Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1883-10-05
What Protection Is.
Madison Democrat

By system of false reasoning akin
to fiatism, resting on similar soph-
istry. and rendered plausible only as
it appeals to a short sighted selfish
ness, is the doctrine of protection up
held. 1t is claimed by its advocates
that it creates capital; that it increases
wealth; that it is not taxation in
tripple-handed exaction, but is the tai
isman to prosperity in industry. 1t
is true that it operates as an artificial
stimulus to some industries. 1t builds
up wall against the importation of
foreign products and leave the many
home-consumers at the mercy of the
few protected home-producers. The
home manufacturers reap rich har-
vest for a time. The fact that a
business is made profitable by the
operation of law, tempts many
to invest their capital in it. This
diversion of capital and labor creates
an activity in the localities of the
manufactures which some mistake for
a general prosperity. But IL is only
the mere diversion of labor into new
fields which can be made profitable
only 10y the interference of the tariff
with thG operation OF natural laws.
1t is no addition to the industrial
force of the country. 1t is merely SO
much labor turned from channels it
would otherwise seek to enter, into a
production out of which profits are to
be forced by the operations of an arbi-
trary law. For the labor thus diverted
can obtain protection only by re-
ceiving larger relative compensation.
Of c.st;
come only from an increase Of the
pay for the product of the protected
lows can protection be of any benfit
to any one, When the tariff operates no
longer to enhance the price which
it is no longer benefit to the labor
employed in that branch of production.
And only as long as protection oper
ates unequally-benefittin one class
at the expense of another-iS it of
benefit to any class of producers. Its
radical. fundamental idea is an undue,
unnatural advantage conferred by
law upon one industry at the expense
of others. Hence, 1t is bOctOmed on
inequality. 1t says to favored in
dusIry: I'VE will shut the consumers
out OF the free market of the world
and compel them to buy your prod
uct. AS the tariff raises the price of
your wares, you can reap the benefit
of that augmentation. The benefit
you receive will come from the pocket
of the man who buys. What is in
his pocket is the result of his labor in
some other pursuit. BY diminishing
the results of his labor, you can en-
nance your own. The protective tar
if maker says to his favored industry:
| will enhance your gains, make your
labor bring larger rewards. But law
cannot create wealth. The only way
in which / can make your labor more
profitable is by making the labor of
other industries less profitable. In or
der to give you an Increased profit
some one else must work at loss.
In order to give you an added dollar
Il week some one else must work for
Il dollar a week less. The law by
it's operation will take dollar from
his earnings and give it to YOU
And this is slavery.
For slavery is but compelling an
other to toll that you may reap the
fruits Of his toll. Thus the whole
theory that protection rests upon is
an unjust, unnatural distribution of
the rewards of labor.
Fer this reason,--its manifest in
equality and injustice, the early pro
tectionists, men like Clay, Greeley and
Carey, regared it only as temporary
device, mere system by which bo-
muses. or forced contributions should
be paid for a very brief period, to
enable manufactures to get established,
and sustain themselves during the
experimental period until experience
should have enabled them 10 best
economihe labor and material i'll pro-
duction.
These men never had the arrogance
to demand that protection should be
perpetual, Hor even that II should
last half us long us it has. But in
these later days the protected mohop-
olies, gorged with the profits Wrung
from unprotected industries, have
captured the republican party and
made the doctrine of protection its
chief corner stone, and propose to
pcrpetuate system which makes one
class of community pay il law eXtorted
tribute TO another.