Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-03-02
4 NEW CLAIM FOR PROTECTION.

The San Francisco Chronicle has ap-
parently undertaken to convince its readers
that the Tariff is, in its own language,
&c the natural foe of monopoly" As this is
literary enterprise equivalent to the
making proof that things which are equal
to themselves are not equal to one another.
we venture to predict its failure at an
early stage OF the experiment. The pur-
pose of the Chronicle is to hoodwink the
farmers of California, and to cause them
TO waste energy and time in pursuing phan-
toms, while the real and substantial evils
which affect them most nearly continue
untouched. But there is no sophist on
this coast sufficiently ingenious to maintain
our contemporary thesis, which has the
misfortune Of being absurd on its face.
And to demonstrate its absurdity it is
only needful to define Protection to home
industry. 1t is the exclusion Of foreign
products By taxation, for the purpose of
enabling domestic manufacturers to charge
abnormal rates for inferior articles. The
right of every freeman to buy in the
cheapest market is one of those obvious
verities which ought to belong in the cate
CORY of constitutional heritages. The
right of the Government to interfere with
this freedom of purchase could never in
this country be claimed save on the plea
of a paramount necessity. When the
Morrill, tariff was enacted thai necessity
existed. A revenue had to be raised for
the defense of the Union, and it mattered
little what injury was done to commerce
for the time being. But since the close Of
the rebellion the whole fabric of Protec-
tion has rested upon a petitio principii, and
it is becoming clearer every year that it no
longer possesses any real justification for
existence.
Protection, from its nature, operates to
create monopolies. 1t can do nothing else.
It has in the United States built up Sc
RES of the most greedy and rapacious of
them. We may instance the Quinine Mo
nopoly, which was only broken down last
year after tremendous fight. In that
case two firms secured monopoly Of the
immense quinine supply of the country,
and they became immensely wealthy by
taxing the medicine Of the poor, the
remedy of the frontiersman, the invaluable
specific of all dwellers in valleys and
newly-opened agricultural regions. Every
draught of this drug had to pay tribute to
these two Pennsylvania firms before it
could be availed of to restore health and
preserve life. Yet the Chronicle impu.
IDENTIFY asserts that the Tariff is So the nat
"ural foe of monopoly" Again. the iron
and steel trade have been erected into mo-
nopolies by the same nefarious agency.
The steel-rail makers a short time ago held
meeting, estimated the public demand for
the ensuing year, and their own productive
capacity, and then deliberately agreed that
about half their number should close down
and remain idle, to the end that higher
price should be obtained for the output of
the working furnaces. OF course the idle
furnaces were to be paid for doing nothing,
though it is to be noted that in these cases
the workingmen are discharged, and it is'
the owners only who share the profits. But
this costly and wasteful arrangement was
possible and profitable because the steel
and iron makers have a monopoly Of the
business, and because they can make their
customers pay all their expenses. Here is
another pregnant REPUTATION of the Chron-
icles ridiculous assertion that the Tariff
sis the natural foe of monopoly"
But it is really not worth while TO deal
seriously with so preposterous a statement,
for no intelligent Protectionist would have
even dreamed of making such claim.
That protective tariff fosters monopoly
| is one of those self-evident facts which
cannot be denied without dishonesty, and
if it is necessary to make go outrageous a
claim in order to persuade the farmers that
they ought to favor Protection, the very
fact shows that the policy is a hopeless
workingmen, upon which the Tariff entails
so much injustice and wrong, as the agri-
cultural class. Deprived as the farmers
are of everything in the shape of protec-
ton for the products of their toll, they
are made to pay heavily in order to boil
ster up industries which have for years
been drawing these bounties under the
most fraudulent of false pretenses. And
the argument that protective tariff is as
good way as any other to raise the nee
essary revenue is utterly false. There is
no fiscal system SO wasteful, extravagant
and ineffective as protective tariff, and it
possesses the peculiar demerit of fleeing
the taxpayer twice as much for the benefit
of individuals as it does for the benefit of
the Government. That is to say, that a
protective tariff robs the producers of
thousands of millions, in collecting hum
dreds of millions for the Government.
Nor is it possible to show wherein the
farmer gains the slightest advantage in
return for this constant injury. Europe
at present sustains him, and he in turn
supports the manufacturers. But these
latter, instead of recognizing their depend
ence upon him, labor to cut down and
appropriate his earnings, by methods which
differ in no sense, as regards ethical prin-
ciples, from highway robbery.
The. Tariff is system which aims at
enabling industries which could not subsist
on their own merits, to grow up, by letting
them charge high prices. If the farmers
who have failed to cultivate the lands on
the west side of the San joaquin were to
demand the privilege OF selling what little
wheat they can raise, at five times the mar
ket price, they would be justified On Pro.
tectionist principles, and that would be
Protection. The Tariff has undertaken to
stimulate production by high prices when