New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-12-27


Alexander Hamilton, in his great Report to
Congress on the expediency of encouraging
Home Manufactures in our then poor, thinly
peopled, purely Agricultural country, saw TINS
with the prescience of genius, and stated the
general law which renders Home Manufactures
necessarily cheaper than imported in these
memorable words
"Rut though Il we're true that the immediate and GER
tain effect of regulating controlling the oompe'oh
81 foreign with domestic fabrics was to increase the
prices it IN universally true that the contrary II inc
ultimate effect with every successful manufacture "neh
domestic manufacture has attained PERFECTION and mas
engaged in the prosecution OF II competent NUMBER OF
persona, 1t Invariably becomes cheaper Being Hce
from the heavy charges which attend the importa-
ton Of foreign commodities, II can DC anorueu'
and accordingly seldom for never fails to be anordeu
cheaper in process Of time than the foreign article for
which is substitute The internal competition when
takes place soon away with everything like monop
oily and by degrees reduces the price Of the article to
the minimum OF reasonable profit on the capital EN-
poyed This accords with the reason Of things and with
experience Whence it follows that 1t Is the interest Oh
community, with view to eventual and permanent
economy TO encourage the growth OF manufactures III
national view. tompOrir, enhancement OF price must
always he compensated by perfnaSeht redue'oh oi IT,
-" But is every article necessarily cheapened
"by Home PrOductiOng' we are asked.
If this question refers to its average price
throughout our country, we answer Yes. we
do not believe there is an article of any i'm
portance which was formerly imported and Is
now, under the influence OF Protection, mainly
produced for our use on our own SOIL, that
has not been cheapcned to our consumers by
the transition. Abolish the Tariff, and we on
the Atlantic seabOard might obtain a few az
ticles like Salt, Wool, and Pig Iron, for less
money than we now DO. But the change thus
effected involves these necessary drawbacks:
l. Under the stimulus of a suddenly and
largely increased demand. the prices of all
these articles would advance at the foreign
ports whence we obtain them. No importer
can fail to know that the price of Salt at
Turks Island would at least be doubled by
the quadrupling of our demand for it. And
we have repeatedly quoted from the circular,
issued one year ago, of a British firm OF iron
exporters, informing the British iron masters
that their prospect of obtaining a better price
for their next [thisl years product depended
entirely upon the success of the attempts then
preparing to reduce the American tariff on
Iron.
Throughout the earlier months of 1912, the
duty on imported Cotton fabrics, as on nearly
everything else was barely twenty per cent. on
their custom house valuation, but in August of
that year Protective Tariff was enacted and
went into immediate effect. Here are the
prices, as furnished liz at the time, by the Hon.
Amos Lawrence, and never disputed. at which
plain Cotton fabrics were sold by the Lowell
manufacturers during the three months before
and the three months after this enhancement
of duties to nearly fourfold the former rates:
AVERAGE FaIcEs or LOWELL coTIos saS SRI So %
shrtiass common ii cts, per yard. cts' per yard
sheetings, common g cts. per yard cts. per yard
s9eeng vide g cs per ys per peer YARD YARD
-"Then what end does your Protection
"serve'" cavils the Free-Trader: eff the price
/" is not enhanced, the manufacturer cannot be
benefited by the Tariff"
This is urged even by The World, which
would give all its old shoes for any enactment
that would increase its circulation from 10000
(more or less) to 100000, without increasing its
price one mill. And business men are all
aware that manufacturer prefers a profit of
five per cent, with market for all he can
produce, to one of thirty per cent, with slow,
and we would gladly reduce the price of THE
DAILY TRIBUNE twenty five per cent and then
make more money than we now do.
And yet Gen. Brinkerhof, Mr.. Samuel Wal
Ter, etc, are quarreling with us because the
facts are found in accord with our theory, not
with theirs. Gen. BrinkerhOf fancied that
Wool must sell very high, because the duty on
its importation was in 1867, enhanced Che says
to 100 per cent: so he undertook TO grow
Wool on choice, dear land near the thriving
village he honors with his residence, and found
his calculation utterly mistaken. We could
have told him so at the outset, and saved him
from a serious loss. Were the duty on i'm
ported Wool 10000 per cent, he would still
have failed, because the average cost of Home
Production would (as so clearly set forth by
HamiltOn) have controlled the price of his
Wool, rendering its production on such land
as his Improbable. Shall not this exposure of
delusiOn be iinalf
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