The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-11-03
nPRoTBCTEDu INDUSTRIES,

PROTECTED" INDUSTRIES.
The ST. Louis sugar refinery, the largest in the
West has shut down unable to compete with the
Sandwich Island sugar, which is admitted free of
duty.-Cineinnati Commercial.
And why should not St Louis. with the
Missouri river in front of it, be able to com
pete with the Sandwich Islands? And even
suppose that it cannot Must every breakfast
table in the United States pay two prices for
it's sugar in order to help ST. Louis refneryg
Cincinnati Enquirer.
The city of Indianapolis has large and
prosperous encaustic tile factory, built up un-
der cover of the protective tariff, but for
which it could not carry on business. Why
not remove the tariff on tiles, and let the
people of the United States buy in that mar
ket where they can buy the cheapest? Why
should the people of this country be taxed
that there should be tile factory of that de-
scription in the city of Indianapolis? And
there is building large steel mill in this
city, which will operate under the protection
of the tariff. Why not remove the duties on
steel, and let the railways of the United
States buy where they can buy the cheapest?
It is true that the removal of the duties
would result in closing these mills and
throwing hundreds of men and women out
of employment; but what if it does, so
that the people be not 'taxed" to maintain
these industriesY There are steel mills in
other cities, also. These, too, might be closed
by the same means. Thousands OF working
men would be out of employment thereby,
but things would be Cheaper to those who
had the money to buy them. The impost tax
on wooens and cottons might be removed,
and manufactured articles in those lines
bought abroad, where they can be made more
cheaply. The duty on glass, on silks, on cut
lery, on everything on which impost tax is laid,
might be done away with, and all manufact-
ured articles might be bought of others than
firms that give employment to American me-
chanics of every description. 1t must be ad-
mitted that all these things are manufactured
more cheaply in other countries that have
been longer in the trade, so that they must
be given preference over the product of the
American workingman. This, or there is
nothing in the idea of free trade. Just what
is to become of the men who would be "out
of job through the working of this theory
no free-trader has been wise enough or kind
enough to say. It is possible that they might
fall back on those callings that are not pro-
tected, (2) and some of them could become
farmers, but this at once discloses the fact
that, after all, there are no unprotected classes
in this country, for the reason that the
''unprotected' really protected from the
competition of the men who, through the
operation of the tariff, are kept in machine
shops instead of being competitors of the
farmer and other classes not working directly
behind the protective tariff. There is not
man i'll the United States who is not the ben
eficiary of this wise provision of the tariff
laws of his country. There are, in truth, no
unprotected classes. Let the tariff be re-
moved from steel, and tens of thousands of
men would walk out of the mills of Pennsyl-
vania and Georgia, and have the doors locked
behind them, for it would not longer be profit
able to continue in the business 1t is easy to
say take the tax off this or that, but the moment
it is done there is danger of the industry from
which it results being harmed beyond repair
There is side to this great question that
free traders persistently refuse to consider
But the people as whole have thought of it
in all its phases, and have wisely pinned their
faith to the American idea of protecting
American men and mills.