New-York tribune., 1869-01-07

| ing the state of the market But MI w elis
assumes, that however slight the foreign supply
NAV be- it controls the price OF the entie
home supply. We import, for instance,
hundredth part of our books. III
we should levy tariff of one thousand per
cent on this import, according to MIR. weiss
theory. it would raise the cost of the books
produced in this country to ten times thclr
present price. If Mr. Wells did not profess to
be ProtectOnist such nonsense would 40 no
harm We do not know that it will do much
harm as it is. Mr. Wells paints vivldly tho
rapid disappearance of our forests, IN cohse-
ouence, he would have us believe, of this bag
atelle % per cent tariff on lumber. Not only
has it raised all the lumber in the country lVo
per cent, but hOuse-rents. building ma
terials, and labor have all risen very largely IN
consequence of this item; and this too from u
Commissioner who, in the same Report, makes
bold to deny that legislative acts of whatever
importance can diminish or do more than " de,
I" fleet the current Off nations industry IL
is needless to point out that this is question
growing out of our reciprocity treaty Wlth
Canada, and not of our protective policy, that
the Canadian supply would only be felt at a
few points and in small degree, and that IL
is utterly inadequate to exercise any large IN
nuence over prices here, and that if it did quito
as many would lose by it as would gain. The
way 10 cause our farmers to save and grow
timber for our supply is not to undersell what
they now have if it were possible to do so, but
to give them such prices as will enable them
to grow lumber at profit. Mr. Wells urges
also, the removal of the tariff on salt. OF this
4 N,
15c per cwt., net a revenue of over $30OO,OOO
per annum We have not the present amount
of our domestic product, but as it reached
100000 bushels in 1860, it is probably not
less than fifty times as great as our lmporta-
ton, and fifty times more important to us rs
means of supply. Any temporary device for
giving us cheaper salt from abroad is of little
Importance compared with our homo supply.
BY singular fatality, Mr.. Wells aims only to
reduce the tariffs on those articles which
we are producing by our own industry.
reduction on coffee, tea, sugar. or mo-
lasses would reach and relieve far
moro homes than q reduction on salt,
in far greater amounts Is it because such re-
ductions would iniure no branch Of our domes-
tic industry, that Mr. Wells does not recon-
mend them "But," say the free-traders, Eve
"must keep the tariff up on tea, coffee, sugar
"and molasses, because we need it for rev.
"enue." Then why not on salt, copper, iron,
lead, paper and their manufactures 1t must
be borne in mind that the entire $112,0OO,-
900 of tariff revenue, levied on articles
which we do not produce, passes as a
tax upon tie labor of the country
and increases wages and cost of living, so as
almost wholly to neutralize the valde of the
few tariffs that are levied in accordance with
the protective principle. The mechanic whom
the principles of free trade tax for revenue
three times a day in his tea, sugar. and coffee,
must ask higher wages than if the same
amount Of tax were laid on the importation of
foreign nails to undersell those nails which he
is engaged in making; and yet his employer
cannot well afford to pay him as high. Free
Trade leves five cents per pound on his coffee
while Protection would levy it on the imported
article which undersells and drives out OF the
market the product of his industry.
We would rejoice to know that the amount
collected by our tariffs is excessive, and might
be diminished. But when the total amount
collected is $fGO,0O0,000, and the amount of
coin interest we have to pay is Si3OOOO,OOO,
leaving a surplus of only S30,000000 year,
and when We have outstanding n greenback
debt alone which this surplus would not pay
in twelve years, and when, in consequence of this
deficiency of revenue to redeem our greenbacks,
our entire currency is deprecated to 70 cents
on the dollar, and when Mr. Wells ascribes
great financial evils to this depreciation, we do
not perceive how lie can consistently claim that
our tariff in the aggregate is excessive,
t. e., that it collects too much money.
And if in the aggregate it is not too large, we
doubt if it would be made better by removing
tariffs from articles which we ought, accord
Ing to his own principles, to protect, and levy
ing them in increased measure on the tea
sugar, and coffee, which, moro than any other
articles of import, form the stay and solace of
the poor. We do not believe our workingmen
feel oppressed by a tariff which causes them
to be employed in making railroad iron at good
wages, as much as by one that turns them out
of employment, taxes their three meals day,
and leaves the iron to be imported. IL MIR.
Wells thinks otherwise he is not our man.
If, on the contrary in spite Of the errors we
have pointed out, he still believes in the prin-
ciples of Protection, how jealous must his faith
become when their clearer comprehension shall
dspel from his own mind the objections to
their practical application which he has made
tho drift and burden of his Report.