The ancient world was dominated by Fatum, Heimarmene, ines- 
capable mysterious fate. These were the names given by the Greeks 
and Romans to that impalpable omnipotence which frustrated all 
human will and effort, which led all human deeds to results quite 
other than those intended, that irresistible force which has since then 
been called providence, predestination, etc. This mysterious force 
has slowly taken on a more palpable form, and for this we may thank 
the rule of the bourgeoisie and capital, the first system of class rule 
which seeks to find clarity about the causes and conditions of its own 
existence, thus opening the door to the recognition of the 
inevitability of its own imminent fall. Fate, providence—that we 
know now—consists of the economic conditions under which 
production and exchange take place, and these combine today in the 
world market. 

And this is the importance of the American presidential election, 
that it is an event of the first order on the world market. 

Four years ago I published an essay on protective tariffs and free 
trade, in Boston in English and in Stuttgart in German.’ Here I 
demonstrated that England’s industrial monopoly could not be 
reconciled with the economic development of the other civilised 
countries; that the protective tariffs introduced in America since the 
Civil War**’ showed Americans’ will to shake off the yoke of this 
monopoly; that thanks to the gigantic natural resources and the 
intellectual and moral talents of the American race this target has 
already been reached, and the customs barrier has become in 
America, no less than in Germany, a fetter to industry. And then I 

a F. Engels, ‘Protection and Free Trade”.—Ed. 

wrote: If America introduces free trade, then it will beat England on 
the world market in ten years. 

Very well. The presidential election of November 8, 1892 has 
opened the way for free trade. The protective tariff in the form 
devised by MacKinley had become an unbearable fetter; the 
nonsensical price increase for all imported raw materials and 
foodstuffs, which affected the price of many domestic products, had 
largely closed world markets to American products, while the home 
market suffered a glut of American industrial products. In fact, in 
the past few years the protective tariff only served to ruin the small 
producers under the pressure of the large producers combined in 
cartels and trusts, and to surrender the market and thus the 
consuming nation to exploitation by the latter, that is to say the 
organised monopoly. America can only escape from this permanent 
domestic industrial crisis caused by the protective tariff by opening 
itself up to the world market, and for this it must emancipate itself 
from the protective tariff, at least in its present nonsensical form. 
The total turn-about of public opinion demonstrated by the election 
shows that it is determined to do this. Once established on the world 
market, America— like, and through England—will irresistibly be 
driven further along the path of free trade. 

And then we shall experience an industrial battle as never before. 
On all markets English products, particularly textiles and iron goods, 
will have to fight with American products, and finally lose. Even now 
American cottons and linens chase the English from the field. Would 
you like to know who performed the miracle of converting in one 
short year the cotton operatives of Lancashire from furious 
opponents to enthusiastic advocates of the legal eight-hour day? 
Refer to the Neue Zeit, No. 2 of October this year, p. 56, where you 
can see how American cottons and linens are displacing the English 
step by step on the domestic market, how English imports have, since 
1881, never reached the American, and in 1891 only amounted to 
about one third of the latter.°°? And China is, beside India, much the 
main market for these textiles. 

This is renewed proof that with the turn of the century all relations 
are shifting. Transfer the centre of gravity of the textile and iron 
industries from England to America, and England will become either 
a second Holland, whose bourgeoisie live on their former greatness, 
and whose proletariat shrivels, or—it will reorganise itself along 
socialist lines. The first is not possible, the English proletariat will not 
put up with it, it is far too numerous and developed for this. Only the 
second remains. The fall of protective tariffs in America means the 
ultimate victory of socialism in England. 

The American Presidential Election 331 

And Germany? Back in 1878 it won a position on the world 
market, which it is now losing step by step thanks to its foolish 
protective tariff policy—will it insist upon continuing obstinately to 
close for itself the path to the world market by taxing raw materials 
and foodstuffs, even against its American competitors, who will 
throw themselves into things quite differently from the English 
competition hitherto? Will the German bourgeoisie have the 
understanding and courage to follow the example set by America, or 
will it, lethargic as hitherto, wait until American industry, grown 
all-powerful, forcibly breaks the tariff-cartel between the Junkers 
and the large-scale manufacturers *”? And will the government and 
the bourgeoisie finally realise how marvellously clumsily this precise 
moment has been chosen to crush the economic forces of Germany 
with new and prohibitive military burdens, when it should be 
entering into industrial competition with the most youthfully strong 
nation in the world, which has easily paid off its colossal war debt ina 
few years, and whose government does not know what to do with the 
tax income? 

The German bourgeoisie have—perhaps for the last time—the 
opportunity finally to perform a great deed. One hundred to one 
they are too narrow-minded and too cowardly to utilise this 
opportunity for anything except to prove that once and for all their 

November 16, 1892 

Signed: Frederick Engels