Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-11-04
pRorEcrIoEIsr PALACES.

sensical arguments. One of them is to the
effect that if the tariff were abolished all
the protected manufacturers would have
to quit business, and all the people now
supported by those industries would have
to look to agriculture for living This
argument is used particularly to brighten
the farmers, by making them apprehend
such IN Eruption of labor as must swamp
them. But they need not be alarmed. The
whole proposition of the Protectionists is
ridiculous on its face. Agriculture main
tains all the non-productive classes now.
1t has to support all the protected manu-
features. And if agriculture can do this
with all the loss and waste involved in the
tariff system, it stands to reason, and can
be mathematically demonstrated, that az.
ricuiture can support the same classes
directly, and with much more economy.
So the pretense that the farmers have
reason to fear free trade, is shown to be
nonsensical. The farmers have everything
to hope from free trade. At present they
are made TO pay cut the whole cost of pro-
lection. They are taxed in order to enable
other people to get living at trades which
will not afford natural support to them.
Surprising the Government encouraged the
cultivation of desert and worthless lands
by proclaiming that whoever would cult
vate them should be paid, by taxes levied
upon his neighbors, the equivalent of the
produce of SO many acres at 60 bushels an
acre? That is the principle of Protection.
As concerns the farmers, however, it is
worse than that, for. it compels them to pay
90 per cent. more than they ought to pay
for all their clothing, furniture, crockery,
utensils, tools and machinery. There is no
possible protection for their produce. That
must compete with "the pauper labor
"of Europe" 1t does so, and what is
more, in the teeth Of high cost of produc-
ton, it beats the aforesaid pauper labor
fact which the Protectionists can no more
explain by their theories than they can ex-
plain the supremacy of English manufact-
ures over continental manufactures, not
withstanding the rate of wages in England
is far higher than anywhere on the Cont
nent. The American farmer does without
Protection. But now the American wine
grower clamors for it, and we are told that
California specially requires it, California
does not require Protection. For to give
our wine-growers Protection is against pub
lie interest, which we take to be of more
consequence than that of single class, or
of any number of classes. California wine
is capable of holding its own upon its mer.
it's If it is not it ought to go down.
There is no reason why the people of Cali
fornia should be forced to pay an artificial
price for California wines, and when they
are asked to support the party that holds
this policy they are justified in character
izing the proposition as an impudent one.
Protection is always against public pol.
icy and interest, for it is always for the
peculiar benefit of small number of
people, and this benefit always consists in
artificially raising the selling price of their
wares by cutting the public eff from the
cheapest markets. When pretended
anti-monopoly party, moreover, advocates
Protection, it shows itself to be grossly
ignorant or as fagrantly insincere. For
the very essence of Protection is monopoly.
When our viticulturists clamor for higher
duties upon foreign wines and brandies,
what is it they are asking? 1t is that they
shall be given monopoly of the domestic
market for wines and brandies. 1t is that
they shall be enabled to exact higher prices
from their customers by avoiding COMPETE
ton. And that is monopoly of the most
offensive kind. Yet Our alleged "anti.
monopolists have the stupidity or the
impudenee to stand forward and tell the
public that Protection is in the
interest of the community. The assertion
is absolutely false. 1t is never in the in.
terest of the community to have anything
dear and scarce. l. is always in the in.
terest Of the community to have everything
cheap and abundant. As long as foreign
wines can enter into competition with the
native growths the public will be sure of
reasonable prices for both, while the
competition will also secure good quality.
But let the foreign wines be excluded by
the tariff, and the public will have to pay
a higher price for probably an inferior ar.
ticle. Moreover those who embark in
viticulture have no right to expect that the
public should support them. The farmers
do not look to their neighbors for help.
Ii their crops fail they have to stand it.
But every other industry whines for Pro.
lection that is to say, makes demand
for some Of the farmers earnings, for it is
he who has to pay for all these things in
the long run.
Protection docs not tend to raise wages,
either. That is another gross delusion.
1t is not true that workingmen are inter.
ested in maintaining the tariff. They are
interested in procuring its abolition. All
the tariff does for them ia to make living
more costly. Il diminishes the purchasing
power OF their wages fifty per cent. That
is ali it does for them. Wages, moreover,
are only nominally higher in this country
than in England. The English shilling
will go as far in buying most things as the
American half-doliar. And where Ameri.
can wages are higher than in Europe it is
because of the great resources of this
country, and not at all because Of the
tariff. Protection in fact is an unmixed
evil. What it does is to make living dear
for the people at large, in order to pay to a
few persons money which they have not
earned, and which they ought not to have.
It causes capital TO be embarked in unpro.
ductive enterprises. 1t plumbers the
farmers and the workingmen for the benefit
OF manufacturers. Yet it does no. in the
long run benefit the latter, since it keeps
them out OF the foreign markets, and
by continuing their trade renders them
the more liable to those periodic gluts of
the domestic market which bring about
tinancia. pauics, and result in ruin and
suffering to scores of thousands. TIE tariff