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Show .Conversations to Our Club irS' INTFvODUCTION. Last week the principles at stake in what is known as civil service reform were discussed, and the condition of affairs af-fairs in New York City produced by the spoils system seems to have been as bad fifty years ago as it is today, or was during the last years of Tammany rule; so it does not seem that we are so very much worse than our forefathers. forefath-ers. This week the merits of the pro-, pro-, tection system form the subject of debate. de-bate. The time and point of view must ! be remembered. As it happened, a i policy of high protection was soon i afterwards adopted by this country and I our readers will find it interesting to I compare their hindsight with the fore-I fore-I sight of the writer.- Conversation VI Continued. ' "The prudent man," cited Winslow, "forseeth the evil and guardeth against j it. Sorrow will come, for his is a world of sorrow, and He who redeemed it was a man of sorrows and burdened 1 with grief; but this is no reason why I we should not guard against increas-i increas-i ing it by the additional sorrow of feel-! feel-! ing that we have brought it upon ourselves by our own folly and wickedness." wick-edness." "No man f peaking under the influence influ-ence of strong emotion," rejoined Fath-I Fath-I er John, "should have his words taken au pied de lettre. Deep feelings always al-ways exaggerate, but the good sense of the hearer supplies usually the proper correction. Even the saints themselves them-selves use, in their holy zeal against the evil of their times, language which it will not do .to take without some reserves. re-serves. Things, in his time, did not, after all, go so bad as St. Peter Damian, for instance, represents. Men who have a high ideal are apt to regard as i evil whatever falls below it. The noble soul counts nothing done while any-i any-i thing remains to be done. My ideal for ! ; this republic is high, and I grieve when-i when-i ever it fails to realize it. It is my home, j it is, after my church, my mother, and I feel deeply whatever is not to its ! honor. Doubtless, all are not clean ! gone from the way; doubtless, there are more than ten just persons to be found 'in our modern Sodom; doubtless, there are more than 7,000 in our Israel, who have not bowed the knee to Baal, or burnt incense to Mammon; but, we are ! not what We might and should be. We j may compare to advantage .with the kingdoms and empires of the old world, but no Christian, no patriot, can be satisfied with our present conduct and condition. I grieve to find even my Catholic brethren, who take part in poltical, municipal and business affairs, hardly rising above, sometimes hardly to, the level of their non-Catholic fellow-citizens. I do not wholly despair l of the republic. I hope in God and perhaps per-haps have as firm a trust in Providence Provi-dence as my friend, Mr. O'Flanagan, but I see already the seeds of dissolution disso-lution beginning to germinate in our youthful constitution, and I hope only with trembling. I know the nation that forgets God shall be turned into hell, and the nation that forgets virtue does forget God. Unless, we return to God, cease to do evil, and learn to do well, there Is room to fear that God will remember re-member us in his judgments, not in his mercy." .... Conversation VII. "In our last meeting many good rea- sons," began De Bonneville, "were as- signed why Catholics should not sup- port the democratic party, but I recollect no good reason that was as-L as-L signed why they should, or why they . so uniformly do, support that party. Between Catholocity and democracy I ' can discover no-natural affinity.'.' "I am," replied Winslow,.' "no democrat, demo-crat, and I do not,' think 'democracy, , as I undel stand, it, and as it is 'un- derstood by the radical . portion at least of the democratic party, is com-i com-i patible with Catholocity. But M. De Bonneville is mistaken in supposing that all Catholic citizens in the Union of the Catholics of the old American j stock in Maryland and Kentucky were ; Whigs -while there was a Whig party. Archbishop Carroll's coachman voted, indeed, the Democratic ticket, but the archbishop himself voted with the Federalists. Fed-eralists. Catholics of a later migration migra-tion have been divided, and in no election elec-tion state, national or municipal have they been found all on one side. There were Catholics who voted for General Scott, as well at Catholics who voted for General Pierce, and I have found several who say they voted for Colonel Fremont; yet it is probably true that the majority of the Catholic voters have, at least in the later elections, elec-tions, voted with the Democratic party; for such has been the state of parties that they must either do so or vote with the anti-slavery men against the Union, or with the Know-Nothings against religious liberty and the freedom free-dom of their Church. The majority of naturalized citizens, whether of Irish or German birth, have, no doubt, always al-ways inclined to the Democratic party and been disposed to identify themselves them-selves with it; but to this they have been led by motives unconnected with Catholocity. In Europe we pass for a democratic