The evening Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1861-1871, 1870-04-22
pailp ARGUS.
PROTECTION.


trict of Illinois, q gentleman who was re-
elected to the Forty FIRST Congress from the
Fortieth, and approves himself worthy OF
. re election from the Forty first to the For
tv.second, has forwarded to us speech de.
iyered by him in the House a few days ago.
which is one of the most able ever delivered
upon the subject of protection. BE begins
with that SQUAD position that taxation is a
necessary power Of government, and pro,
ceeds to say that all taxation, by custom
dues or otherwise, should be limited By the
sole end of taxation-the necessity of pro
viding mesns for the support of the state.
Protection he then goes on to show, is q
matter alien to the necessary end of taxa
tion-being, indeed, use of the taxing
power, not to provide revenue for the state,
but to subserve the personal interests of pri
vate inch. In exposition of this statement
he sets forth the view of protection as fol
lows:
The principle Of protection is this
that, whereas in untrsmmeled state, A
can sell . certain article for 81, and b can
only afford to sell a like article at 3 90.
some power exterior to and b Is to step
in and say that, while may sell at , o.
no one is to buy from A save on conoilion
of paying 5 for the privilege. Under THESE
c;reum.tsuees, as As wares made to
cost s. Isl cost and 81 PRIVILEGE, and BIS
only cost 81 so, the customer Is necessarily
forced to buy of B. This is protection"
and the process indicated the one whereby
B is protected against A. The price of
the protection, or that privilege tax which
the exterior power prescribes in its inter
meddling with A and BIS bnsiness transac-
tions, falls, of course, actively on C, the
consumer, and only passively on A. since
the effect of protection Qn0dd A, Is
merely to keep A from selling at all, but,
quoad c, to force to Fay $3.50 to B, rath
er than 81 to A, under penalty, if he ,oiA
buy from A. Of paying so cents more than
is asked BY B."
Protective" duty is not paid into the
Treasury by the foreigner, since the very
aim of that protection" is that the foreigner
shall be deferred from bringing his wares TO
this country. but that the consumer, C, pays
to the home manufacturer, B, that duty in
the shape of increase of price which B, by
protection" is able to clap upon his wares.
This being Mr.. Msrshalls first distinction
ana very sptly taken it is-he next proceeds
10 show tina. 'protectisn," or protective
tariff, which, once for ALL mean in these dis
cussions the same thing, is the enemy of
commerce.
Commerce is ordinarily held to signify
business intercourse between foreign coun-
tries. That this intercourse should be as
easy and full as possible that the tropics,
for instance. should send US pinespples, and
send the tropics ice-has. the wide world
over, been held as approved maxim and
yet protection or the hampering or shut
ting out of this exchange, is, as Mr.. Mar
shall very well says, the "antagonizing of
commerce" As such an opponent of free
International exchange, it subserves the
same ends IS do mountains, or marshes, or
dangerous and rocky seas that is to say,
the ends of hiudrsnce, delay, obstruction
and exclusion. With the use of the com
pass, the steamship, the submarine tele- |
graph, the ease of commerce has been won.
derfully served aud yet, if inimical legisis
ton forbid the just fruition of tnesA great
discoveries, the world, 80 tar as such legis- /
tion operates, is put back into that condition /
of commercial pupila7e which existed he
fore the mariner had the needle to guide /
him on the wave, or the potency of steam to
mock the volatile humors of the water and
the wind.
Expounding this Wow, Mr.. Marshall re
lates how Carthage Of old, and Venice, Ge-
noa, and Partugal in more modern days, |
were great with unrestricted commerce, but
fell away with hsmpered trade-the home OF
Hannibal Into nothingness, and the once
great powers of Genoa, V enice, and Portugal
into sleepy cities and tenth rate state.
Pausing here for q moment to note how in
this field Of commerce as in other respects,
as noted By US some few days since, Radical
Progress is really retrogres5lon into the
blind errors Of the past, we come to
another of Mr.. Marshall's positions, a corol
larry from the very nature of protection to
wit. that the exclusive products of foreign /
climes-ss COTE, tea, silk, gems, fine wines +.
and brandies, spices, and 80 on-pay but |
a revenue duty, or one for the mere purpos-
ed OF the state; no such things being pro-
duced here, and there being, therefore, no
home producers to insist on protection in
these respects against foreign competition. |
But leaving those Injuries, and coming to |
those necessary articles prod uced or manu-
featured both here and in other countries
to wooden goods and clothing, say, to salt |
to iron, TO cotton fabrics here, as ii is we'll |
put, appears the very devil of protection in
its worst and most Objectionable form, with |
its horns and cloven foot eI posed to public |
indignation" On the shop girls blanket
shawl; on the wooden shirt which fences the /
workingman from the winter air; on the salt |
with which the Western meat-packers
preserve their their stock. on all the daily
uses of that iron which is really worth more
than gold. protection presses mos heavily
heavily the world over and over again has
shown. And just in these instances, in
tn ese cases where all the industrious and the
poor are most concerned, is it that the
tax, miscalled protection, is most despotc
against the cheap goods we might have, and
most partial to tbs dear goods we must
have.
"Protection" hides itself under the neees.
sity of raising taxes for the support of the
government; but this is the way the thing
really works: Of every dollar paid out by
the people for cotton fabrics, 80 cents go to
the protected" monopolist mill owner and
81 cents only to the Federal Trearury. On
every dollar for wooden goods, but 10 cents