The Portland daily press., 1880-12-08

set up the claim that you are bound to consid-
er her interests in arranging your tariff to the
injury OF your own; but our contention is that
free trade would promote your interest in the
long run as we'll as our own. At the outset
there is no doubt but many Of your interests
would suffer from a sudden change to free
trade; but many others would be promoted by
it, and all would in time be benefited.
ID. What interests have we that would be
promoted by free trade?
Prof The farming interests throughout all
the country. Your tariff, if not intended to
do SO, does in fact promote the interests of the
manufacturers and of the manufacturing
States, to the injury of the farmers and of the
agricultural States. Your tariff largely in
creases the price of manufactured goods which
the farmers consume, while the prices of ag-
ricultural products are not enhanced; in short,
the farmers are taxed for the profit of the man
ufacturers. t rzA
ID. know that is the English argument,
but it is not supported by tho facts in the case.
The theory was all we'll enough until the re-
suits of protection began to be developed, when
the facts showed conclusvely that the theory
is unsound. You apply the same theory to
the protection of our varied industries, that
you properly applied to the English tariff on
bread stuffs. which had no effect but to make
dear bread, because it had no tendency to in
crease the home production of corn Your ag-
ricultural industries could not be materially
enlarged, for lack of farming land: so your
''corn laws" were really tax on bread at the
cost of the consumer, for the benefit of your
landed aristocracy. Everybody in England
comedies that now. But the facts of the corn
laws will not apply to our protective system,
because the latter stimulates production in
every branch of industry and crowds our home
market with its results. If we were not able
to enlarge our productive power, your corn
law theory would apply to us, and every in
creased tax on imports would add something
to their cost to the consumer. But as the re-
suit of an enormous production of all sorts of
goods needed for our own consumption, our
markets are well supplied and sometimes
gutted, so that goods come here to full mar
ket, and must be sold at very low price, if
sold at all, and British competition keeps
down the prices generally, so that we buy
goo DIS of every description very much cheaper
as we'll as better, than we did at the time the
policy of protection was adopted. If we were
to go back now to the policy of free trade there
would be no home competition with imported
goods, which would come into bare market
and would command any price the importer
should choose to demand @
Prof Very we'll; when, as you say, the
prices of imported goods should be thus in
creased, your manufacturers could successfully
compete with them, and thus the prices would
be brought down to fair scale.
d. But that would be impossible. After
our mills, forges and furnaces should become
silent, and all their work people dispersed over
our wide country, it would require years to
collect them together and to start up again;
and for the first two or three years our manu-
facturers could not make both ends meet. But
if such thing were attempted, British manu-
facturers would put their goods on our markets
for time at cost, so as effectually to stitie at
the outset any attempt at renewed home pro-
duction. That is not a surn we have had
full experience of it. 9sn
Prof. You Americans do not see that if yeu
do not buy of other nations, you cannot sell to
them. Your tariff cuts off vast amount of
foreign manufactures, which would otherwise
be imported, and for which you could pay in
your agricultural products. You cannot con-
sumo the whole or even the half of your farm
products, and the balance of t hem you ought
to dispose of in payment for the manufactured
half the provisions we require, and the rest we
wish to paw for in our manufacturers. If you
will not receive them, how can we pay at all?
d. Pay as we used to do in gold. Before
our policy OF protection we used to buy more
than we sold, some $500 ,000, 600 more or less
every year. The balance against us was al
ways a grievous burden to bear. We paid it
in gold or remained in debt for it, and our f.
nances were always in confusion from that
cause. Now, under our present policy, we sell
%l,o,, hpu Go00 0O6
less annually. and the balance comes to us in
gold or its equivalent. The result Of this is
an abundance of money among us; but under
the former system all our inter ests were suf-
fering for lack of money. AS to the selling our
surplus agricultural products, we find no diff
Guilty, and never shall. The English come to
us to buy and pay for it in gold instead of
goods as they used to do. They come to us on
ly because they can buy of us cheaper and bet
ter than elsewhere; they pay in gold because
want the goods If they were yet sending us
all our manufactured goods, they would not
take our pro 'isions in payment if they could
obtain them cheaper in France, up the Baltic
or in Southern Russia, in which case we must
pay in gold.
Prof. But we think it great hardship and
a wrong that by your system any class of peo-
pie, or indeed any citizen, must pay for what
he requires more than he would but for that
system. 1t cannot be denied that great many
U
there were free trade, your western farmers
could buy their goods of English make great
deal cheaper than they now buy American
goods, and could sell their products as we'll as
they do now.
d. Yes, it can be denied, and I deny that
our people, upon the whole, pay more for their
goods now than they did under free trade.
And 1 go further and say that upon the whole
they pay less row than they would under free
trade. All the facts and all our experience
s.~k NJ \ = kl,.o.o
some things-French silks and gloves, for in
stance-that we could buy cheaper under free
trade than we now do; but upon the whole, we
buy cheaper now than we could under the old
system could refer to comparative prices
in almost every branch of trade to show this
the point wish to make. America was the
great market for English iron and all the pro-
ducts of iron. We made none, or almost none,
and our market for iron was enormous. We
paid eighty-fve dollars ton for English rails,
and think that fair average price. Eng
lish furnaces were running night and day to
supply American needs. By our policy our
iron trade was built up to very great proper
tions, so that now we buy steel rails at $45 a
ton, that are cheaper than iron rails at $40 a
ton. That is fair sample of the actual effect
of encouraging our ownindustries.
Prof Yes, but steel rails in England are
now e5 a ton $25, while your people are CON-
PEELED to pay almost twice as much as the re-
suit OF prOteCulOn. your case III pOlnI upSetS
your argument entirely in favor of protection,
and demonstrates the advantage of free trade
d. We shall see in a moment how that is
Rails in England now are glut in the market
for want of demand. The furnaces in Amer
lea are in active work, but cannot supply the
enormous home demand; and our people send
orders to England for rails that they cannot
obtain at home. The English home demand
is very small in comparison. But if Americans
were compelled to come to England fer all
their rails, and for all the iron they need of
other kinds, the mills of England would be
driven to their utmost capacity, without near
ly supplying the demand; and English iron
masters could command their own prices,
which would certainly be far higher to us than
they are now. English prices are kept down
by American competition, and home prices are
kept down by the sharp English competition,
Without our homo policy English manufactur-
ers would have practically, the monopoly of
our markets, and for the greater part of their
goods of all sorts would have no competition.
We should go back to the old days when al
most al our goods, of cotton, wool and iron,
were imported from England at prices more
than twice as great as those we pay now.
ND.