republic, and, indeed, the mass of our own na.tive-born citizens regard our institutions as democrats, and to be interpreted and applied in the democratic sense. Europeans migrating mi-grating hither, whether from Ireland or Germany, suppose they are migrating migrat-ing to a democratic country,' and very naturally conclude that, in order to be loyal citizens, they must- be Democrats. Demo-crats. Nothing is more natural, then than that on settling here and becoming becom-ing citizens they ' should aggregate themselves to the Democratic party the party claiming to be democratic, and evidently truer to the democratic instinct than any other party in the country. They feel that they can be true, loyal, acceptable Americans only in doing so. The Irish Catholics, the most efficient and leading portion of the Catholic population In the Union, are, no doubt, attracted to the Democratic Demo-cratic party because they believe it to; be the party of liberty; because it is the least stiff and rigid toward foreigners, foreign-ers, and because it advocates a liberal policy toward foreigners makes fair and large promises, and professes to be anti-English. The strongest passion in an Irishman's heart, after love for his Church and for his native land, is hatred of England." j "The Democratic party," replied De Bonneville, ."may be anti-English in its professions, and sometimes in its diplomacy, but in all else it is the most thoroughgoing English party I have been able to find in your country. coun-try. It was Robert J. Walker, a lead-: lead-: ing Democrat, secretary of the treas-J treas-J ury under President Polk, Mr. Bu-. Bu-. chanan's late governor of Kansas, and a candidate in expectancy for the next t presidency, I am told, who proposed, at least advocated, the Anglo-Saxon alliance, al-liance, or the alliance offensive and defensive of England and America against the world an alliance which, ' if effected, would be simply revolutionizing revolution-izing every Catholic state, deposing the j Pope, destroying the Church and placing plac-ing the effective government of the world in Exeter Hall, the Protestant Vatican. The Democratic party in its general policy usually, designedly or not, plays into the hands of England. The strength of that party lies in the southern or slaveholding states, and these states would dread nothing so much as a war with Great Britain, with whom, it is maliciously said, they would have remained united as colonies even to this -day, had .it not been for the bolder (and - more independent inde-pendent spirit -of the" northern states. A war with -Greaf Britain would de prive them of the chief market for their cotton, rice and tobacco the pr" ducts of their slave labor and perhaps per-haps deprive them of their negro property prop-erty itself. The railroad corporations and the mercantile classes would also dread such a war, for it would deprive them of their English trade and credit, and ruin their business. The Democratic Demo-cratic party is the free trade party, and free trade is precisely the policy which Great Britain, as the first commercial com-mercial and manufacturing nation of the world, wishes your government to adopt, for it enables her to purchase of you the food and the raw material she needs for her industrial population, popula-tion, and to pay for them with the products of her industry. Her interest inter-est is to prevent the growth of American Ameri-can manufactures, and to confine you t' the production of the raw material for her mills to work up, and to supplying, sup-plying, at a cheap rate, the food she needs for her operatives. . and this is precisely the effect of the Democratic policy of free trade. If the whole labor la-bor of the Union be directed to the production of food, and the raw materials ma-terials for manufacturers, it will produce pro-duce a more abundant supply, and England would not only purchase them at a cheaper rate, but at the same time obtain a wider market for the products of her industry. Were the United States to adopt the protective j system advocated by the late Mr. Henry Clay, and effectively protect and encourage their own manufactures, they would deal the commercial and industrial supremacy of England the severest blow it has ever received and reduce the haughty Ocean Queen to a condition compatible with their own free development and the peace and prosperity of the Continental nations: and till they do so they will never have really escaped from their old colonial dependence. The interest of the south- 1 ern states, taken by themselves, may ' demand free trade, bcause they own and employ slaves, and therefore unskilled un-skilled labor, but the interests of the Union as a whole demand independence, independ-ence, which can never be attained by confining yourselves to the productions of unskilled labor to be exchanged for the productions of skilled labor. That is the policy of a semi-barbarous people, peo-ple, and never to be adopted b.t a people peo-ple that aspires in the arts, refinement and cultivation to the first rank among civilized nations; as long as you continue con-tinue it you will be principally confined con-fined to the lowest grade of material civilization, and without moral weight among ' contemporary nations. The Democratic policy