Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-04-11
SENATOR HARRIS ON PROTECTION.

| pies commission to perform it are the mem
bers of the House and the Senate. If th
object of the bill be to prevent Legislation
because Congress is unable or unwilling t.
perform its duty, let it be made know
by voting for this bill, so that the PEG
pie may either change the constitution o
send members to Congress who will d.
their duty. The committees Of the two house
could perform all necessary investigation
and examine exports and persons concerned
from both free-traders and protectionists; i
commission be appointed its members viii
evidently be taken from the protection side
The present tariff is oppressive, unjust anC
inexcusable, and transfers annually hundred
of millions of dollars from the people 10
favored few. Was the duty OF laying anC
collecting duties laid upon Congress for tbs
purpose of protecting manufactures? The
constitution says those duties are for the pur
pose of paying debts and providing for the
defense and welfare of the people; to go be-
yond this is a violation of the letter and
spirit of the constitution. Such is the de-
cision of the courts when the question has
cited number of cases in proof of this
assertion.l These decisions prove that
the purpose of every duty imposed
must be revenue; the imposition of an i'm
port tax, as a general rule, incidentally
favors the manufacturer. The increased
price caused by the tax is paid by the con-
sumner, the price of both the home and the
imported duty is raised accordingly, oppor-
tunity for competition against the latter being
done away. The import tax should be put
at the lowest that will produce the amount
OF revenue required, and the manufacturer
will have incidental protection 10 that ex-
tent. The present duties average forty-6ve
per cent; they should be reduced to twenty
or twenty-five per cent. When the farmer
sends his products abroad he will obtain
better prices under such tariff than when
he can take nothing in exchange for them
but cash. The just policy is to give freedom
to trade as far as is consistent with
the necessary revenue for public pur-
poses. When the importing merchant
sells his goods he receives in payment
the cost of the goods and the freight, the
amount of the tax, and his own profit. With
out these were paid, he would not import at
all, and he would not receive those payments
if the home manufacturer sold for less. The
revenue paid on imported goods during the
last fiscal year was $l98, 159 676 o. What
was paid on the imported goods goes into the
treasury, and what for home manufacture,
into the manufacturers pocket. If five times
only of the home manufactured goods are
sold more than of the imported, it costs
their consumers 81, 1SS, 958,O56 to put into
the treasury S19s, l59 ,676, and the small num-
Der of home manufacturers pocket a bounty
of 1890, 79s, $50. This lavishing of The
money of the people upon favored class is
C llled protecting the laborer from the pau
per labor of Europe; it is really
protection of capital at the expense of
TO the employers profits, but fer
wages fixed by contract, and the capitalist
employs labor at the lowest price he can get
it from the open market of the world with
out regard to nationality, color, or previous
condition. There is no tax on the importa-
lion of labor. Immigrants are invited and
to come, competing with the
American iaborer, and it is well it should be
10. If the high tariff, however, were to pro-
tect labor it would BE- imposed upon the
OF labor, but as he real object
is TO protect capital at the expense of labor
he tax is laid upon the Importation of such
FOODS as we can make at home, leaving the
TO get his labor from the open
markets of the world at the least possible
price, while he wards off competition and
ellis in the home market at the highest pos
ible price. Much as the monopolists may
,ush in tender sympathy with the American
aborer, and much as they clamor about
he evils apprehended from subiecting them
o competition with the pauper labor of
England, the skilled English factoryman is
IS we'll paid as our own. The amount of
he neceSsaries of life gained by the laborer
a better test than the number of dollars
nd cents received, and on this basis the |
English factoryman is even better paid than |
urs. With the exception of meat and |
read, the English laborer buys all the heces-
aries of life forty to seventy five per cent. |
heaper than the American, and on the i'm
ortation of meat and bread he has to pay |
My the cost of freight and the importers
roft in addition to the cost price where
,ipped. The employers who are so piteous
yer protecting the American laborer never
linery, however many laborers may be
eprived of work; yet, all the time
ley falsely plead that the many must
ay tribute to the few for the sake of the
merican workmen. With all the clamor
lr manufacturers successfully compete in
savy cotton goods, in the markets of the
orld, yet upon those goods they demand
ny OF Iorty or rrrJ- r'sr-v=--. ttrrrt
tort tribute at home under pretense of pro-
ction for the cotton manufacturers they are
competing with abroad. Ia cot
n, iron and steel, wooden, silk, hats, iron
ming and carpets, etc, the census shows
at less than million persons are employed.
it right that 100000 citizens should be
ned thst1 GOO, 900 may receive slightly better
iges? The farmers who toll in heat, sleet
d snow are heavily taxed to pay slight
unity to the cotton-spinner, who has always
factory roof over his head, and a heavy
e to the capitalists who employ them. The
of the world should be unshackled; {
E sail and ste am OF American marine
ould dot every sea that the various
untrIes may exchange their surplus
rather than that a few thou !
ed capitalists may be enabled 10 sell their {
res forty-five per cent. above the open
lrket. Here they are, always fluent for :
otection, always wanting TO have many
,usands of men pay tribute to them; but
O00,O 900 people ought not TO be taxed forty
e cents ON the dollar for the exclusive ad-
ntage of 100000 This brief epitome /
,ws how clearly the Tennessee senator 2
res the great points of the wrong inflicted
monopoly upon the great mass of the 0
lerican people. Here is no theorizing, r
the logic of undeniable fact is set in B
ay against system that was conceived =
deceit, is carried on in guile, and will at
9Th die in disgrace under such mastery Ii
VS. as these unanswered and unanswerable :;
of Senator Harris. ii
:;
HE New York Herald says of Tilden's \
ersonian letter, that it is "iust as dema-
ical as Denis Kearney's rawlings among b
San Francisco sand lots, or az the ~