New-York tribune., 1871-12-28
4 QUESTION or PROTECTION

INC EUtOT OF INC lTso""e'
SIR: II the duty on Wool bo 81 cents
pound. do not tho manufacturer and grower thereby
realise greater price for Wool and Cloth And does
not the consumer have To pay moro for what he gets
And which are tho most numerous. the ruwers and
anlfacturers, or the cOnsumersi II Prr' ction In
crenses the income Of the few does II THERETO increase
the income Of the manyi 80. howl II you answer
"by essng tho demand for labor and thereby the
prioe Of labor vol tho number OF lsborers ana
80 this adds to the price Of the farmers productions
thus bringing An increase Of income to ALL" let me ask
agnin DO not the operative and tho farmer both ako
have to pay the grower and manufacturer the added
value of Wool afforded by Protectioni DO these divide
the profits with the coDsumer II not, how con Ptotcc-
ton bcnef tho consumer when he has TO pay I'D moro
for suit Of clothes than he otherwise would ana "
per week for board, and go per yoar more for
house-rcnti II, (ss the Convention at Syracuse the
other day sadJ Protection had made woolehs 70 per
cent cheaper tho West low 1t that In the East they
arc 20 per cont hgheri DO not ask these questions
cautiously, bat with sincere desire to understand the
truth In the case. Yours LABOR
Hev York, Dec. %. 1871.
Rcsponse by THE Tribune.
!. WoOlens are not twenty per cent. dcarer
at the East than they wero under Free Trade.
You have no right to make such assumptions
when the facts arc attanable. We have
repeatedly printed the tabular exhibit of
A. T. Stewart and David A. Wells showing
what the prices of WOOlens were in 1859 and
and 1860 respectively, and we shall very
gladly print one showing what they arc on
the LIST of January at hand as compared with
those of Jan. /, $780, when Wool and WoOlens
were both admitted under low Revenue duties.
Will Messrs. A. T. Stewart, Clafin g. Mellen,
and s. b. Chittenden make such an exhibit in
the interest of TRUTH
II. We publish to-day an exhibit by an en-
inpnt statistician Lewis Bollman] of the
prices of Wool during different periods,
which shows how mistaken ia the assumption
that an enhanced duty necessarily insures or
Is followed by an increased price. The facts
are most instructive, and are Of more worth
than mountain of basclcss theories.
iii. Protection benefits all classes mainly by
bringing producer and consumer nearer each
other, and thus diminishing the cost Of ex-
changing their respective products. Its end is
the employment of moro labor in creating
wealth and less in distributing or exchanging
it, We have seen Corn offered for sale in
Iowa City (then the State capitaD at fifteen
cents per bushel in very bad shinplasters that
would not buy as much gold as our National
Bank notes now do, yet find no buyers, because
almost every ono in that State grew Corn, and
few wanted to buy it at any price. Had half
the labor then employed in growing Corn in
Iowa been diverted into growing Wool and
making Cloth there, that Corn would have
risen rapidly to fifty cents per bushel, and the
farmers labor (or Corn) would have bought
twice as much Cloth as it actually did. even
though the Cloth had sold twenty to forty per
cont higher Gin money! than it did. Yet our
correspondent, looking only at the price of
Cloth. would. doubtless. have insisted that the
Tariff had taxed the many Corn-growers to
enrich the few Cloth-makers.
How many times must we repeat these simple
truths before they will be generally under
stood Fl Ed.