Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-12-02
The south and Protection.

lie hRu OOANCANAOA1 ~" -
session in New York, is busily engaged
in discussing the question of free trade
VS.. protection, and, as was to have been
expected, the country has been already
RECALLED with several of the old time
arguments in favor of the necessity OF
protecting American industries in their
infancy" etc. These same arguments and
speeches will be repeated for all time to
come whenever this important subject is
brought up for discussion, and it will be,
doubtless, necessary for the advocates of
free trade, or, at least, light tariff, over
and over again to prove their finishes.
1t may be stated as general prlncl-
pie that there is no section OF the
country where the people would not
be materially benefited by the aboh-
ton of the protective tariff. Protec-
ton is nothing more nor less than
giving absolute control OF the market
for the article protected into the hands
of the monopolist. Thus the tax-paying
masses become doubly taxed-frst to
nav the protected manufacturer SUCH
tribute as he may see fit to exact in the
way of extravagant prices for his wares,
so that he may grow wealthy and pros
porous from the hard earnings OF his
less favored fellow citizens-and thereby
establish a privileged class in this
county, and second. to make up to the
government through increased excuses
the sums which are lost in customs duties
through the shutting out from our ports
of the protected articles. This, we say
NAV be set down as q general principle,
and therefore it is manifestly to the
interest of the great body of the people
everywhere that we should have tariff
as light as the needed revenues OF the
country will admit of, so that they may
purchase all articles of vital necessity to
themselves as reasonably as it is possible
for them to be obtained.
But while the abolition of protec-
ton would in this way benefit the
vast majority of the people of the
United States, it would be special
ly beneficial to the South. Now that
our section Is yearly more and more
taking her natural position as the great
manufacturing centre of the United
States, we frequently hear arguments
from our dear % friends at the North
re-echoed by some of our own citizens
to the effect that Southern manufactures
should be fostered by protection. No
greater fallacy has ever been uttered,
as those in the North who utter it well
know. The South is steadily increas-
ing in importance as a manufacturing
centre, it is true, but her import
ance in that direction is not due
to, but is in spite of, protection.
More than this, it is protection alone
which prevents her from being, as she is
designed by nature and Providence to
be, the home of cotton manufactur-
ing in the United States. She has the sta
pie right at her door; she has abundant
water power, and plentiful supply of
fuel for steam power where water is
lacking; she has, IN a word, within her
self. everything necessary to enable her
successfully to outrival all the world in
cotton manufacturing, save one very i'm
portant item, and that is money. Why
she has not this is due to protection more
than to anything else, for it is through
this medium alone that New England
has been enabled to build her tremend-
Gus factories, purchase her improved
machinery, obtain her skilled labor.
grow rich from, and successfully compete
with, the South in the manufacture of
Southern products. But let the protec-
tive tariff be abolished, and all this will
be changed. Neither New England nor
the world will any longer be able to COM
pete with us, and we shall soon have CAPT
tai, machinery, factories aud labor pour
ing into our midst from that favored sec
ton as well as from abroad, and in few
years will be enjoying the wealth and
power which is ours by right.
The Northern manufacturer knows
this full well. He knows that with pro-
lection abolished he will be forced into
fair competition with the world, and that
is why he labors so desperately both to
secure a continuance Of high protective
tariff, and endeavor so frantically to
make the South believe that protection
will enure to her material benefit. The
Southern people may, for time, be de
luded by these specious arguments, es,
pecially as they do not altogether lack
advocates among ourselves; but the time
will come when they will see where their
true interest really lie. And we dare hope,
too, that, in the near future, when
the people of the whole country
have their eyes fully opened
to the oppression to which they are
subjected by being handed over bodily,
as they are, to the tender mercies of the
protected monopolist, they will array
themselves on the side of their true in
terests, and when they do the South will
then enjoy all the wealth and advantages
which are her natural and legitimate