but I do believe that every country which has the ambition to reach the height and the civilization of our century is obliged to go through an industrial education to place itself in a position to give to the natural products of its soil and its climate all the necessary processes which precede its final finish. I think also that such an education should be followed without swerving, and that each nation, that one above all which can not congratulate itself on having fully attained the highest level of the mechanical skill of its time, should for these reasons retain its freedom of action and remain absolute mistress of its customs legislation.

However, I should not propose to my own country to import iron ore from England or coal from Pennsylvania for the mere purpose of seeing tall chimneys smoking in the country; but I do say to her, buy the iron which you need in the cheapest possible market, place upon it a purely fiscal import duty, learn how to manufacture this iron for your use, and, above all, do not compromise the future; do not put yourself under the impossibility of trying to do to-morrow what has not been possible for you to accomplish yesterday or to-day.

I flatter myself, gentlemen, that this friendly assemblage of representatives of all the nations of our hemisphere, that this courteous exchange of views which makes us more acquainted and allows of our appreciating each other and of esteeming each other reciprocally, both ourselves as individuals and the countries we represent here, I flatter myself that all this will not be lost to the great cause of peace or for the gradual or rapid development of our commercial relations. Far from that, each one here will recommend to his Government. I am certain, the most liberal customs legislation which is compatible with its fiscal interests and with the imperious necessity of developing the industrial power demanded by its climate, by the peculiar nature of its soil, and by its genius. In what concerns the Republic of Hayti, I am of opinion, and my recommendations to my Government will be in this sense, that our import dues be reduced by means of our own laws and not by