The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-09-06

Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
Ijpon Current Topics Compiled Every
Dny for the Evening Telegraph.
THE PRICE OF PROTECTION.

a
That price we may have first-class article of
nrotection, warranted TO wash. Mr.. Greeley
nffers us the bargain, guarantees the goods,
md wants to know why the devil we don't
hmm to close it, He points to France and
Heet.root sugar-a discovery which, if we
may believe him, was due much more to
British Orders in Council than to modern
chemistry, and to Napoleon than to Margraf.
Wherefore let us inaugurate another gigantic
l,,r,on- SLAUGHTER epoch enthrone another die
tator on this side the Atlantic, embodiment
of energy and forecast, establish schools of
chemistry from the Passamaquoddy to the
Gulf of California, and order the retorts and
the professors to bring forth sugar from
starch according to the programme of Liebig,
n greater than MargraH.
The soul of the great Doctor Pangolos so
beautifully described by Noltalre IN his Can
dide. has transmigrated into the philosopher
of Chappadua. When Doctor Pangolos is
found in Holland by Candide, suffering from
q Ioathsome disease he consoles himself and
his pupil by some such argument as this:-
You see. says the philosophical sufferer, my
ailinp is undoubtedly the consequence of the
discovery of America Wherefore, were l not
in agony now, it follows that Columbus would
not have discovered the Western continent;
and. had he not made known to mankind that
new world, we would not to-day be enjoying
potatoes Hence, my dear pupil, it is abso-
iutely necessary that should be afflicted with
this peculiar disease if the world was to be
provided with these precious commodities
So. says the philosopher of Chappaqua,
with an equally clear and still more fearless
logic Napoleon decimated the youth of all
Europe, consigning perhaps three millions OF
them to slaughter, but for which he could not
have conquered the continent nor issued the
do
nor had in retaliation England's blockade
whereby Frenchmen got but little sugar to
sweeten their tea, whereby came Margraff
half century earlier, and thereby the schools
of chemistry, and thence commercial beet
root sugar.
Do the American people like the picture
Will they take protection at the price?
Before they rush into the bargain, we beg
to suggest that not even protection-pJHS a
continental war, pJas the defamation of the
youth of Europe, plus the dictatorship of
Napoleon, pl,tS the war-l1in of other and
manifold industries, Plus the loss of all the
labor that all the soldiers of France and of
England and her allies might have contributed
to the industries of a world at peace, Plus the
increment of the war-debts of Great Britain
and the continental nations, not even these
all combined did as a matter of fact suffice to
bless the world with beet-root sugar. Napo-
Icons downfall left its production in no salts
factory state. In Germany, its failure was
owing to the high cost of growing beet-root
and of suitable machinery and the lack of
copital. These difficulties and the like in
France, not overcome by the dictator and all
his enginery political, warlike, and decretal
have been overcome by the subsequent anC
enormous growth of modern chemistry an(
its applications in scientific agriculture.
Since when has beet-root sugar production
l.. I'LL
many? We say nothing of sparsely populated
Russia, where it is made cheaper than tn
cane sugar in Mauritius on virgin soils, will
the grass of the steppes cut and dried TO
fuel and by labor that costs next to nothing
Its success is about twenty years old and i
due to modern chemistry itself not YER
much older. Modern chemistry pointed on
the lands which were most fit for growing
beet-root crops. Modern chemistry provided
the beet growers with artificial manures o
acids, salts, and lime, to say nothing of it
signalizing the value of giano, opportunel,
appearing then. Modern chemistry pointed
out in Germany the value of the lands sur
rounding Magdeburg or near the Elbe, ant
designated the specially suitable parts o
France instead of decreeing 30, 600 hectares
to it's cultivation, and despatching instruc
lions ''to the projects of the several depart
ments O into which France is divided
Modern science, moreover, has invente
suitable processes and machinery for expires
sing the last grain of saccharine matter fror
the root thus made prolific. And moder
capital, seeing that protection was no longe
persuading farmers to plant the beet i
lands better suited to grow oats or barle,
but that agricultural chemistry had taugt
them to raise from 100 to 100 per cent. MOI
of beet-root than they before could possibl
do without its aid, has opened its stores free
to the successful and naturally establish(
enterprise.
Protection has indeed retarded this bene
cent progress. 1t was an industry requiril
cheap acids for manure, and cheap salts al
lines, which protection makes dear; requiriI
cheap machinery and cheap iron, which pr
teetion makes outrageously high requiri
capital which is always 10th to invest VIII
its profits are at the mercy of the log-rolli
of protectonists; requiring cheap labor,
which, as of the prosperity of the LAHORE
protection is the remorseless enemy. Sin
the partial, and in some cases the total
moyal of these impediments, the stunt
growth of the root has been replaced in G.
many and in France by bountiful luxuran,
Beet-root sugar might become great a
prosperous industry in the United Stat
We shall sweeten the cups of Great Britt
herself with it long before we fill them W
an infusion of American grown tea, thou
the Chinese immigration keep up in a v
to frighten the fifteenth amendment Repul
cans into fits. We have cheap and suita
lands by the million acres, to say naught
land like the Jersey flats; but the other tn
essential equisites-cheap fuel, cheap lat
and cheap machinery-our protective ia
now makes impossible to be had in this or