The mountain sentinel. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1844-1853, 1849-12-27
For The SentineI
Tariff Dulles and Protection.
No. 3,

larlII DULLES anu PfOttcll0H.
No. 2.
most fruitful theme for humbugging
politicians, has been found in the idea,
that the protective policy will produce
home competition sufficient to reduce man
factured articles to lower price than they
would be without it. Now if labor is al
ready too scarce and too dear, to compete
with foreign labor, how much dearer will
il not become, when our manufacturing
establishments are increased, requiring so
much additional labor, and if the present
prices of labor render them unable to COM
pete wi th urope, how shall they be able
to manufacture at lower prices, when the
price of labor is augmented! Or in other
words, if our manufacturers cannot con-
tend successfully against foreign competi-
ton, which does not raise the price of do
mestlc labor, how shall they contend a.
gainst home competition, which must raise
the wages of labor here, if it be true that
protective duties have that effect.
But there is some reality about this mat
ter of home competition, and it proves
that the protective policy, like every other
system built on false principles, contains
" ltilill llSCIl INC GlcillCulS VI It's Owl ueS-
truction, and that destruction will sooner
or later come. Let us have but high
protective tarlff-one that will prohibit
the introduction of foreign goods, and very
soon the manufacturing mania, like the
California gold fever, will bewilder the
brains of the whole nation. All the capi-
tai in the country must be invested in the
manufacturing business. Other laudable
pursuits will be relinquished. Every one
who can obtain credit in any shape will
evacuate his field or the workshop, and
join in the mad scramble for Immediate
fortunes, by specializing in the sweat of
the poor mans brow, in smelling iron.
carding wool or some other branch of
manufacturing. Now we will be manu-
facturers and nothing else. The country
will be inundated with our own fabrics.
Our restrictions will cut off all possibility
of a foreign market, because if we purchase
nothing from foreign nations they will be
able 10 purchase nothing from us. Here
will be the end of the first scene in the
drama. An ordinary explosion of the
credit system will furnish no comparison
to what we shall witness. | will not at
temptto describe, but one consequence will
be certain. great part of the property
of the country will pass under the hammer
OF the law, and go, for perhaps a tithe of
its value, into the hands of few who have
been cunning enough to swindle the COM
munity out of money enough 10 save them
from the general wreck.
And this is perhaps the nearest way our
mushroom apish and would be nobility
aan think of. to feudalize the land, and
monopolize the other property of the
country, and build up an aristocracy of
wealth, that will sweep the last vestige of
liberty and equality from among us.
If things were always called by their
proper names there would be little dispute
in this country about the protective policy.
If Congress, if instead of calling the tariff
of 1912, an act to provide a revenue, and
protect domestic industry, had entitled it;
AN act to relieve property from taxation,
and compel the farmers, mechanics and
laborers of the country to support govern
ment out of their hard earnings, and to tax
all the labor of the country, from rs to
900 per cent, to pamper the avarice of a
few individuals engaged in the manufactu-
ring business. If they had done this, the
people could have read The true character
of the law in its title, and all the long, and
violent disputes of the last seven years
would have been avoided. But the sooth-
ing and paternal name of "Protection"
must be introduced to impose on the igno-
rant, and give plausibility to the objects of
this stupendous fraud.
We have already seen the effects of pro-
lection in pampering wealth at the expense
of labor, and this is the end-the zero of
protection-the point where protection
ends and slavery begins, and the point
below which it unfortunately happens that
few statesmen have seen. We are indeed
told that in return for the extravagant tax
es it imposes on labor, that the protective
policy furnishes the laborer with plenty
of employment and high wages; butts this
true? We shall see. In the nextnumber
we will examine this question, and in so
doing, we may elicit some very disagree
able truths.
JUSTICE.
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