The Richmond palladium. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1855-1875, 1866-01-18
PROTECTION EXPLAINED.
BY HORACE GREELEY.


that is, more produc.ive--minister t
this end. To lure larger and still larg
er proportion of the human family from
idleness to industry, from want TO thrift
from squalor to comfort, such is the ain
of the true economist
Diversity of pursuits is an inexorablt
condition of our thrift and pros peritv
A community exclusively engaged il
lnmh hering. mining. fishing, grain grow
ing, Or ANYTHING else, will have no EN-
piovment for a large proportion even o
It's adults. and must permit many if not
most OF lis children to grow up idle, un-
skilled and dependent The child rear
| ed IN daily contact with the diversified
and complex operations of a country like
the Middlesex of Massachusetts or the
| Allegheny of Pennsylvania can hardly
! fail to he more efficient in after life than
/ If acquainted only with the rude cultiva
| ton of a sea island, or the silk manufac-
ture of a Spitaifelds of Lyons Indus
try is the chief education of majority of
cur race, who rank higher or lower in
the scale of being as its processes where
with they are familiar are more or less
varied and perfect
Protection has been prejudiced in the
least. its opponents so saw to achieve
mpossibilities-to insure the growing of
pineappIes in Greenland or the breed
ing of reindeer at Timbuctoo Political
economy and common sense alike con-
demn such absurdties as the attempt to
make business of extracting sunbeams
from cucumbers or boiling Il tea kettle
with the heat latent in snowballs Show
1l tha
of any pursuit in this or that region
that an article, staple, or fabric can only
be there produced at cost of double or
treble the labor required for its produc-
ton 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 snperseding good and cheap articles
by rivals at once inferior and more cost
ly; and none more readily than we agree
and insist that raw materials and bulky
staples should be gathered from all quar-
ters and subjected only to light revenue
duties, if to any at all.
Wherein, then, do we differ from our
adversaries, the so called Free Trader
l answer:
L. We insist that money price at phtch
an article IS sold affords no absolute criterion
Of as cost. For instance: the State of
Iowa buys cloth and sells grain Let
us suppose that, with our factories and
in Europe, the average prices
obtained by her farmers should be fifty
cents per bushel for wheat and twenty
i've for Indian corn, while they bought
their fabrics of Europe at prices indica-
nv ha limo of
one dollar per yard. Now let us sup
pose protective tariff imposed which
should levy a duty of fifty cents per
yard on imported satinets. and thus trans
Ter their manufacture for our consump-
ton to this country, and in part to Iowa
and its vicinity. thus creating and main
tanning an adequate home market for
our breadstutfs, thereby raising the
price of grain in Iowa To one dollar per
hashel for wheat AMI fifty cents tor corn:
while tie homemade satinets are retail
ell for one dollar and TWENTY-FIVE cents
per yard L 1t not plain that the WI
farmers obtained their fabrics really .
cheaper, though nominally dearer than .
before that each farmers surplus of
wheat or corn will buy him more cloth .
at the enhanced than it did at the lower .
price And does the circumstance that .
the former is termed artificial. the latter
natural, make any essential difference /! /
But why is the home made cloth really /
cheaper TO the farmer than its foreign /
rival, though it is possible to sell him /
the latter at a lower money price / u
the fabrication of his {
cloth in Europe necessitates the expor-
tatlon of his grain and the consequent
graduation of its price bv that ruling in /
Europe, deducting from his returns the !
cost OF transporting it thither. Let us /
suppose tnat iowa grows mainly wheat I
for sale, and must send the larger por-
ton of her surplus across the Atlantic |
to find consumers, selling it in Brminr- I
ham or Sheffield at two dollars per bush /
el, whereof one dollar and fifty-cents is /
absorbed in the cost and charges of /
transmission. OF course, the farmers
can receive, in the average, but fifty /
cents per bushel. But transfer the pro
iuction of her fabrics from Europe to
America and much of 1t to Iowa or its /
and now the price of grain in /
Iowa rises by a law ineXorable as that .
Of gravitation. 1t is no longer depress- /
ed by the necessity of finding a market /
for good part of it four thousand miles /
AWAY, but rises to a far higher level 4
And not only is wheat dearer to the far I
mer, though cheaper to the manufaetur- /
Pr, than it was, but the farmer now finds |
a ready market for fruit, vegetables,
lav, etc. etc, which he could scarcely /
sell at any price so long as our peoples
productive energies were devoted to ag-
-iculture alone.
IL What we seek by Protection is to
shorten the distance which separates far
ners from manufacturers, and thereby
diminish the too heavy cost of exchang-
ng their products respectively. If a
farmers growing grain in Iowa.
Ind thousand manufacturers making
wares and fabrics in England, exchange
heir products across four thousand miles
,f land and water. employing the servi-
,es and consuming the time of three
forwarders, boatmen, railroad
hands, seanen, etc. ETC., in so doing, il
$ manifest that the whole five thousand
must be subsisted on the products of
H. /