The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1866-03-03
PROTECTION EXPLAINED.
BY HORACE GREELEY.

/ HORACE GREELEY
The purpose of political &c onomy is the
increase at once of individual, national, and
general wealth. Whatever renders human
labor more effectiYe-that is, more produc-
! tive-ministeIs to this end. TO lure lar
ger 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.
| Diversity of pursuits is an memorable
condition of our thrift and prosperity. A
community exclusively engaged in lumber
ing, mining. fishing, grain growing, or
any thing else, will have no employment for
a large prOportioneven of its adults, and
must permit many if not most of its chill
dren to grow up idle, unskilled and de-
pendent. The child reared in daily contact
with the diversified and complex operations
of a county like Middlesex of Massachu-
sets or the Allegheny of Pennsylvania,
can hardly fail to be more efficient in after
life than if acquainted only with the rude
cultivation ola sea islaud, or the silk man
ufacture of a Spiralfelds or Lyons. Indus
! try is the the chief education of majority
of our race, who rank higher or lower in
the scale of being as its processes where
with they are familiar are more or less vari-
and perfect. 5@
Protection has been prejudiced in the
eyes of thousands by being invoked Cat
least, it's opponents so say to achieve i'm
possibilities insure the growing of pine
apples in Greenland or the breeding of
reindeer at Timbuctoo. Political economy
and common sense alike condemn such alb
surdities as the attempt to make a business
of extracting suubeams from cucumbers or
boil a tea-kettle with the heat latent IN
snowballs. Show US that nature forbids
the prosecution of any pursuit in this or
that reglon--that an article, staple, or fab
ric, can only be there produced at cost of
double or treble the labor required for its
production elsewere-and We agree that it
is not there a proper subject for Protection.
Rest assured that we have considered our
ground, and are neither madnaen nor idiots.
None are more averse than we 10 super
seeding good and cheap articles by rivals
at once inferior and more costly; aud none
more readily than we TO agree and insist that
raw materials and bulky staples should be
gathered 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 Free, Traders 1
answer.
1. We insist that Tie, money price at
which an criticize Is sold affords no absolute
criterion CT its cost. For instance: the
State of Iowa buys cloth and sell 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 five
for Indian corn, while they bought their
fabrics of Europe at prices indicated by the
re falling of good satinets at one dollar per
yard. Now let us suppose a protective ia
riff imposed which should levy duty of
fifty cents per yard on imported satinets,
and thus transfer their manufacture for our
consumption to this counlry5 and in part to
Iowa and vicinity, thus creating and main
tanning ran adequate home market for our
breadstuffs, thereby raising the price Of
grain in Iowa TO one dollar per, ..bushel for
wheat and fifty cents for .eornS while the
homemade saiinets are retailed for one dol
lar and tHsaty 5fYe, cents yard. It is
plain That the Iowa farmers obtain their fab
RIGS really cheaper. though GominalIysdear
er than before ?-vlhat each farmers sur
1 plus OF W beat or corn viii. buy him more
I cloth at the enhanced than il did at the low
Ter price ? And does the cireumstancethat
the former is termed artificial, the latter
I natural, make any essential differences,
But why, is the home made cloth really
cheaper % the farmer than It's foreign rivah
though itis possible to sell him the latter
at lower money, price =? 4 answer-Be.
cause the fabrication of his cloth in Eu-
rope necessities the expectation of his
grain, and the consequent graduation oil
It's price by that ruling in Europe, deduct.
ing from his returns the cost OF transport
ling it thither. Let us suppose that Iowa
grows mainly wheat for sale, and must send
the larger portion of her surplus across tn,
Atlantic to find consumers, selling ii II
Birmingham, or Sheffield at two dollars pei
4bushel, whereof one dollar aud fifty. cents
lis absorbed in the cost and charges of trans