The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1874-07-09
NtlseEnAMgg:
How We Are Taxed to Stimulate

Manufactures. -t ~
The High Protective Tariff men have
now had It their OWN way in this country
so long that it would not be strange if
their success in debating the legislation
of the country were soon TO undergo q
change. "Turn about is fair play" says
the old proverb; and this is equally true
in politics and the privileges of great
bodies of people, as it is in individual
affairs. 1t isYery certain that the manu-
featuring interests of this country have
been stimulated for long number of
years by all the means which could make
them profitable and successful. -
First, they had the stimulus of the i'm
mense demand for commodities of all
kinds growing out of the war Your ar
my IN The field has an immense appetite,
and consumes not only vast quantities of
provisions and stores, but an immense va
riety of clothing, arms and munitions of
all kinds, and manufactures of woolen, of
cotton, OF leather, of wood, of iron, and of
all the other metals. Much as it con.
sumes, an army. it has been said, wastes
more than it consumes and the United
States is the country in which more is.
wasted IN proportion IA Consumption than
any other on The face of the globe. The
American manufacturers therefore got the
benefit of this prodigiors waste and con-
sumption by the army, which lasted from
four to SIX years, or from early in 1851 till
the first great reduction of the army In
1866. During all this time, the produc-
ton of goods of all kinds with difficulty
kept pace with the demand; and man
ufacturefs got their own prices, and prices
heretofore unprecedented, for the larger
share of their commodities. 81, 49, =, =
Then, too, on the top of the immense
rrmy demand, came the imitation of the
currency growing out of the Government
necessities TO pay its bills and keep up the
immense war expenditure. The paper
money era began early in 1852, and con-
tinued expanding until long after war had
ceased. It carried up with it the prices of
all commodities, and the profits of all en-
gagged in manufacturing enterprises. In
deed, those who had their capital invested
in productive industry made far more ont
of the expansion of the currency than any
other class, except capitalists who opera
ted in financial securities. While labor
ers and employees of al kinds, and other
people with fixed incomes or salaries, were
not benefited by the expansion of the cir
culating medium, the manufacturers, on
the other hand, who we're constantly able
to raise the prices of their products with
the swelling of the volume of the curren- i
cy, held the lever of advantage in their
own han hHPds,. and and piled up enormous
profits. - Ts--resF -sssl Tak ( 8
I, The third great stinulus which the
manufacturing interests received was the
Imposition by Congress in 1861 and 1862
OF the highest protective tariff the couh-
try had ever known American mannfac-
lures, always protected by advantage Of
position and Immediate vicinity to their
domestic markets, were still further pro-
tected by the laying OF duties upon i'm.
pertatlons OF similar products from abroad
varying all the way from 25 to $50 per
cent. These tariffs were deliberately or
ganized IN the interest Of capital invested
in manufactures, and the larger share Of
the bill which Congress gave the sanction
Of law were actually framed by those
most largely interested IN them. Combi-s
nation after combination, ring after ring
of manufacturers was formed, taking off q !
little tariff here, and putting on q great
deal there, until the whole fiscal legisla-
ton OF the country was so adjusted as to
1rlng m not the largest revenue into the |
Treasury, but the largest profits into the |
pockets of the manufacturers. 1t is an |
indisputable fact that our tariffs for the
past ten or fifteen years have been framed Il
not with an eye to revenue, but with an
eye to protection. The people aie forced |
to pay the enhanced prices which are i'm !
posed upon all imported goods, not for
the sake of the Government revenues |
(which would be much greater if the tariff |
were considerably reducedl. but for the
sake of enriching few thousand manu- |
,:most Of them in affiuent circum- |
stances already. |
But in the affairs of Nations it is seldom
that injustice and inequality can perma- |
nentiy prosper The time is approaching
when change VIII be imperatiYely de- |
manded by the people, and will come in |
spite OF all the organized power of capital, /
and IN spite OF the dust so persistentlv |
thrown IN the eyes of the masses bF the |
specious advocates of high protective
tariffs That these tariffs oppress the few |
at the expense Of the many is fact already |
demonstrable to any unprejudiced man of |
clear perceptions.
Whatever plea in favor of protection |
might be valid IN the infancy of American |
these industries are now |
so hrmIy established, and we will add. so /
profitable, as to render such plea utterly /
futile. The first American taTaff enacted !
with the avoWed object of encouraging /
domestic industry and affording both rev
enue and protection. imposed an average /
anty often percent. upon imported manu- /
4 This was in the infanev- of |
American industry, in the administration
Of George Washington; and now, at al /
distance Of eighty five years, with the,
whole country full Of established and sue
cesafnl manufactures, we have tariff /
imposed upon imported articles IN uni
Versal use amounting, nponcan- average,
to oyer forty-eight per cent Do the well /
sstab bIished and. prosperous industries of
the United States stand in need of this
enormous protection? We answer, no.
We have cited the average amount of
protection levied in the shape of duties
at 48 per cent, but on a multitude of