New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1873-01-16
Chips from The Census.

The census shows that about twelve and n
half millions of persons in the United States
were, in 1870, engaged in "Gainful and rcpu-
table" pursuits, and that of these 5,922, isl :,
or forty-seven per cent, are employed in ag-
rieulture, and 2,7o7 ,42l, or about twenty
two per cent, in mechanical and mining i'll
dustrics.
Referring to these latter figures the Chi
cago Times, which never ncelccts even an
imaginary opportunity for thrust at the pro-
tcctivc policy, says "ths number includes all
who are fostercd' by the tariff system" and
proceeds with 4 spccious argument intended
to prove that not more than half million Of
persons are really fostered by protection, and
that to maintain the system for the benefit Of
these, the rest of the population pay an enor-
nous amount annually in increased taxes.
Such dense ignorance or willful pcrvcrsion Of
the simplest economic principles is discourage
ing, not to say exasperating. The writer as
sumes that none of the over two and half
millions of persons engaged in mining and
mechanical pursuits, except the capitalists
and owners of works, are in any manner
benefited by the tariff, and that the others
are only oppressed and plundered by it..
Perhaps, then, he will he good enough to eX-
plain to the workingmcn of the United States.
who now rejoice in liberal wages and com
Portable homes, why they happen to be so
much better Off than their brethren in Eng
land, Ireland, Spain, Turkey, and India, who
have all the wonderful blessings of free trade
Elsewhere in the same article he admits that
the census figures are on the whole crafty
ing, saying:
However, after making suitable allowance
for these studiOus and disrcputable people, the
industrial showing is by no means bad one.
There are but 2G,28S,9 4j persons
above ten years Of age, and of these nearly
One-half, or probably not less that l2o0O, :
600, are women constantly engaged in the
discharge of domestic duties. Upon this
supposition there would be left less than
1900, 900 to be accounted for as retired from
business, engaged in studious pursuits, per-
manently disabled, and vicious. This GER
tainly is not so bad a showing as some other
countries would make.
How absurd the attempt to convince the
humber classes, whom the tariff is especially
framed to benefit, by giving them plenty of
employment atlhigh wages, that its cxactions
are really paid by themselves for the enrich
ment of others, when the simplest COMPARE
SOL between their condition and that of the
same class in even the most prosperous of the
free trade countries is 50 greatly to their adj
vantage!
Then the Times writer will perhaps be good
the nearly six million farmers, or such Of
n'e'n AS read that journal. whether if is really
tax upon them to have two and Il half mil
lion of workers, who would otherwise be
farmers like themselves, employed in other
industries, and together with their dependent
families constituting tenfold larger demand
for the food products of American farms than
does all the outside world together. There
can be no diversity of pursuits without pro-
lection, and when industry has not been di-
versified by fostering legislation, agriculture
and trading are usually about the only pur-
suits of any consequence.
The farmers, therefore, may either have,
with continued protection, One-half the pop
ulation as consumers of their food crops at
liberal prices, together with large home de-
mand for their cotton, wool, hides, and flax,
or they can have, with n return to free trade,
this home market continually lessencd, and a
constant flow of labor and capital from other
pursuits into that of agriculture, the men thus
forced by foreign competition to change their
occupation ceasing to be consumers of farm
products, and swelling the already dispropor-
tomato number of those engaged in raising
them.--Philddelphi0 Press.