The daily union. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1845-1857, 1846-07-23


raised the amount by The Loioest tar he largest amount
Of consumption and the largest numbers Of consumers,
iohiLs gaze the least and parsy incidental bounty
20 be draioa from the smallest aBa0unl Of eonsspiioa
and he ssoss consumers. On the other hand either
Of the other rates Of duty are to the extent respee-
lively, that they exceed the lowest rate alluded TO,
purely protective, as much 80 as If they were pro-
hibitory; for to such extent they cut of importa-
ton, enhance the bounties drawn in the form of
prices on the article made within the country, and
| exact them ON the larger amount OF consumption,
| and from the larger number OF consumers. The
nature of the protective system, and the repugnaney
OF It's aim TO all fair taxation, is thus well ustra-
ted IL aims at bounties TO classes, not coniribu-
ton TO the government. Revenue demands admis-
sion of imports as free as may be, under the least
duty. Protection demands exclasion either total OF
partial. Revenue duties invite competition from
home and abroad; protection seess not fair eompe-
ution, but Graves monopoly, as Gu and coapete as
the necessity ofeyenue will allow.
SO far, Mr.. Chairman, have only sought to sx.
plain the intimate connexCn Of the protective system
with the revenue system OF the government, and 70
illustrate its repugnancy 10 the principles offar tax
alton. wish now, as far as time will permit, to
examine its practical operation on the protected
classes themselves, and also on the other great in
terests of the country. shall then inquire into the
praetcabity Of establishing manufactures with sue
cess 10 the section Of the Union to which belong.
From what has been said of the inseparable con
nexion which exists between the purest revenue
duties and some degree of incidental protection IL
is manifest Mr.. Chairman that in adopting and
aequiescing in the system Of deriving the revenues
Of the government from duties on imports, no in
| considerable concession has been granted, and 90
trivial advantage has been accorded, by the other
great interests Of the Union, TO those branches Of
industry and capital engaged or to be engaged in
the production within the country OF articles of the
same or like character with those imported from
abroad. This advantage results almost entirely to
the manufacturing and some few Of the mining in
terests for, with very few exceptions, the produe-
tons OF the agricultural ard the pursuits OF the
commercial classes neither require nor admit Of
such incidental protection. From protection so
| incidental and limited il is, however, cheerfully
admitted some general benefit is secured, and with
out inordinate sacrifice. II may frequently happen
that the circumstances Of the countTy-ts resources
and the condition Of its Industrious classes-may
have prepared i to engage successfully and at a
profit in particular branches OF manufactures or
mining, and yet the pre-occupation Of the market
by imports from abroad, and the serious difficulty
of diyerting the supplies Of trade from their estab-
| lished channels, may deter capital and industry
within the country from engaging in competition
with the foreign products. Under such circum-
stances, without some collateral advantages il is
manifest that before such enterprises of domestic
industry would be embarked in, we should have to
wait not merely until the products could be pro-
duced as cheaply here as abroad but until greater
cheapness Of production could be counted on, and
a consequent ability existed on the part Of the
domestic producer TO undersell and supplant the
rival imports from abroad. In all such cases rev.
enue duties admirably supply, by their incidental
protection, the aids and stmuants required 10 in
duce the establishment and prosecution Of such
branches OF productive industry. For such pur-
poses, too, they are fully adequate. Our govern
ment requires, for its economical administration,
about 5000, 900 dollars to be raised by duties;
and md ~.
average Of such duties would always equal, If not
exceed, 90 per cent The psesant bin before the
committee averages about 25 per cent, and most
Of the articles for which protection is asserted to
be necessary the duties are even higher, being gen
orally 30 per cent. To them should be added the
amount of protection incidentally afforded by the
cash duties, the valuation at the home market by
the addition of all charges and the like to the prime
cost, and the frelghts, which, according to calcu-
lation made by Mr. Clay himself some years since,
equals some III per cent. more The incidental
protection, then, inseparable from tho striciest
revenue duties, would amount to some 81 per cent ,
and, under the provisions of the bill now offered,
ranges from 36 to 40-odd per cent. Surely this
gives aid and advantage more than enough for the
establishment and growth of all branches Of inter
nal industry, for which the country is at all pre-
pared, or which can be carried on at profit.
In what other industrial pursuits of life would
men have the hardihood to demand premiums and
advantages so great1 In domestic competition they
would blush TO owe success to such preferment;
and surely in competition with products from
abroad, they should disdain to claim from their
countrymen sacrifices and submission in their be-
half to exactions larger than those which are by
general consent cheerfully accorded. Products of
manufactures or mining, which cannot sustain
themselves under such large premiums are not
capable of natural hardy, and permanent growth,
but miserable, sckly, hotbed plants, forced into
precarous being by excessive nurture, and destined
L Il
The growth not of hardy industry, but the ilegt-
mate prodact of political avoritsn, fastened by the
unwise nurture Of government parasitical shoots
on the labor and capital of the really productive
classes, they deserve only to be eradcated, left
unheeded to wither and decay. .. .
Instead, however, MIR. Chairman, of the system
Of revenue, with its liberal rates of incidental proee-
tion for many years past, most extravagant rates of
duty, in not few instances prohibitory, and, in
more having direct reference to protection and the
partial monopoly Of consumption in behalf Of differ
| ent branches of manufacturing and mining opera
tons, have been unwisely and unustly adopted,
and, with few intermissions, persisted in. Time
will not suffice me to trace these various protective
enactments nor to exhibit the disastrous effects
tualy induced, and the still more serious dangers
threatened by them. Suffice it to say-as candid
examination of the provisions Of the tariff of 1912
must satisfy all reasonable men--that its features
are highly and directly protective. Many duties,
we are assured by the Secretary of the Treasury,
are even prohibitory, and not few leading art-
clos, of almost absolute necessity--such coarse
woollens, iron, sugar, salt, COAL and the llke-the
duties, though yielding some revenue, range from
fifty to more than hundred per cent, and operate
most lucrative monopoly Of the market 70 the in
ternal producers. Now, can ought bill Of such
nordnate protection longer to disgrace our statute
book, or Cypress helabor and capital of the great
masses Of the country s .Hr
To the manufacturers and other protected classes
themselves would appeal. Unless greatly mis-
take, much the larger portion of hem instead of de-
irving benefit permanent security, sustain real
loss and constant liability to revulsion and ruin,
from such protective system! ..,.. % IL.
IL is, MIR. Chairman, great error, which still
has most strange prevalence, that much the greater
number, both in extent and value, Of the manufac-
turing and other protected interests, have origina-
ted, and are sustained, only under the protective
system; that they owe the breath of their exist
ence to political avoritism and hold the tenure of
a beggary being only at the mercy Of government.
Hence, sir, here it is unhesitatingly assumed that
the reform and correction Of the high protective
features in the tariff of l842, are to bring prosra-
ton and ruin on all the manufacturing and mining
interests of the country and, in opposition TO sau