Morning journal and courier., 1885-02-05
Thursday, February 5, 1858.
PROTECTION.

Thursday, February 5, 1855.
PROTECTION.
Some free trade journals seem to greatly
| rejoice over the fact that large manufactur-
| er of hardware desires to have all import du-
ties removed from what he is pleased to
| call 'raw material" We suppose he uses
| this term to include such manufactures as
pig iron, Bessemer steel and bar iron
| in the production of which 80 large
| an amount of labor and capital are employed.
These journals seem to think that this acces-
sion to the free trade ranks indicates an
| awakening sense that protection is not a
good thing for our large manufacturing in
terests. Apparently it indicates that the
manufacturer in question thinks he
! make more money, if he pays less for his
material.
We think it is now generally conceded, by
practical men, that so long as we must raise
a revenue, it is better to do SO, mainly, by
levying duties upon imports, rather than by
direct taxation. This being true, those who
favor such discrimination as will furnish
some incidental protection to labor cannot
quite see the fairness of taking away this
protection from the large number of men en-
ployed in making such s'raw material (O as
Bessemer steel and bar iron, for instance.
There are other considerations of great i'm
portance to the people of this country,
and to hardware manufacturers themselves.
Some hardware manufacturers of many
years experience, whose opinions are certain
ly entitled to the respect which is paid them
hu bair ofh
in this community, firmly believe that the
reason why the United States is the best
market in the whole world for their products
is that the laboring people of the United
States are better able to buy largely, because
they are better paid than foreign laborers
are. They believe, therefore, that incidental
but certain protection to labor is essential to
the greatest prosperity of the many. Think
ing men among them, however. do not lose
sight of the fact, recently alluded to by our
minister to England, Mr.. Lowell, that, if
protective duties are stricken off, we may
eventually be able to gain some of the foreign
trade in some lines of manufactured goods
which England for instance, now enjoys. But
they recognize fully that this result would be
obtained largely through generally reduced
wages to workingmen here and through de-
preston which would continue for long
time in our own markets, and they desire,
if may be, to avert disaster to both labor and
capital. Besides, they do not believe that the
temporary seeming advantage which some
consumers might gain would in the long run
be advantage even to them. They
cognize that protection tends to eventually
II.
profitable employment to labor by stimulat-
ing enterprise and opening up new fields of in
dustry. The development of the coal and iron
fields of West Virginia and the district about
Birmingham, Alabama, and the building up
of the great mills and furnaces in those vi
entities are instances, among many, which
show this. A single industry is a type of
many.
Protection has induced capital and labor
to build up and run the great steel mills of
the country, effecting reduction of more
than a hundred dollars ton in the price of
steel rails here within few years. To pro-
duction here thus resulting is also due cor
responding reduction in the price of British
rails. If English rails could to-day be
placed in our market duty free, not steel
rail mill in the country could continue in
operation. 1t is possible that, eventually,
after the bankruptcy of their owners and
higher prices for British rails should ensue,
such mills might again be started by fresh
capital. But the 1aborers formerly therein
employed would be soon forced to accept
wages approximating to those paid English
rail makers.
There are those who talk of our duty, not
only to the people of the United States, bat
to the whole world, and profess to be shocked
at the selfshness which would protect our
own 1aborers at the expense of the silk
weavers of France and mechanics of England.
But their new free trade coadjutor, whom
trade will give us a larger market-the mar
ket which has heretofore been enjoyed by
these poor French weavers and English me-
chanics. What then will become of 'sthe
poor silk weavers of France and the mechan-
les of Englands'
The whole question with which we have to
do is, as has often been pointed out before,
one of the largest expediency for the people
of the United States and not for any one
man or class. The fact that here and there
a man with a fixed salary might possibly be
able to crafty his taste for little less mon
ey by buying English cloth or French silk
trife less (for the difference would not be
nearly as great as is commonly supposedly; or
that in an exceptional case a rich manufactu-
rer might possibly, through greatly reduced
wages to the employed, be able to somewhat
extend his foreign market, does not greatly
impress the masses of the people. They see
the general prosperity that has been
attained through protection, and they know
very we'll that now and then a period of de-
preston such as comes alike to the United
States and every enterprising people is not
the result of protection. Frse-trade Eng
land is to-day suffering from depression
which has more serious consequences to the
English masses than we fully appreciate
Is it not, then, the true policy for the
United States to maintain her home market
by means of such incidentally protective
duties as will, at the same time that they per-
NIT the expectation of our surplus food
products, which brings gold to the country,
tend to prevent enormous importations of
manufactured articles which would draw
gold from the country, and this although
here and there man might, perhaps, for the
| time being, find it for his individual interest
! to have it differents