The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-07
THE TARIFF AND Low PRICES.

is driven to admit that the free traders and
tariff-for-revenue people are in the right.
Does this follow? What makes the price of
any manufactured article? ~ The raw
material at the factory. e. The work and
| labor bestowed. (3) Transportation to the
place of sale. a. From the first step to the
last each man through whose hands the
article passes has right to fair pay for his
| labor and a margin for profit. What makes
the prosperity of any nation? All or some
of the profits summarized in No. f.
In prosperous nation, the planter
of cotton, the wool-grower, the farmer,
are all busy. Each manufacturer is work
ing full quota of hands; each hand is pur
merchant, who, in turn, buys from the
farmer, and so the ceaseless hum Of trade
goes on. Every industry is full of life.
Home production of enough for home con-
sumption, and OF surplus to be marketed
abroad means prosperity.
Almost every article of daily use is
cheaper now than it was before the war.
Yet there was tariff then as well as now.
Things are cheaper now than in 1862, 1868
and 1864. Yet the reduction in price is not
due entirely either to removal of the tariff
or to an increase in its rate
The implied argument of Enquirer" is
that a decrease in prices from any cause is to
be desired and means prosperity. Is
that true? Let us turn to the records and see.
Any era will do that gives good example.
| In 1919 the price of -four had fallen (since
1910 from $40 to SIS barrel down to S. or
Sc per barrel; tobacco from $14S in 1917 TO
S11O in 1919 and SIS in 1922 There was
like depreciation in other crops. Did pros
| perity follow? Not all The people could
not purchase manufactures; they could not
discharge their obligations. Every branch
of industry was paralyzed. Ships could
neither be employed nor sold except at ruin
Gus losses 'Rents and the value OF all real
estate were enormously deprecated. Farms
were mortgaged or sold at one-half and one
third of their value. Factories and work
shops were everywhere closed. # y Null
ttudes of hand-craft workmen entered into
competition with the cultivators of
of agricultural labor, for which there was no
longer Market" The number of persons
thrown out of employment was estimated at
from 40 900 to 10000, the number deprived of
900. A committee IN Philadelphia reported
that since 1916 in 80 out of 60 branches
of manufacture there had been a reduction
in the number of persons employed from
6, 425 to 2,137, in their weekly wages from
$58 $40 to $12, 800, and in their annual earn
ings from SIS, 033, 100 to 5000, IA; loss of
wages So. 366, 935 per annum. A report from
Pittsburg showed that in the steam-engine
factories the workmen were reduced from
300 to a. and the value of the work from
$500, 900 to S4O00 In the manufacture of
cotton, wire, umbrellas, yellow queensware,
pipes and linen, there was no longer single
hand employed. A memorial to Congress
said: every man sees and feels that the
excessive use of foreign goods has brought
destruction, and that nothing short of per-
manent and ample patronage to our own
manufacturers can afford any relief. The
fallacy of buying at the cheapest market no
longer stands in our way, nor will Congress
be again alarmed with the danger of impos-
ing regulations upon trade" In
this year, 1919, the price of domestic
cottons was 81 cents a yard, cents below the
price of 1916. Increased duties were asked
for IN 1920 upon number of leading articles,
and the great disparity between the Ameri-
can, and British tariffs upon several i'm
portant articles of manufacture was shown,
the United States ranging from ~ to &c. and
the British from Az to 755 ad valorem.
The tariff from 1916 to 1920 was 81 per cent;
from 1920 TO 1924 Sc per cent. The country
became More prosperous under the increased
tariff The true object OF wise tariff is not
primarily to decrease prices; not to produce
revenue, but to protect and encourage and
render prosperous every kind of home in
dustry, and by so doing to make every branch
of mechanical and manual labor profitable to
the laborer. There must be mutual pros
perity in all branches of industry. The
tariff by its effects, benefits the whole nation.
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AT recent meeting of the Medico-legal
Society of New York city, District Attorney
George B. Corkhill read an interesting paper
on Insanity as Defense for Crime" He
adverted to the difficulty, even of adopts in
diseases of the mind, in defining what insan-