The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1865-11-23
THEGAFEG4EX,
KEOkUK,, IOWA /. r
thursday MORNING, NOVEMBER %.
sY HORACE GREELEY.


crease at once Of individual, national and
general wealth. Whatever renders Shamaul
labor more efective-that is, more produc-
tive-minsters to this end. 10 lure larger
and still larger proportion of the human
family from idleness to industry, from want
to thrift, from squalor to comfort, such is the
aim of the true economist. x~-~->s. =. 8,
Diyersity~ 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 no employment for a large
proportion even of its adults, and must per-
nit many if not most of its children to grow
mp idle, unskilled and dependent The child
reared in daily contact with the diversified
and complex operations of county like the
Middlesex of Massachusetts or the Allegheny
of Pennsylvania, can hardly fail to be more
efficient in after life than if acquainted only
with the rude cultivation of sea island, or
the silk manufacture of Spitalfelds or
Lyons. Industry is the chief education of
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 prejudiced in the eyes
of thousands by being invoked lat least, its
opponents so say to achieve impossibiities-
to insure the growing of pineapples in Green
land or the breeding Of reindeer at Timbuc-
too. Political economy and common sense
alike condemn such sbsurdities as the attempt
TO make business of extracting sunbeams
from cucumbers or boil eakettle with the
heat latent in snowballs. Show us that Ma
ture forbids the prosecution of any pursuit in
this or that region-that an article, staple or
fabric, can only be there produced at a cost
Of double or treble the labor required for its
production elsewhere-and we agree that it is
not there a proper subject for Protection.
Rest assured 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
readily 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 ad-
versaries, the so-called ee-Traders? | an
swer:
l. We insist that the money price at Which
an article is sold affords no absolute cretsrton
of its cost. For instance: the State Of Iowa
buys cloth and sells grain. Let us suppose
that, with our factories and workshops in Eu-
rope, the average prices obtained by her far
mers should be fifty cents per bushel for
wheat and twenty five for Indian corn, while
their fabrics of Europe at prices indicated by
the retailing of good satinets at one dollar
per yard. Now let us suppose a protective
tariff imposed which should levy duty of
fifty cents per yard on imported satnets, and
thus transfer their manufacture for our con.
sumption to this country, and in part to Iowa
and its vicinity, thus creating and maintain
ing an adequate home market for our bread
stuffs, thereby raising the price of grain in
Iowa to one dollar per bushel for wheat and
nifty cents for corn; while the home made
satlnets are retailed for one dollar and twenty
hive cents per yard. Is it not plain that the
Iowa farmers obtain their fabrics really chea
per- though nominally dearer than before?-
that each farmers surplus of wheat or corn
will buy him more cloth at the enhanced
than 1t did at the lower price? And does the
circumstance that the formet is termed arti-
hciat. the latter natural, make any essential
difference?
But why is the home made cloth really
cheaper to the farmer than It's foreign rival,
though it is possible to sell him the latter a,
lower money price? | answer Because
the fabrication of his cloth in Europe neces-
states the expectation of his grain, and the
consequent graduation Of its pride by that
ruling in Europe, deducting from his returns
the cost of transporting it thither. Let us
suppose that Iowa grows mainly wheat for
sale, and must send the larger portion of her
surplus across the Atlantic, to find consumers.
selling tin Birmingham or Sheffield at two
dollars per bushel. whereof one dollar and
nifty cents is absorbed in the cost and charges
OF transmission. Ofcourse, her farmers can
receive; IN the average, but fifty cents per bus
shei. But transfer the production of her IA
br1cs from Europe to America, and much of
1T to Iowa and its vicinity and now the price
OF grain IN Iowa rises by law memorable as
that OF gravtation. II is no longer depressed
by the necessity of finding market for good
part OF 1t four thousand miles away but rises
to far higher level. And not only is wheat
dearer to the farmer, though cheaper to the
manufacturer, than 1t was, but the farmer now
hnds ready market for fruits, Vegetables, hay
etc, etc, which he could scarcely sell at any
prlce SO long as our people sproductive ener-
ges were devoted to agriculture alone.
III. What we seek by protection is to short
en- the distance which separates farmers from
manufacturers, and thereby diminish the too
heaVy cost OF exchanging their products re-
spectlvey 1T q thousand farmers growing
grain IN Iowa, and thousand manufacturer
making wares and fabrics in England, ex-
change their products across four thousand
miles OF land and water, employing the SER
vices and consuming the time of three thous-
and forwarders, boatmen. railroad hands.
seamen, etc, etc, in SO doing, it is manifest
tnat the whole five thousand must be subsisted
gu the products of the two thousand actual
producers Now bring the manufacturers so
near the farmers that one thousand men can
easily perform all the labor required to ex
change their products, and it is clear that we
aasc iiberated two thousand from various
non-productve employments or functions.
and added them to the number of producers
We have more grain grown and more cloth
made, more wealth created and less CAPACITY
absorbed IN pursuits which, however neces.
sary under certain circumstances, add nothing
10 the sum of human comforts.
The Protection we advocate is simnlv the
saving OF human labor. We maintain that
instead OF sending wool. grain and meat from
Iowa to Eagland, aud bringing back fabrics
IN return IT IS cheaper and better to bring the
1aoricant once for all from England to iowa.
or near II, and there feed him from the nro,
DUCTS OF her generous soil. We hold that
the farmer and the manufacturer are allie
benefited by this course, and that Il ;nsnres
TO each fuller reward for his labor and
larger measure of sustenance and en;ov.
Protection, then, is not narrow. nor selfish
nor exclusive. 1t does not ignore the broth,
ernood OF man, nor seek special advantage
at the expense of general good. It seeks 10
build up our country by drawing hither the
peter portion of the population of Europe