Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-02-27
Protection and the American LabOrer


tariff which has ever been uttered. 1t
attacks the protectionists on both TANKS
and in the centre at the same time, utter
IL and completely routing them, and
leaving them absolutely no ground upon
which to make a stand. 1t literally
drives them into their old recesses, from
which retreat they are powerless to do
more than fire blank cartridges of dog
matte assertions, and old, worn out, oft
repeated arguments, so called
The Senator bases his argument upon
four propositions: % Money levied
upon the people for the support of the
government is taxation" C2) Money
levied upon the people for the support OF
the government in proportion to the
ability of each citizen to pay is Just taxa
ton" % money levied on each citi-
zen for The support of the government IN
proportion TO his ability to pay in such
manner as TO put most money into the
Treasury and with least direct and indi-
rect waste, is both jysi and rise taxation.
But (D money levied on the people not
for the support of government but for
the benefit of a particular class of men
at the expense of another is not taxation,
but robbery" Then having made these
axioms the foundation of his argument,
the Senator goes on to show that the
term robbery" as applied 10 protective
legislation is not his, but that of the Su-
preme Court of the United States, which
in rendering its decision in the case of
The Loan Association VS.. City of To
peka," 20 Wallace, uses these words:
''To lay with one hand the power of
the government on the property OF the
citizen, and, with the other, bestow it
upon favored individuals to aid priUGte
enterprises, and build up p7iUate fortunes,
is none the less robbery because 1t is done
under the forms of law and is called tax
alton"
Here it is seen that the Senator is justi-
fed in the apparently harsh term used
by the highest legal tribunal known to
the country, for while a protective tariff
is not, perhaps, literally understood as
taxation, it is, nevertheless, strictly so.
It imposes a tax upon foreign imports
so as to enable domestic manufactures
to command higher prices than the same
articles would command without such
tariff, and so every purchaser and con-
sumner of such articles are directly taxed
in the exact proportion of such protec-
tive tariff, for the direct and sole benefit
Of the protected manufacturer.
After, in this way, conclusively JUS
tifying his position, the Senator next pro-
ceeds to attack the protectionists in one of
their favorite strongholds, viz: that
protective tariff protects the American Ia
borer. He admits that protection ena-
bles the manufacturer to pay his laborers
apparently higher wages in dollars and
cents than he could do under tariff for
revenue only, but asks does he do it?
The census of 1860, when there was no
protective tariff in effect in the country,
and when the average tariff duty was 10
per cent, showed that the ratio of the
cost of labor to the cost of production
was 20 per cent. In 1870, under high
protective tariff, and when the average
tariff duty was over 43 per cent, the
proportion paid to labor was only 1871
per cent, while at the present time a
tabulated statement as to woOlens and
cottons for 1880 shows that labor in
cotton is only about % to % per cent. of
the cost of production, against 16 8 in
1860, and in wool not so much, while in
iron it is less than 10 per cent. under an
average tariff on iron articles Of 70 per
cent. There is, as the Senator well says,
no getting around or evading these
stern figures, yet he does not stop at
them. He shows that by the tariff of
1861 duties on imports were more than
doubled, and yet the ratio of the
cost of wages to the cost
of production was less that
year than under the tariff of 1916, and
since then the slight increase made does
not begin to keep pace with the increase
of the tariff. Thus it is shown by facts
and figures that the protected manufac-
turer, while doing out mere pittance
of his gains to the labOrer, so that the
latter may be induced to howl against
competition with ''the pauper labor of
Europe" plethorically lines his own
pockets, and with his gains builds lordly
mansions, so palatially furnished and
decorated as to make 1.-THE plain homes
of the unprotected look so picturesquely
shabby in the far off contrast"
Butneither does the Senator from North
Carolina stop here. He continues to
expose the sophistries of the protectionlst
on this subject most numerically. He
shows that even if the protected laborer,
who is himself a consumer, received his
fair proportion of wages, he is really not
benefited thereby. Every item he con-
sumes is raised in price by the protective
duty, so that in the end the apparent
increase in his wages is consumed by the
increase in price of the necessaries of
life, and eventually finds its way to the
pockets of the manufacturer.
While, however, the protected laborer
may receive some slight benefit from
protection, or, in other words, is not so
badly oppressed by it as is his unpro-
tected brother. he is very minute pro
portion of the great army of American
working men, who derive no benefit
whatever therefrom. AS the Senator
says, according to the idea of the protec-
tionists, no man is an American laborer
'unless he stands at a New England
spindle, or in Pennsylvania iron forge.
or at some cotton OF wooden loom"
Where, he asks, are the masons, carpenters,
joiners, railroad hands, canal diggers,
workers in the cotton fields of the South,
or in the grain fields of the West, the
teamsters, herders, millers, shoemakers,
printers, timers, tanners, bod carriers,
painters, carriers, draymen, and others
too numerous to mention, which consti-