New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1886-07-24
THE LATEST TRICK.

Here is one deception going ABOUT uaIly 10
defraud the innocent and unwary, which may
rs well be exposed. When any defender OF Il
protective tariff makes motion in Congress,
the free trade journals with one consent call
him 81 high protectionist.' The object Is to
cheat the unwary into the notion that those
who oppose him are only moderate or ordinary
protectionists, and complain only of the height
of his protectionism. The men who never DIRE
to ayow their real belief or aim, who 90 about
continually pretending to be hat they are not
and to want what they do not, and who
never get so furious as wlen an homes t
man calls them by their right name, have made
three or four names 80 odious already by steal
ing and wearing them, that it is almost an
insult to apply them to anybody. Time was
when they assembled with flourish of trUmDcts
and organized Free Trade " clubs or leagues,
and considered themselves too brave to
associate with people who dill not like that
name, and yet, as Mr. George has shown, they
were in fact spurious free traders all the
time. They never meant real free trade, but
only British free trade. Presently that name
began to smell bad, and then they called them
selves "revenue tariff men just long enough
to make that phrase odious. Next they made
the name of tariff ref0rmers as odious as the
same persons and others, by the same abuse,
have made the name @civil service refcrmcrs."
Now they are trying to get themselves called
moderate prOtectionists or ordinary protection
lists, and any man who opposes their devices
they call a high prOtcctiOnist. These dodgers
are perfectly aware that they have become SO
offensive to the country that their only chance
IL I'm nratpnl tn be some body else.
A protective duty is protective, whether it is
high or low If it sullices to. build up a home
industry and to defend it against Gripping
foreign competition, though it be only 10 per
cent it is as truly protective and to all genuine
protectionists as satisfactory as if it were ten
times as much. But if it does not suffice to
build up a home industry or to defend it
against cripping foreign competition, it does
not protect, whether high or low and in that
case the higher it is the worse it is. The duty
of lawmakers is to frame law which will
honestly do the work for which it is advocated,
and If any duty called protective is not high
enough to protect. there is not genuine pro-
ectionst who will not say that it ought to be-
either made high enough or else abandoned.
If a duty does build up home source OF supply,
it insurcs cheapncss in the end. If it is just
low enough not to build up home source of
supply, it burdens the people as far.as it posi-
by can, without doing any good. Whether
nigh or low, i'll that case it is Il nuisance, and
ought to be raised or abolished.
The word high" therefore, invOlvesIa de-
ception. There is no high protection, and no
low protection man either believes in pro-
lection or he does not. Just now the country
is cursed with a set of men who want British
free trade, or spurious free trade" but have
not pluck enough to say so. These are the men
who are pretending that they are as much in
favor of protection as anybody, but they are
not high prOtcctiouists.' The plain truth is
that they are not honest, and that is the only
difficulty.