The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-10

on imported iron, is quite currently believed
here. New York is more largely inhabited by
Europeans than by Americans, and very many
of our merchants are more intent on taking
home'' large pile within few years, than on
building up the country wherein their fortunes
are made.
That American manufactures are exception
ally, enormously profitable IS constantly as
serted bv our free trade neighbors; and every
scrap of news that tavors that assumption is
conspicuously paraded, while the scores OF
facts that prove the contrary are quietly sup
pressed. 1t is in vain that we say to the free
traders:-"You have among you adequate
capacity energy, and capital, and you are not
averse to making good profits. Now if it be
true as you constantly assert that manuac-
lures are generally sold too high here, and
that large profits are realized by those who
produce them, why do not you embark in
their fabrication Here are water-power, fuel,
ores, and all manner of raw material in abun-
dance why UW you persist in some pursuit
which pays you meagrely, when you might
(if you state the truth) make 20 to so per
cent. by smelling iron or weaving fabrics
What can induce you to act so insanely 2"
They do not answer how could they, with
out confessing that they have been per-
sisting in untruth, to the injury of their
neighbors
"But why not buy where we can buy
cheapest ?" ask the free traders. "Why
deny or fetter mans natural right to do as
he likes with his ownY'
We answer
To buy our iron, wares, fabrics, precisely
where we can buy them cheapest, and because
we can there buy them cheapest, is our plan.
We uphold the Protective system, because we
are sure that thereby can our peoples wants
be supplied more cheaply Cor hem) than in
any other way. We hold, and have often
demonstrated, that the ton of iron which costs
500 if made here, and s75 if imported, actually
costs our consumers considerably less (not in
dollars, but in days works. if made here. In
other words-the cost of the American ton is
made up of ore, coal, wood, charcoal, feed,
taxes schooling, ETC., which would not have
brought $75, nor even $65, had our iron been
made in Europe. We of the Tribune, for
example, are this year paying at least $40, 900
for presses, ETC., mainly made of iron; and we
can better afford to pay $4,000 if our supply
of iron were wholly made and fashioned in
this country than $4,000 with our furnaces,
foundries, and workshops in Europe We can
make this truth plain to any one who is not
steeled against conviction.
-"But what do you say as to the right of
every one to sell his own labor or its product
as he sees fit?''
Just this, sir; that, as you interpret that
right, it leads directly to anarchy. Govern
ments subsist on taxes; and if it be conceded
absolutely that man may do as he likes with
his own, then collecting taxes must be stopped,
and treasures filed by voluntary gift or not
at all. If the sweeping free trade assumption
on this point be sound, then the construction
OF the Erie Canal was gigantic crime; for that
was done by means Of taxing away the money
and pledging the credit of tens of thousands
who sternly opposed the whole project, and
protested that they ought not to be taxed for
its realization. .
We talk of losses and calamities by food
fire, drouth, or pestilence; we consider, and
with reason, our taxes very heavy; but all
other taxes combined do not bear so heavily
upon us as that imposed by involuntary idle
ness. Not less than one million people in this
country are to-day out of employment, there
fore useless and miserable. Not one dime less
than $500, coo, ,000 and we think $780, 900, 900,
are annually lost to the country on this ac
count. Now we do not insist that unequivo-
cal protection would secure every one constant
work; but we do hold that more have work,
and all work more efficiently, where employ
ments are multiplied and diversified by pro-
lection than elsewhere. A purely agricultural
community, still more a numbering one, has
many more idlers or drones and produces far
less wealth per hand, than Lancashire or
Massachusetts. Diversity of pursuit is one
main element of efficiency in productions; and
such diversity is promoted by protection.
But we did not mean to say half so much
at present. We intended only to express our
Joy that the friends of protection have met,
resolved to organize and to canvass the whole
country. Slavery-which so long excluded us
from most of the South-is at last dead, and
labor votes there henoeforth instead of being
chattelized and sold on the auction block. We
protectionists never yet were beaten by the
votes of those who can read, and their number
is rapidly increasing. We have but to work tc
triumph