The chief argument for free trade - and some are bold enough to insist that it is the only one needed to prove the case - is based on the advantages arising from territorial division of labor. We have seen how industry naturally adapts itself to locality: cotton-growing to the Southern states, wheat-growing to the upper Mississippi Valley, and iron-smelting to Pennsylvania. We have seen also how, as a result of this adaptability, the world's supply of goods is greatly increased over what it would be if each locality or section were self-sufficing. With this fact established, the advocate of free trade raises the question: What possible benefit to the society of such a country as ours can come from setting up artificial barriers that prevent consumers from getting their goods where they can be most advantageously produced ? They ask just how much better off industrially would New England be at the present time if every pound of cotton which has gone into that section had paid an import tax. The most enthusiastic supporter of protection realizes the advantages gained from interregional trade within the United States. He knows that one of the sources of wealth of Pennsylvania is the rich grainfields of Iowa and Illinois; and that a tariff wall that would compel each bushel of wheat or corn to pay an import tax would work a positive hardship on the consumers of

Pennsylvania without benefiting the producers of Iowa or Illinois. The free trader at this point extends his argument by insisting, for example, that the people of the United States, wheat farmers included, would profit in the long run if they could secure wheat from Argentina cheaper than they could produce it at home.