Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1884-05-18


demand that such duties be laid on ex-
ports as will prevent domestic manu-
features from abroad and thus secure
to us the promised benefits of the home
market"
ask prOtectioniss who advance
this argument of ultimate low prices
will you be willing ten or fifteen years
hence when the state of things de-
scribed has been rea he'd to compel the
fultillment of the promise you make
to-day by so amending the constitu-
ton as to authorize congress to place
an embargo In the shape Of duties on
the expectation OF our manufactured
products?
Mr.. Chairman, common intelligence
was never insulted by a more fragrant
solecsm than that tariff duties lower
prices. This sort of reasoning, how
ever, reveals the desperate poverty of
argument to which protectionists are
reduced. To compress the outrageous
absurdity into single sentence, they
ask that laws be enacted to raise prices
and then justify the laws on the ground
that they lower prices.
Closely allied to this fallacy, that
tariff duties lower prices, Is the argu-
ment that protection cOmpensates those
upon whom its exactiOns are laid by
the increased home demand which It
creates for their products This home
market argument Is addressed mainly
to the farmers, and proceeds upon the
theory that protection diversifies our
industries and thus engages i'm manu-
featuring pursuits persons who would
otherwise devote themselves to agri-
culture. To this there aretwo obvious
and conclusive answers:
First. Agricultural classes are not
the DULY ones upon whom the exac-
tiOns of protection are laid. The count
less multitudes of laborers employed in
other pursuits of life are equally VIC
tins. Professional men of all kinds,
merchants with their innumerable
clerks and assistants, and the thou
sands employed in all the varied agen
cies Of transportation, are forced to
bear their parts of the burdens. The
mechanic who pushes the plane and
drives the hammer swells the cruel
tribute by the enhanced prices he is
compelled to pay, not only for the
clothing for himself and family but for
the implements of his trade. Without
going further into details, let each in
dividual of the classes enumerated de-
duct for himself % per cent. from the
prices he pays for clothing, household
furniture, implements of trade-in a
word, for all the manufactured goods
he uses-and he will then have an APP
proximate idea of the amount he con-
tributes to the manufacturers fund.
The second reply to the home-mar-
ket argument is that the alleged adj
vantages of protection i'm this respect
are in no measure attributable to its eX-
| actions fhn 10 hoan1
upon the idea of eguivalency, before II
can be allowed any force 1t must be
shown that the advantages which pro.
lection brings to the farmer In the way
of providing home market for his
products are in some measure common.
surate with the contributions 1t eXacts
from him.
BY an equal per capita distribution
among all the people of the United
States of the excessive eXactiOns of pro-
lection, as / have computed them, the
proportion of these exacti0ns paid bv
the farmers would be $473.Sl0 100
Now what are the farmers protited by
the increase which protection makes
to the home demand for their products9
Let me concede what no one, of course,
could claim, that this increase is the
aggregate of the agricultural products
consumed by the employees in the pro.
tected industries, and then how stands
, the account?
The estimated value of farm products
In 1850 was $2,2l2 $40 927. OF these
$685. 1861, 1877 We're exported, leaving to
home consumption 81 ,526, 672. 100 The
, whole number of laborers, including
those dependent on them, to whom
, manufacturing, mining and mechan-
| lcal industries furnished employment
| was 7,7ll 1888, being 1887 per cent. OF
| our population. This percentage OF
farm products consumed at home
| would be $234, 64S,5l5. So that the &C
, count for the year 1850 of the farmers
against protecticu would stand thus
70 exactions so, 72t
ny nome market '...,-......,..,..". ll,0tS,5 lf
Baan $3.50 1872 2li
) 1t, therefore, the farmers of the
: country were relieved of the burdens
, of protection they could suffer to rot in
, their fields every dollars worth of their
: products now consumed by all the EN-.
ployes in all the manufacturing estab
! lishments in all the land and still be
gamers to the extent $3.50, 262, 2l4 an.
J nually.
, But, sir, 1t is not protection that Sc
} cures To the farmers the home demand
3 they have for their products or any
, considerable part of il.
The persons invited into manufac-
turing employments by high tariffs
r are not all drawn from agriculture; on
the contrary, by far the larger part are
diverted from commerce., from naviga-
ton, from land transportation, and
T other pursuits. The diversion of these
I persons into manufacturing industries
does not add anything to what would
Q otherwise be the home demand for
: farm products.
8 Again, let it be remembered that q
! large part of the manufacturing indus.
I Tries OF the country would be carried
on without the aid of protection, not,
: IT Is true, with such enormous gains
Q to the manufacturer, but still at rea.
sonable profits. Nature has provided
l Tor America manufacturing resources
!. unsurpassed by those Of any other
1 country. We have Il healthful and
+ temperate climate, food supplies can be
8 produced nowhere else ut lower cost
: inexhaustible mountains of coal and
iron abound here in close proximity.
!, Nor does an ocean lie between us and
, the raw materials Of cotton and wool.
The southern states now produce more
D than one-half of the entire cotton crop
$ OF the world. while Texas and other
Q parts of the Union can vrow wnnI I; !,