The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-04-07
REVISION OF THE TARIFF.
Concise Speech on the Subject by Abraham s.
Hewitt in Congress.

1t is dangerous to delay action on the
| tariff. We are now prosperous, but our
prosperity will continue only so long as
| there is an adequate market for our pro
ducts. At present we have a foreign mar
ket chiefly for raw materials, such as food
/ products, cotton. petroleum and tobacco.
For our manufactured products the mar
| kets of the world are perpetually closed
against us We tax food, of which we
are the great exporters; we tax wool,
which is the foundation of vast industry;
we tax bituminous coal, iron ore, and
| scrap iron, which lie at the base of the
| great iron and steel industry; We tax cop
| per ores, alcohol and oils, and numerous
chemicals without which many branches
| of industry cannot exist. Having thus
created an artificial system, We find it inn
| possible to compete with Great Britain and
| France and Germany, whose industry
stands upon the firm and rational basis of
free raw materials. The defect in our
| revenue system could be remedied by
joint resolution in one week, and the
Committee on Ways and Means could then
take as much time might be needed to
consider and adjust the infinite detail in
volved in the reconstruction of the tariff
covering g. 500 articles. Unless a remedy
be speedily applied, the industry of this
country will be. surfeited by the excess of
products for which it can find no market.
If good harvests should be secured abroad
We shall have a great surplus of food up
on our hands, and the price will fall
Wages will go down with the fall in price.
The reduction of wages viii be registed by
strikes and lockouts. The conflicts be-
tween capital and labor win be re-opened,
and, indeed, have already begun. The
prosperity of the country win be arrested,
Railroad transportation will fall off. New
railroads viii cease to be constructed. Our
shops will lack work; there win be dearth
of employment all over the country. The
volume of immigration will fall off, and the
career of expansion and general develop
ment viii be brought to disastrous con
cluson. The sad experience of 1S73-79
will be repeated until through the gate of
suffering, poverty, and want we shall es
tablish lower rate of wages, and the pro-
ducts of the country, weighted as they are
with obstructive taxes which must be de-
Quoted from the wages OF labor, will force
their way into the open markets of the
world in spite of the tariff
The argument for protective duties is
based entirely upon the difference which
exists between the compensation for labor
paid in this country aud in the countries
with which we compete. This difference
in wages does exist, and there are branch
es of industry which cannot be carried on
without an equivalent compensation in the
form of protective duties, or of bounty
from the public treasury. They exist rs a
result of a revenue system which is the /
growth of a hundred years. and dc not |
think that there is anywhere the wish, if |
there be anywhere the power, to strike |
these industries down. / acknowledge, |
therefore, and assert, that at this late day |
it is not possible, nor polite, to reorganize
our general business upon any other basis |
than that which recognizes, and so long as
possible perpetuates. the difference which (
exists in the rate of wages, because even /
if the purchasing power of our wages |
were no greater than those which are paid by |
our competitor, we make very great gain
when we exchange products produced at a
high rate of wages, with nations where
lower rate of wages prevails. If we sell
our labor abroad at 81 per day and pur-
chase thu products of foreign labor equal
ly efficient at fifty cents per day, we get /
the fruits of two days labor in exchange
for one. Hence. it is our interest not to
cut off and restrict foreign trade, but to
give it the largest expansion which is pos
sible without reducing the rate of wages
paid in this country.
AS long, then, as the higher rate of
wages may be maintained in this country,
ana as long as we desire TO preserve those
branches of business wherein the higher
rate makes it impossible for us to compete
on even terms with other nations, we must
so arrange the tariff that in these branches
there is a rate of duty established which
will compensate for the difference of the
cost of labor in each. In order to do this
we must determine. first, what is the actual
difference in the rate of wages, and Sec
ondly, how the duty shall be applied in
each case in order to compensate for this
difference.
Theabranches of business which are de-
pendent upon the tariff are chiefly manu-
of cotton, wool, flax, iron and
steel, pottery. and silk. They employ a
large number of operatives. although by no
means so large ratio of the population as
is generally supposed, probably not exceed
ing u per cent. If the works engaged in
these manufactures were stopped, the per-
sons would doubtless be absorbed in other
of business without affecting ma
Lerially the wages of labor. We have in
fact absorbed in the last three years for
population depending upon the manufac-
ure of iron and steel, and we have done
his not only without reducing the wages
Of labor. but in the face of an actual rise
n wages. Nevertheless during the process
II absorption very great suffering would
De entailed upon the workmen who would
De thus compelled thus to seek new occu-
,atlons. In dealing with these interests,
therefore,, we have every motive to be con- /