The daily union., 1846-04-28
THE TARIEE.

One of the great objections to protective tariff is
that it causes capital and labor to flow into channels
which are less productive and profitable to the COM
munity at large. Manufactures may be highly
profitable to the capitalists engaged in them, but
does not therefore follow that they in all cases
profitable to the rest OF the community. The tariff
is a tax upon the other classes for their benefit.
Thus, the manufacturers sell their goods for
higher price than they could otherwise command.
The tariff enables them to take the place Of the
cheaper productions of other countries; but who
pays themi The agricuturists, merchants &C., of
The country. And thus shilst the stream Of wealth
is turned in one channel for the benefit of the
ufacturers, the stream in the whole country may be
narrowed and reduced. An individual is better Judge
of his own interests than the government be;
and as the whole is made up Of all the parts,
the community at large is more benefited by
the voluntary and profitable investment of each
mans capital and labor. This is the great prin-
cipIe of Adam Smith, the first of the en-
lightened political economists who dared to dis
card the prejudices OF the age and the customs Of
his own country. If this principle be true in its
general results it is peculiarly applicable to free
people, in q comparatively country, aboundng
in cheap and unapproprated lands, and under fede-
raj government which extends over an immense te:-
rtory with variety Of soils climates, and inter ests;
and that people blessed too with the highest degree of
enterprise and ingenuity in the mechanical arts and
in the invention Of oflabor-saving machines. We ven
ture to say that the globe does not contain people
so industrious and so inventive as the people Of New
AZ Iul.u. A.
the tariff of l842 be reduced to proper, legiti-
mate revenue standard, they would to be
a manufacturing people, We know, indeed,
a great deal has been said about the necessity
Of preserving the present tariff rates, in consdera-
ton of the fact, that without them the manufactur-
ing interests of the country would droop, decline,
and finally be prostrated.
What warrant does the infant condition Of the
manufacturers Of the United States present to
make good this assertion 1t appears that so far
back 1910, the census returns showed an amount
of capital owned by the manufacturers, Of one hun
dred and twenty millions. Mr.. Tench Coke, great
advocate of protection it seems was depued to as
certain the condition of the manufacturers in 1912;
and he states in his report that his inquiries shave
ing for the interruptions to the importation of
certain raw materials, the several branches Of
manufactures in the States, Territories, and
districts, have advanced upon medium al The
frdt rate Of hosn!y per centum, which would
give an aggregate for this year OF S2O7 OOO,0 ,0OO !"
We thus see, as admitted by great advocate Of a
protective tariff, what an advance in 1879 these
establishments had made and were making. What
other business was advancing 50 rapidly, and pros
perousy' SO grafed was Mr., Coke, the en-
ployee OF Mr. Gallatn at the condition Of the
ufacturing establish ments at this period, that he
takes occasion to vaunt Of their comparative
| in the following remark: "Some confirmation Of
this view Of our national operations, mercantile and
manufacturing may be drawn from the facts that
| in the years of general peace and prosperous and
| regular commerce-from 1885 to l7S7-the average
exports Of England (alone) with about s, 800 900
inhabitants amounted to seventy millions of dollars,
while their manufactures were computed at roO
hundred and sirty-sir millions Of dollars"
And yet after this report of the condition Of the
manufacturing establishments in 1872 triumphant
ly brought in comparison with England, we are
urged at this day to pile on duties whose exorbi-
tance would have astonished the country in 1912.
1 The truth is, that this vast system Of extortion,
known under the name Of protection owes its exist
ence as much to the political views of some of our
public men as to the cupidity of the class proposed
to be benefited. A heavy weight of responsibility
rests upon the great champion Of tn. protectv,
system, for the immense and oppressive burdens i
J has imposed upon the rest of the community.