The whole action of the laws tended to increase the number of consumers of food and to diminish the number of producers, was due the invention of the Malthusian theory of population.

Wherever it is resisted, slaver dies away and freedom grows.

It will be said, however, that protection tends to destroy commerce, the civilizer of mankind. Directly the reverse, however, is the fact.

In 1833, protection was abandoned, and a tariff was established by which it was provided that we should, in a few years, have a system of merely revenue duties.

The commerce of India does not grow, nor does that of Portugal, or of Turkey; that but that of the protected countries does increase, as has been shown in the case of Spain, and can now be shown in that of Germany.

In this country protection has always, to some extent, existed; but at some times it has been efficient, and at others not; and our tendency toward freedom or slavery has always been in the direct ratio of its efficiency or inefficiency.

To enable men to exercise that power is the object of protection.