The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-10-02
Protectisn q Waste.
written for the psn0eratIo AdyOeate.l

Protectien Waste.
Written for the Democratic Advocated
We once heard of a farmer who had water
trough in his yard, in which the water was
not quite high enough for the convenience of
his cattle. He, therefore, hitupon the device
of raising the water by taking some out of one
end of the trough and pouring it into the
other. He reasoned that to add to the guam
tity of water in the one end would certainly
raise that, and this would ultimately raise the
water in the entire trough, although he was
drawing his supply merely from the other
end. But after working for while he found
that the quantity of water in the trough, in
stead of increasing, was actually diminishing
He was splitting some in the operation, and
his trough presently contained less water than
before he undertook to raise it.
What foolish man he was. He might
have known beforehand that, even if he could
carry the water from one end of the trough to
the other without wasting a drop, it would
not add anything to the quantity, and that it
would at once seek its old level. But he
might also have known further, that he could
not perform this operation of carrying the
water from one end to the other without vast
ing some. He would every now and then spill
a little, and so the quantity of water in his
trough would become less instead of greater.
But the folly of this man is fully equalled
by the folly of the protectionist, who would,
by legislative enactment, take money out of
the pockets of one class of people and put it
into the pockets of another class, thinking, by
this simple operation, to improve the economic
condition of all the people in the country.
For that is essentially what protection amounts
to. 1t compels the consumers to pay bounty
to the producers of certain classes of goods,
which could be purchased to better advantage
if the market were free. In this there is no
benefit to the body of the people as whole.
There is nothing added to their wealth or
their comfort; just as theiri is nothing added to
the water in the trough by dipping some out of
one end and pouring it into the other. But
there is not only no addition to the wealth of
the people-there is a positive loss. For, in the
first place, there is required an army of officials
to enforce the law and collect the duties; and
these, but for the law, would be engaged in
some kind of productive employment, that
would add something to the national wealth.
But, in the second place, the law also fosters
production under unfavorable or disadvantage
GUS circumstances, and this involves waste of
labor and energy. 1t induces men to devote
themselves to forms of industry in which, by
reason of adverse circumstances, they cannot
contribute as much to the sum total of national
other form of industry.
Let us illustrate this last point. 1t would
be difficult, for example, and very expensive
to raise coffee in the United States; and the
culture of coffee has, therefore, never been
seriously attempted here. 1t could, however,
be cultivated by sufficient expenditure of
labor and capital. There are perhaps a few
localities in the South, especially in Florida,
where the coffee tree would grow and bear
fruit in the open air. In other places it could
be cultivated in hot houses But it can easily
be seen that, in these circumstances, the pro-
duction of pound of coffee would require
the expenditure of a great deal more OF labor
than is required to produce pound of coffee
in Brazil, in Arabia and in Java; and that
consequently the price of a pound of coffee
raised in the United States would have to be
very much higher than that at which we pur-
chase our coffee now. Under the conditions
of free trade, therefore, the cultivation of cof-
fee in the United States is impracticable.
But all this could be changed by the impo-
sition of a high or protective duty on imported
coffee. Suppose number of Southern yam
KEGS were to form. q company, and go before
Congress, and say: "Gentlemen, we would
like to engage in the coffee culture. There
are some thousands of men down there where
we live, who have no work, and to whom we
it would be adding another branch to the in
dustries of the country. and would ultimately
benefit the whole people. 1t would keep at
home the money that now goes out of the
country for coffee, and the labor that is now
done in Arabia and in Java would be done on
the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. But, gen
tlemen of Congress, we can never compete
with foreign coffee growers on condition of
free trade. We must have protection. If,
therefore, you will impose a tariff of say fifty
or seventy-five cents a pound on imported
coffee, then we will be able to engage in the
enterprise, and help to build up the industries
of the country"
Suppose Congress should listen to this plea,
and impose the tariff. Then fifty millions of
people would pay fifty or seventy-fve cents
pound more for their coffee than they have
been paying hitherto, and perhaps hundred
capitalists with ten or twenty thousand labor
ers would engage in the culture of it. Would
this be benefit to the country? Would it
improve the economic condition of the people?
We think not. On the contrary, it would be
a positive economic waste. 1twould no doubt
be a good thing for the few capitalists at the
the head ofthe enterprise. These would soon
grow into millionaires, but it would be at the
expense of the wealth and comfort of the
whole people. And even the few thousand
laborers who might be employed in the in
dustry would not be benefited. They could
be employed more profitable for themselves
and for the whole country in the cultivation
of cotton, rice, sugar and oranges. A pro-
tective tariff on coffee, then, would not increase
but diminish the means of happiness of the
whole people.
1t may be said, indeed, that this is an ex.
IRENE case, and that the protected industries
are not all of the character of the coffee cul-
ture This we admit. The case is an ex-
IRENE one, but it illustrates the principle of
protection. As far as any duty on any class
of goods is really protective, it acts precisely
in the way in which protective duty on coffee
would act. 1t makes few millionaires and
impoverishes the masses of the people. Any
industry that really needs protection can only
be carried on at loss to the people, and had
better be abandoned. We claim, however,
that there are very few that need it. There
is, for instance, no more reason why the iron
trade should be protected, than why bonus
should be paid to the farmer for raising wheat.
LUX.