The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-10-31

should. This is the natural law, and its
corollary is that to effect or force a thing by
aruIlclaliy employing people to produce it as
Protection does, is to leave undone some
more important thing which they would
nave been doing, and thereby entailiDg an
INJURY on themselves and II consuming COM
muni!y. Now, in the absence of this Pre-
lection, the thing effected would have been
made or done a; lower cost to be SO ex.
changed for something that some one else
had produced under the same conditions ut q
lower cost Hence by this natural production
and exchange, an increased wealth and
an increased variety Of indus tries come
to the hands of capital and labor in lieu
OF the industry built up at the sacrifice;
and be this argument applied to Individuals
or a nation, which as an aggregation of indi-
viduals with their individual adaptations
and desires. What folly to ignore this law
of free competition for all economic processes
and results, this law of national development,
" hich can no more be luGed than that of
the evolution Of humanity 10 the personal
capacity. This belief in the soverei n power
of the political machinery, this subtle species
OF fetish faith in gOvernme to or, ate any desir.
ed thing,s the equivalent the greeubacker's
dream about the value of unlimited govern
meut paper issue, the duplicate of the cart
man that called on Hercules.
z To the second proposition, that Protec,
ton Is necessary means of maintaining the
national independence, it may be
replied that it admits of no stronger
argument than the preceding one.
Conceding that these varied industries"
help to build up nation into
wealth and power, thereby begetting the con-
sequent Independence, political and Anan
cia, 1t has been seen that these varied indus
tries" do not depend upon Protection. For
without those now under special legislative
care, the whole population of this country
would have been just as constantly employed
and, as has been shown, more lucralively
so, by being in the natural element We
might possibly have fewer iron furnaces,
fewer cotton and wooden mills, etc, but our
supply of wealth would have been larger and
hence our national ms well us our individual
independence would have been correspond
lngy greater. A man who regards himself
AS only shoemaker, tailor, a earder, a
book keeper, or whatever other exclusive
specially is in II frightfully dependent and
critical condition when hia line of business is
overcrowded. Protection dulls the edge of
ingenuity and sclfreiant Independence
in men just MS it does in CHI ldren.
8. That Protection creates home
market for nations agricultural
products" is only sometimes and
partially true; but the unqualified sssump-
ii II is fallacy. A manufacturing industry,
as we have shown above, will, like any other,
II lett alone, arise of itself when the neces-
sity for it exists, and will enlarge with tho
demand. Capital and labor seek that invest
ment which Is mot remunerstiye. A man
sells, people sells only the surplus of his or
It's productions, and for this the highest and
best market is sought. Now, to assert the
rule that the heme market fixes the price. ia
positively iu.se for what mtichalt in ID allps
or elsewhere in this country, does know that
1t is Liverpool that proclsims the price of
cotton, for instance, the great product Of this
continenG The freesl of trade ensures the
best of prices, and hence Protection which
restricts the ability to sell, reduces prices.
And it restricts the ability to sell by first,
interference with the facilities of trans.
portation, and second, depriving foreign ma
tons of the ability to take our products by
prohibiting theirs in the receivil Of pay
payment AS illustrative of the manner in
which 1t interiercs with transportation, lot
us take tho single article of iron, the present
lmpost duty on which is So per cent, that is
to say, for every $1,000 worth ofiron landed
here, purchased from foreign point, we have
to pay Sl3S0. The railroad owner there.
fore has to charge for Tho CONSEQUENT in.
creased price Of his road, u passenger and
freight rate to cover Il interest on 81 $50
instead of on $1,000. And this is ON only one
Fem, viz, iron. The farmer who has no fa.
ciIities Of transportation has 10 keep his sur
plus produce at home, and the Nebrask,
man has to burn his corn MS fuel, while the
consumer in Chicago without that facility
might have to pay 80 cents per bushel, or
perhaps more. Every impeachment to free
exchange and interchange of products il An
INJURY. This is concmsively recognized by
oven the Protectionists through provision
In our consultation which so jealousy de-
terminss for unobsructed freedom of inter.
change ofproducts among the different states.
And yet western and southern msnufac.
turers make no complaint of the homo com.
petition that enables Ohio or Georgia manu-
lecturers TO be mare easily undersold nv
Massachusetts, or New York than by the
distant English and German manufacturers
The Inconsistency is ss'patent q. is tho tariff
against goods from Canada, which, let ia
suppose, were to be suddenly admit
ted into this union, and thereby
become entitled to free interstate