The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-10-29

PROTECTION ARGUMENTS FROM ENGLAND.
1t is a mistake to suppose that all English
men are free-traders. That is, indeed, the
sentiment Of the ruling class and of a majority
of the people. but the leaven of protection is
spreading, and intelligent men who do their
own thinking are beginning to question the
wisdom of continuing the free-trade policy.
The following article. from the London Morn
ing Post, shows that these sentiments find ex-
preston at the very head center of free trade.
The Post says:
According to our friends of the Golden
school, American and American
, manufactures ought to be declining rapidly
under the whitening influence of protective
tariff. Instead of this, the statistics to which
we refer show that in twenty years the popu-
lation of the States has increased by 60 per
cent, the hay crop has increased LOG per cent,
the cotton crop 194 per cent. and the produc-
ton of pig-iron over 1856 per cent. Railway
construction to the extent of over 81, 900 miles
was projected last year, and over 10, 600 miles
of it were actually constructed in the twelve
months. What this means will be better un-
derstood when it is pointed out that the total
mileage of railroads existing IN the United
Kingdom last year was under the 81, 900
planned as a single seasons addition to the
tracks in the United States. New rails were
required for nearly 20, 900 miles of road, and
upward of 5000. 900 tons of steel rails were
turned out for the new lines in course of con-
struction. This quantity is three times the
entire turnout of rail of all descriptions, iron
and steel, of all the mills of the United States
in the year 1880.
Immigration last year was on an excep-
tionslly large scale. On one day the number
landed at Castle Garden depot exceeded
IL, O00-tbe highest figure ever recorded in the
annals of the New York immigration bureau.
In fact, the stream of new arrivals poured in
so densely as to tax to the utmQn the re-
sources both Of the numerous Atlantic steam.
| ship lines and the immigration authorities of
the Eastern ports. Many of the lines were
obliged to order their agents to cease booking
'steerage' for a time. A feature, too, of last
years immigration was the unusual number
of mechanics, brick-layers, plasterers and
masons, from Scotland, Wales, and the north
of England, and who went out to the States
in response to advices from the other side
stating there were good openings there for
| such handicraftsmen And yet there are
scores of politicians here SO blind to what is
going on in the world as to stick to the old
fetish formula that protection is more injr-
rious to the country that adopts it than to the
country against which the hostile tariffs are
aimed.
"But for the serious consequences entailed
upon our British working classes. that feel ev-
ery day more and more the pinch of foreign
competition. it would be decidedly amusing
to note how completely every one Of the prin
ciples assumed by the one-sided free-trads
school of this country is pegatived by facts
and falsifed by the experience of common
place business men. We are constantly told
that protection raises the cost of commodities;
that q hostile tariff-as Mr.. John Bright said
but a few days back in a published letter to
one Of his correspondents-is only a tax which
the community paws to support the particular
industry benefited by it. As q matter Of fact,
what 90 we find in Americai Why. their
manufacturers can actually beat us ont of the
field on the score Of mere cheapness only. Sc
far from protection enhancing the cost of their
goods, they can turn them out ct rates ct which