The Portland daily press., 1882-08-10
Protection and immigration.
Why 1t is Better to Welcome Freemen
than o Bring in Free Goods
PHILADELPHIA Americana

philadelphia Americana
American Protectionists hold that there
should be no restriction on the immigration OF
any useful and desirable class, quite consistent
lv with their belief that commodities need
lessly imported from abroad should be taxed
as Injuries. They always have insisted on the
protective policy, because it tends to bring the
workman rather than his work to America.
They have the faith to believe that there is
room enough for all, and that the Malthusian
nightmare is no more than nightmare, and
need give us no trouble. Not long before his
death, Mr.. Henry G. Carey put the case to an
English gentleman who was calling on him:
(Which is better for a new country, the pro-
tective policy, which brings US the laborer, or
the free trade policy, which would leave him
in Europe for us to employ and feed?" His
visitor was so impressed by the question, that
he asked Mr.. Carey's leave to enter it in his
memorandum book, as giving Englishmen
clew as to what protection was meant to effect.
Our friend of the Times, as usual, takes care
To ignore the second half of the alternative.
He knows perfectly that, should the American
people adopt the policy he urges on them, the
labor of Europe would be just as much in COM
petition with American labor generally as
though it had come to our shores. The differ
ence would be that it would not then be Amer
lean and would be contributing to the over
throw of our industrial system, while that Of
our immigrants contributes to its upbnildlng.
In the long run, to which all wise economy
looks, all classes are benefited by the influx of
new labor and would-be citizens from Europe.
a. The farming class are benefited by it. As
we said before, we must employ these people,
either here or in Europe. But when we en-
ploy them in Europe we feed them only in
part. When we employ them here we feed
them entirely. An English artisan consumes
a few pecks of our wheat every year. When
he comes to America he consumes twice as
MANY bushels. He helps to create ION our soil
that vast and steady market for our breadstuffs,
compared with which the average European
demand for them is so trifling. The Immigrant
workman does not run first to Kussla, then TO
India. to see where he can get the flour to make
his loaf. He takes it from the West, as mat
ter of course And he comes hither to be thus
dependent on the Western farmer because the
tariff draws him across the Atlantic. Before
the war there was indeed great immigration
To America But it was manly OF those VINO
had been driven hither by the pressure OF want
or the political disturbances OF Europe. Our
immigrants under the tariff are drawn, not
driven. They come to share our prosperity, 10
find the well-paid emplog ment which the TAR
if has created on our soil. We are importing
Iilt WOIADuSh DOChAoC VIC I0lunCO W pVAo
work, and the imported workmen have to be
fed from American farms. And as Mr.. Gold
win Smith told the Social Science Association,
"The promise that by encouraging home man
ufactures, it wiz, the American protective
system) will draw emigration and provide the
farmer with customers on the spot instead
of sending the workman's dinner to him across
the Atlantic, seems to them to be sustained by
the result"
(21 Equal benefits to the artisan class in
America flow from immigration. Our immi-
grants. the Chinese excepted, soon fall in with
the American idea of comfort. They are not
content to live less handsomely than they see
others live They will take no lower wages,
and they will lay out their earnings upon OBJ
jects which they once thought beyond their
reach. They thus become the greatest patrons
of the staple lines of industrial products. 1t
was the most forcible objection to the Chinese
immigrant tnat he was an exception to this
rule, and, tried to sustain existence in America
on the same terms as on his own oyer-croWded
sea-coast.