is dictated by the slaveholding and foreign commercial interests, and consists briefly in preferring pre-ferring unskilled labor brute matter-to matter-to cultivated intellect. That policy originated in the last century with men who defined man as a 'digesting tube, open at both ends,' and ascribed his superiority over animals to the fact that his fore limbs terminate in hands, instead of hoofs or claws." ( "No doubt," continued De Bonneville, ' you are a great people and have prospered; pros-pered; but if you take into consideration considera-tion the numerous and important advantages ad-vantages you have had, you have prospered pros-pered less during, the period of your national na-tional existence than any of the principal prin-cipal states of Europe. You have hard-! hard-! ly kept up with the mother country and Russia has far outstripped you in th xou nave prosperea. as tar as prospered you have, in spite of your government. What government in a 1 ' country like yours can do to hinder the prosperity of a people, yours has done. , Even your, present prosperity nas its limits, which, if you change not your 1 policy, are by no means so distant as j you Imagine. Already you find the continent con-tinent too small for you and Jufve in some sections of the union a surplus and dangerous population.: You have ' despoiled 'the best part of your territory terri-tory of its primitive forests, fearfully diminished the supply of timber and lumber, and with a reckless disregard to the wants of future generations, unmatched un-matched in the world's history. You are impoverishing your best lands, exhausting ex-hausting the fertility of your rich, soils in producing rice, cotton, tobacco, grain and provisions, to be exchanged for foreign for-eign luxuries, which destroy your simplicity sim-plicity of character, introduce habits of extravagance, corrupt your manners and morals; and are consumed without i adding a cent to your capital, or pro-j ductive capacity. Your trade, sustained by agricultural products, is a rich mine for England, which you work for her at the expense of your own land and labor. Irish Catholics, by emigrating from Ireland to this country, contribute contrib-ute far more to the prosperity of England Eng-land than they could have done by remaining re-maining at home. Indeed, the United States is simply England's western farm or plantation, from which she derives de-rives in part the supplies for her household, house-hold, and the Democratic party is her steward or intendant for its management. manage-ment. If hatred of England, and a desire de-sire to humble her pride and break up her supremacy,; be a motive of poltica! action with Catholics of Irish birth or descent, the Democratic party, it strikes me, is the last party in the country they should support." "AT co -RnnnevillA musf- hp a warp." replied O'Flanagan, "that however plausible his theory may appear, it is not universally accepted, and is denied i by. Adam Smith and nearly all political I economists." "Adam Smith," rejoined De Bonneville, Bonne-ville, "defines the wealth of a nation to be. the amount of its exchangeable produce, pro-duce, or the amount of its produce remaining re-maining over and above its wants for home consumption, without tabing into the account the nature of the surplus, or of the articles for which it is exchanged; ex-changed; I make the wealth of a na-I na-I tion consist in its capital, and its cap-i cap-i ital in the productive capacity of its land, including the laboring population and all that goes to make up that capacity;- hence the. different conclusions at which we respectively arrive. If you take more f ronf your land than you add to it you diminish its productive capacity and therefore the national wealth. Every agriculturist knows this and it is proved by the pains they take to save, create, or import manures to restore their exhausted soils. Hitherto you have sustained the constant drain on your land by your exportation of agricultural productions exchanged for the productions of foreign skilled labor, ' chiefly by opening new lands and bring-1 bring-1 ino- tow v-ire-in soil into cultivation: but I this resource has its limit, extewsive as your territory is) and must ultimately ; fail you. As long as thi3 resource lasts 1 or remains near at hand, you may not j be struck with the ruinous nature of your policy, or be led to reflect that you are exhausting, in luxurious and riotous living, the patrimony of future generations. You do not as yet reflect .how much of your present prosperity is really a draft on the future. With your yast" climate, soil and production, you might sustain in ease and comfort a far larger population than that of the Chinese Chi-nese empire, estimated at over 400,000,-000 400,000,-000 of souls; yet with your present system sys-tem you could not easily maintain a third of that number. You have not yet a population much over 30,000,000 and you already in some sections find the means of obtaining a livelihood difficult, as is evinced by the constant stream of emigration from the older settled states to the new states and territories. What would be your condition, then,' 'if the whole union were as densely peopled as Massachusetts, Connecticut or- New York?" ?v' (To be Continued.) ; : |
