and so on ad infinitum. America, in this respect, offers us a striking example of the best way to kill an important industry by protection. In 1856, the total imports and exports by sea of the United States amounted to $641,604,850. Of this amount, 75.2 per cent, were carried in American, and only 24.8 per cent, in foreign vessels. British ocean-steamers were already then encroaching upon American sailing vessels; yet, in 1860, of a total sea-going trade of $762,288,550, American vessels still carried 66.5 per cent. The civil war came on, and protection to American shipbuilding; and the latter plan was so successful that it has nearly completely driven the American flag from the high seas. In 1887 the total seagoing trade of the United States amounted to $1,408,502,979; but of this total only 13.80 per cent, were carried in American, and 86.20 per cent, in foreign bottoms. The goods carried by American ships amounted, in 1856, to $482,268,275; in 1860 to $507,274,757. In 1887 they had sunk to $194,356,746.[1] Forty years ago, the American flag was the most dangerous rival of the British flag, and bade fair to outstrip it on the ocean; now it is nowhere. Protection to shipbuilding has killed both shipping and shipbuilding.
Another point. Improvements in the methods of production nowadays follow each other so rapidly, and change the character of entire branches of industry so suddenly and so completely, that what may have been yesterday a fairly balanced protective tariff is no longer so to-day. Let us take another example from the Report of the Secretary of the Treasury for 1887:
"Improvement in recent years in the machinery employed in combing wool has so changed the character of
- ↑ Annual Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, etc. for the year 1887. Washington; 1887; pp. xxviii, xxix.
