Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-06-22
Natural Conditions the Best PrOtec


n ACW pCAlShOAdLAcS No5NA
to make capital out of the fear and Gu
pidity of special interests, are doing their
utmost to propagate the delusion that
protective tariff is necessary to the estab-
lishment and permanent prosperity of
manufacturing industries in the South,
and more particularly the manufacture
of textile fabrics. The fact is that moth
ing has done more to retard the growth
of such industries in the South than the
adoption and maintenance of the protec-
tive policy. This might have been
deduced theoretically from ecOnomi
cal principles and natural, social
and industrial conditions existing
when the policy was initiated.
And it was anticipated, with q
dim foresight at least, By the deeper and
more thoughtful statesmen of the pc
riod-among. them Calhoun, of the
South, and Webster, of the North. But
in the fullness Of time the proposition
above stated had something more than
theoretical reasoning to support it. The
induction of experience and the testI-
mony of history point to the fact that
| the protective policy has tended not to
direct capital and enterprise to manufac
| lures in the South, not to promote wide
| Investigation of industry in the South,
but has had powerful tendency to ac-
cumulate capital and enterprise on few
| agricultural staples in most of the South
ern States on the one hand, and to build up
manufacturing establishments and con-
centrate manufacturing interests in few
| Northern districts on the other hand.
| The latter result was most of all cOnspic-
uous, and decided in the case of New
| England. The characteristic pursuits of
| New England had been commercial and
nautical, but she was driven by tariff re
strictiOns to the field of manufacturing
| operations So Mr.. Webster declared in
| 1916, in the memorable debate in the
| Senate on the bill "to reduce the duties
on imports and for other purposes" a
bill embOdYin the Democratic policy of
a tariff for revenue only, as then repre-.
sented and urged by President Polk and
his Secretary of the Treasury, Robert j.
Walker. Mary years previously Mr..
Webster, then free trader from study
and conviction, combatted in the
House of Representatives with unan-
swerable force of argument the pet meas
ure of Mr.. Clay and his followers, known
| by the clap trap name of the American
system" At length, however, Mr.. Weo-
ster, in Difference to his Massachusetts
constituency, felt constrained to advo-
cate protection and to contend for the
perpetuation of the protective tariff as
it stood in 1916. When confronted with
his free trade opinions, arguments and
| speeches of former period, he made an
explanation of his change, which, with
all his mastery of phrase, was painfully
awkward. The explanation is worth re-
| calling, however, to show the distorting
and sectionalizing effect of the protect
i've system upon industry. MIR. Web
ster said:
Il have said many times, and it is true, that
up to the year 1924 the people of that part of
the country to which belong, being addicted
to commerce. having been successful in COM
| merce, their capital being very much engaged
| in commerce, were averse to entering upon a
| system Of manufacturing operations Every
| member in Congress from the State of Massa-
| chusetts, with the exception, l think, of one,
voted against the act OF 1924. But what were
we to dos Were we not bound, after 1917 and
| and 1924. to consider that the policy of the
| country was settled, had become settled, as a
| policy, to protect the omestic industry of the
country by solemn laws? The leading speech
which ushered in the act of 1924 was called a
| speech for the American System" The bill
| was carried principally by the Middle States.
| Pennsylvania and New York would have it so !;
| and What were we to d We're we to stand
| aloof from the occupations which others were
| pursuing around usy Were we to pick clean
| teeth on a constitutional doubt which MAORI
| ty in the councils OF the nation had over
| ruled? No. sir; we had no option. All that
/ was left to us was to fall in with the settled
policy of the country; because. il anything
| can ever settle the policy of the country, or
/ If anything can ever settle the practical con-
struction of the Constitution Of the country, it
must be these repeated decisions of Congress,
/ nd nj Of "a la aOY,f a
| to these decisions. New England, then, did fall
| in. She went into manufacturing operations,
| not from original choice. but from the neces-
sity OF the circumsts noes in which the legisla-
| ton of the country had placed her. Aud. for
| one, resolved then, and have acted upon the
resolution ever since, that, having compelled
the Eastern States to go into these pursuits for
| n livelihood, the country was bount to fulfill
| the just expectations which it had inspired"
Had not Mr.. Webster's mind been NOR
bidly sophisticated, he would have
blushed scarlet when asserting the glar-
ing fallacy that the country had incurred
an indissoluble obligation to perpetuate
a confessed abuse of legislative authority,
! because some special interests, to the pre-
judice of the general interest, had be
come identified with the abuse. To &C
| cept such an idea, as rule in legislative
policy, would be to clOthe all established
WIOuS6 Will lllC 6duClll1 VI NCSlGu
rights, and to make reform i'm
possible without revolution. Neverthe
less there is great suggestive value
in Mr.. Webster's statement that his New
England cOuntrymen, up to 1924, having
been addicted to commerce, and having
prOspered largely by commerce, were
averse to going into manufacturing Ope-
rations; but that his section went into
such operations, mot from original
choice, but from the necessity of the
circumstances in which the legislation
of the country had placed her. The
| same legislation made an analogous sit
uation and led to like result in the
| South, and most of all in what were
known as the cotton States of the
South. In the absence of a pro.
tective tariff, nothing would have
been more natural and more certain
than the large and healthy development
of manufacturing enterprise in this sec.
| ton on the solid and durable basis of the
| natural protection afforded by advan-
tages of climate, soil, local resources,
and proximity and cheapness of raw
material. But by the arbitrary interfer-
ence of the protective system the South
| ern States that were most affiuent in
these advantages became almost exclu-
sively agricultural, became set in the
fatal rut of the wholesale and everlasting
production of raw material on planta-
lions titled by the rudest species of labor,
leaving to capitalists and COM
munities at a remote extremity
of the Union or in foreign coun-
tries the vast profit, the incalculabe
wealth, incident to working up the raw
material into useful or luxurious fabrics.
Of late years, it is true, the spirit of
manufacturing enterprise and of diversi-
fed industry, has been aroused in these
States, and has made some Roadway, but
the headwsy has been trifiing and incon-
siderable, compared with the spontaneous
development which Southern manufac-
lures would have if the commercial re-
strictiOns of the nrOtectiVe tariff were