The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1865-11-02
PROTECTION vs.. FREE TRADE.
Letters TO Am e-icaM Voters.


..,....,s ,f,i., NUMBER I. a.g
BUY where you can buy cheapest"
This is one of the most common arguments
against the protective policy. 1t is heard
alike from the tyro and the master In Free
Trade science. Indeed, / hold to the same
doctrine, though not in the same sense in
which it is generally understood; which is
the smallest sum of money for which an
article may be bought. The cheapness of a
commodity is to be determined by the
. amount of labor required to procure it. If
the farmer, for the price of a bushel of
wheaton the lRborer, for the price of a days
work. can buy yard of cloth costing two
dollars, the cloth, is just as cheap to the
consumer as if it cost 81, 80 and the price of
the wheat and the labor 81, so If the
price of the latter were but 81, %, and that
of the cloth $1,50, the cloth would be dear
! or than it was before. All will concede
this. ID s.f u.u: eel. tf sss5
Now let us test the ffree trade" theory
by this rule. Let US suppose-or, rather,
let us refer to fact that has more than
once actually happened-that the great
bulk of manufactured goods produced by
machine labor, consumed by the people of
Ethis country, came from abroad; aud that
consequently, the mechanics were driven
into the production of breadstutfs, of which
there was already a large surplus for which
there was no demand at home or abroad
! What was the result The answer can be
| given by any intelligent man. The coun-
try was flooded with foreign goods. In
stead of receiving agricultural products in
exchange, The foreigner demanded money.
The country was drained of its specie. which
was insufficient by half, to pay balances.
A large foreign debt speedily accrued, and a
general crash followed. ea.s..a s
There was redundance of the products
Of agrfculture. for which there was no re-
munerative market. How, now, could the
laborer get the means of buying goods at
any price The writer distinctly recollects
the time when pound of tobacco, at TWEEN
ty-hye cents, was an equivalent for bush
ell of wheat and pound of tea for several
bushels. Where was the money to buy
them The poor day-laborer the special
object of the free-trader's sympathy and re-
gard, begged for labor, but begged in vain,
unless he agreed to take pay in wheat, corn
and potatoes, and other things which he
could not sell. Had he been offered cloth,
tea, sugar, or other foreign products, at less
than half price, could he buy =? The price of
OF moving an acre of heavy grass was 628
cents, ''store pay, (the farmers, for want of
money giving orders on the merchants for
goods, to be paid for some day,at enormous
ly high prices, none the lower by the way,
for free trade(; the foreigner, in the absence
of competition, fixing his own prices But
tell us, Mr.. Free Trader, were these good
times /? liza ~ aya. ...5s-... .r.s3t- 80 q.
How was it in 1841--r42, when Mr. Clay's
compromise tariff, Inadesto pacify, John G.
Calhoun and his associate nulHfiers, was ap-
preaching its lowest point i? Pecuniary dis
tress and bankruptcy prevailed throughout
the land. Was that a time to buy cheap !?
Again the foreigner had his own way; and
the poor laborer got employ and money if he
could find them. Goods were dear to him,
and would have been at any price. In 1861,
but four years ago, saw, in Central New
York, samples Of corn bought in Iowa, by a
specuator, at ten cents per bushei, worth
at the producers barn less than eight cents
bushel The farmer could not have
bought yard of brown cotton for less than
about bushel and half of corn-cloth be-
ing then ten or twelve cents yard. But
was it cheap to him The purchaser of the
corn had shipped it for New York, whence
it was re-shipped to Europe, the ''poor far
luer" paying, virtually, the freight thither,
and the freight from England to Iowa on
whatever foreign goods he found it neces-
sary to buy. Was this buying where he
could buy cheapest Yes, according to the
argument of the advocates of free trade
policy. ,,,..
How was it with the farmer in Central
New York in the neighborhood of the man
ufactories He could buy four or five yards
of cloth for bushel of corn. Why Be-
cause, according to the policy recommended
by Jefferson and other statesmen of his
time, the manufacturer was there PLANTED
by the side of the farmer Let the manu-
facturers be encouraged to invest their cap
ital in all parts of the country, and labor
will be in demand at high prices. A part
Of the producers of the unsuitable surplus Of
agricultural products will be Semployed in
quarrying and drawing stone, burning bricks
and lime, hewing timber, making machin-
cry, and doing a hundred ether things for
remunerative prices, which they would new
err have been wanted to dc, but for the pro-
lection given to home industry.
But in the foregoing, it is assumed that
prices Of foreign goods are nominaliy lower,
or at least as low as the same kind of goods
of domestic manufacture would be under
efficient protective duties. But what will
the free trader say when assert, that, in
stead of paying higher prices, he eventual
Iy does not, even noninally, pay so high
for the domestic, as he formally paid for
the foreign articIe?Yet, this is susceptible
Of positive proof, which Twill give in anoth-
er article