National Republican., 1882-12-18

tional affairs? Tho ccumenical council of
enterprising journalists may be assembled,
but who shall be the inialible pope2 We
make no suggestion. As before re-
marked, this paper has not favored
newspaper b6sssn. But If the bosom Of re-
form should leave that one blemish in our
national system, and if an eight-page journal
Should be needed to exercise supreme national
control, there is one located in no state, and
not likely, therefore, to excite state Jealousy.
Need we name that journal We. have no
pledges to make. II shall be otir aim to study
the public good. We may teferto this subject
again.
One Cannot Eat His Cake ana still Have II.
Railway steel rails are now manufactured
in Chicago at cost of sac to $43 per ton. A
few years ago the suggestion that steel rails
could be manufactured for that sum would
have been hooted at 1t Is the favorite theory
of free trade that protective tariff enhances
prices. If this be true, then according to the
eternal fitness of things steel rails ought to
have advanced. In 1867 we imported them
from England at cost of about $50 per ton.
The protective tariff fostered American steel
manufactures In other words, it built up
competition. What is the usual result of COIN
petition? Cheapening of prices, Of course
And that is what happened in the history of
steel rails in America This is in fragrant
contempt of the theories of the free traders
1t is an outrage ON schoolcraft, a shameful dis
regard of the rights and dignity of the theo-
rist, but we do not see how it is to be helped
Facts are stubborn things" and obstinately
disnclined to yield to dreains.
There is another thing that would have
been hooted at if suggested only a short
period back in the history of the republic
And that is the idea of steel being manu-
factured, in any Of its forms, anywhere else
than under the shadow of the Alleghanies
But since the advent of the distinctive and
permanent American policy Of home protec
tion, steel manufactures have followed the
star of empire, and now we find the cheapest
steel rail produced in great prairie country,
a thousand miles west of tile seaboard, and in
the very midst of the country whose vast
stretches of railway lines create the market
for the steel product.
Now, what can England do, under existing
imposts, to compete with this condition of
things? Nothing naturally, nothing legiti-
mately nothing, if the world heeds the con
serving maxim, olive and let live" By
scaling down the wages of their workmen to
starvation rates, English manufacturers may
be able to produce an inferior steel rail, pay
the ocean freight, pay $2S a ton impost duties,
pay the inland freight to the west, and sell
the rails in Chicago for $42 ton but we do
not believe it,
"But," says the free trader "remove the
$2s a ton impost and then steel rail will be
that much cheaper" All, will it2 1t, is a
trite and true saying that one "cannot eat his
cake and still have it," The American tariff
has built up American competition in the
manufacture of steel rail- 1t has done this at
the expense of the English manufacturer and
not at the expense of American labor. Under
this policy the cost Of steel rail to the ,Ameri-
can consumers has been reduced from $3.50 to
less than one-third of that sum and the value
of labor (the foundation stone of American
prosperity has been maintained. Could these
remarkable results have been accomplished
uuucT IL pollCy Ahclo 10
to prove it. The British free traders them
selves do not believe it or they would not have
opposed our protective tariff The burden OF
proof, therefore, falls upon American free
traders, and no one will envy them their job.
If we could eat our cake and still have it
on hand for future luncheons, then deducting
$2S ton from $42 leaves $14, the price at
| u. 4
to sell his product, out of which would have
to come not only the cost of production, but
the ocean and inland freights. Ii cannot be
done. If the tariff ON steel was repealed, and
British steel rails were sold in America al
such rulnously low rates. 1t would be with the
malign and selfish purpose of breaking dowr
American competition, a result to be an,
ticipated from past experience. Whether at
tempted or not, and whether successful or not
there would be one resultant in either event
and that would be blow at the American
wage system. Wages would have to com,
down, and that means turning back the dia
of American progress.
No intelligent citizen honestly believes tina
American labor unprotected would be re
spected in its rights by English manufacturers
They believe the world is their market, ant
they propose to conquer it regardless of th
local result on labor. In this way free trad
means low wages in England and, as result
ant, low wages everywhere else. There is M
escape from this conclusion, based, as it is
upon the laws of cause and effect.
This is not designed as an argument for al
impost duty of $2S a ton, or any other specifi
sum, upon steel rail. That is one of the de
tails for congress to determine. But as
matter of settled American policy, the peopl
have pronounced over and over again in favo
of protective tariff for the encouragement
of American industries, and the facts to whicl
we have alluded illustrate and fully sustain
the wisdom of the American people upon thi
great economic question.
GOdIove $. Orth.
When Mr.. ORTIZ left Washington for hi
Indiana home at the close of last session, ther