Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1865-11-23

S 'NhN"iuf CDu1ptcJ rtdttuitut VI wv
essential bases Of the Protective policy wal
made by the Editor Of the Tribune to the
readers OF the Phrenological Journal, at the
request pitts Editor. We reproduce il here,
not as containing any views that will be novel
to the mass Of our readers, but to ask them
to ponder this question: Have these posi-.
tions ever been confuted by the so-calIed
Free Traders? Do they talk to the poip,
or away from it2" Read and Judge:
PROTECTION EXPLAINED.
~ HORACE sEErLEY.
The purpose of political economy Is th,
increase at once Of individual, national, and
general wealth. Whatever renders human
labor more efective-that is, more product
iye-ministers to this end. To lure larger
and still larger proportion Of the human fam
ily from idleness to industry, from want to
thrift, from squalor to comfort, such il the
aim of the true economist.
Diversity OF pursuits is an inexorable con-
dition of our thrift and prosperity. A com.
munity exclusively engaged in numbering,
mining, fishing, grain-growing. or anything
else, will have 20 employment for large
proportion even Of its adults, and must per-
NIT many if not most Of its children to grow
up idle, unskilled and dependent. The
child reared in daily contact with the diversi
! fed and complex operations of county like
! the Nliddleser'ef Massachusetts, or the Ale
gheny Of Pennsylvania, can hardly fail to be
more efficient in after life than if acquainted
| only with the rude cultivation of a sea island,
/ or the silk manufacture Of Spitalfelds or
Lyons. Industry is the chief education ofa
majority of our race, who rank higher or
lower in the scale of being as its processes
wherewith they are familiar are more or less
varied and perfect
| Protection has been prejudiccd in tbe eyes
| Of thousands by being invoked lat least, its
! opponents SO say) to achieve iinpossibiities
to insure the growing Of pineapples in
| Greenland or the breeding Of reindeer at
Timbuctoo. Political economy and com
mon sense alike condemn such absurdities
as the attempt to make business Of ex-
! tracing sunbesms from cucum bers or boil
tea kettle with the heat latent in snowbails.
! Show US that Nature forbids the prosecu-
! tion of any pursuit in this or that region
! that an article. staple, or fabric, can only
be there produced at q cost Of double or
/ treble the labor required for its production
elsewhere-and we agree that it is not there
proper subject for Protection. Rest as.
sured that we have considered our ground,
and are neither madmen nor idiots. None
are'more averse than we to superseding
good and cheap articles by rivals at once in
ferior and more costly and none more readi-
ly than we to agree and insist that raw
materials and bulky staples should be gath
cred from all quarters and subjected only to
| light revenue duties, if to any at ALL
Wherein, then, do we differ from our
adversaries, the so-called Free Traders p
l answer:
! l. We insist that the money price at Dliich
an article is sold affords no absolute criterion
of its cost. For instance; the State of Iowa
buys cloth and sells grain Let US suppose
that, with our factories and workshops in
Europe, the average prices obtained by her
farmers should be fifty cents per bushel for
wheat and twenty Eve for Indian corn. while
they bought their fabrics of Europe at pri-
ces indicated BY the retailing of good sati-
nets at one dollar per yard. Now let US
suppose a protective tariff imposed which
should levy duty of fifty cents per yard
! on imported satinet, and thus transfer their
manufacture for our consumption to this
country, and in part to Iowa and its vicinity,
thus creating and maintaining an adequate
home market for our breadstuffs, thereby
raising the price of grain in Iowa to one
uOIIai pCI DucuSl lUf WuCdt auu CGuL5
for corn; while the home made satiuets are
retailed for one dollar and twenty-five cents
per yard. Is it not plain that the Iowa
formers obtain their fabrics really chea per,
though nominslly dearer than before p
that each farmers surplus OF wheat or corn
will buy him more cloth at :he enhanced
than it did at the lever pricef And does
the circumstance that the farmer is termed
artificial, the latter nature, make any essen
| tial difference?
| But why is the homemade cloth really
cheaper to the farmers than its foreign rival,
though it is possible to sell him the latter
at a lower money price? answer-Be-
cause the fabrication of his cloth in Europe
necessitates the expectation of his grain,
aud the consequent graduation of its price
by that ruling in Europe, eeducting from
his returns the cost of transporting it thith-
er. Let US suppose that Iowa grows mainly
wheat for salesmust send the larger portion
of her surplus across the Atlantic to. find
consumers, selling it in Birmingham or
Sheffield at two dollars per bushel,
whereof one dollar and fifty cents is alb
sarbed in the cost and charges of transmits
sion. Ofcourse, her farmers can receive
in the average, but fifty cents per bushel.--
But transfer the production OF her fabrics
from Europe to America, and much Of it to
Iowa or It's vicinity, and now the price of
grain in Iowa rises by law inexorable as
that of gravitation. 1t is no longer dcpress-
ed by the necessity Of finding market for
good part Of it four thousand miles away,
but raises to far higher level. And not
only is wheat desrer to the farmer, though
cheaper to the manufacturer, than it was,
but the farmer now finds ready market for
fruit, vegetables, hay, etc., etc., which he
could scarcely sell at any price so long as
our peoples productive energies were devo-
ted to agriculture alone.
IL. What we sook by Protection is to
shorten the distance which separates farmers
from manufacturers. and thereby diminish
the too heavy cost Of exchanging their pro-
ducts respectively. If a thousand farmers
growing grain in Iowa, and a thousand man
ufacturers making wares and fabrics in Eng
land, exchange their products across four
thousand miles OF land and water, employ
ing the services aud consuming the time OF
three thousand: ::torwarders, boatmen,r ,railread
hands, seamen. etc., ETC., in 30 doing, 1t is
manifest that the whole five Thousand must
be subsisted on tho products OF the two
thousand actual producers. Now bring the
manufactuers SO near the farmers that one
thousand men can easily perform all the
4 A. l.