New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1868-07-09

kdtt OF ldAhtlol, lza per cent
The following are few of the errors cx-
pressed and implied in this calculation:
First ErrOr.-The premium on gold cost of
the carpet, amounting to 40 cents, would have
to be paid, whether there were any tariff or
not if the purchaser paid for the carpet in de-
preCiated currency
E. Second ErrOr.-Because British importers
would LAY carpet down at our door for 81
Gin currency" when trying to undersell
American manufacturers running at full blast,
it does not follow that if the American com
pettOrs should be undersold and broken down,
and the British manufacturer should get full
command of the American market, he would
then lay the same carpet down at our doors
for 81 in gold, or 81 40 in currency. On the
contrary, he would be likely to charge SO, to
make up for the losses he had Incurred in COM
peting with and underselling our manufacturers
while the latter were protected. For fire.
quently, to keep the market against the manu-
features of other nations, the British manu-
facturer will pay the tariff himself, and
stand the loss of it, rather than not dispose
of his goods. Reports made on behalf of the
manufacturers of Great Britain prove that they
by paying foreign tariffs, and still undressing
foreign manufacturers, at less than cost in
order to ultimately break down foreign indus
tries, and make up for their losses when they
got control of the market The cheapest way
for Americans to get their carpets is to induce
the men who make them cheaper in England
than we can to come here and make them
cheaper here. BY importing carpet weavers
instead of carpets, We not only obtain surer
reduction in the price of our carpets but
we add to our own means of pur-
chasing carpets, from the fact that
the carpet weaver buys of us his food, cloth
ing, machinery, wool, cotton, &c, thereby in
creasing the demand for and the value of all
we have to sell.
Third ErrOr.-Anericans do not produce
dollars but cops and manufactured
products. Whether carpets are cheap or
dear depends not 81 much on the number of
dollars asked for them as upon the number of
dollars the Americanpurchaser is getting for his
crops, his labor his skill, or his products of
whatever kind. FREE Traders claim that free
trade will reduce wages here to the level of
wages in Great Bian and France, and so
eudDlc IldHuldCJuItIb 10 HOuGlsH on paUpcr
labor. But the labGers and farmers of Great
Britain and Frame have no money to buy
carpets with-not because carpets are not low,
but their wages an6 crop profits are lower. So
long as American farmers raise wheat instead
Of dollars apples instead Of shillings, it is far
more important for them to sell dear than it
is to buy cheap; for they sell about three
times as much as they buy and twenty times
as much as they buy of any foreign product.
The statistics show that 35-3Gths of all Amer
lean agricultural productions find their market
in America. The chief aim of American legis-
lation, therefore, so far as it bears on indus
try, should be to give Us good market
to sell in. Give the people that and
they will attend to their buying. Protective
tariffs have always given all classes good mar
kets to sell in. If free trade, therefore, while
reducing carpets from 81 "a yard to 81 40,
should reduce labor from SO day to 81, as
we think it would, the laborer would have to
work pearly day and half to earn yard