Western appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1885-18??, 1888-04-07
BENEFITS OF PROTECTION.
A Tariff Properly Adjusted Sheds Its
Blessings Over All.

blessings Over ALI
The scale of protective duties should
be so adapted as to secure the right of
every owner of land to provide for his
present wants and the future of his
family and to add to the wealth and
power of his country by developing
and bringing into profitable use all the
resources OF his estate, whether they
be the products of the farm or those
of the forest, the mine or the quarry.
The landowners of a nation, however,
are not that portion of its citizens
who are most dependent upon the
maintenance of a system of duties which
should, under all the yicissitudes of
trade and changes, in the course of
international commerce, defend their
rights; for though commercial depres-
sion may prevent them from making
profits to be boarded orexpended in the
improvement of their estates, they may
procure sustenance from them. BUTT is
not so with the 1andless millions Their
estates consist of their thegss and
sinews; of the training of th eyes
and hands to quick cooperate ctioN |;
of their taste for and aptnes
production of the attractive OrIE
texture and color; of inventi nins
which enables them, by ne
nations of mechanical princi1 q ga
applications of scien ce to the Tr "a
increase the productive power of ma
tons. These and the like aptitudes
constitute the estate of millions Of
people who are known as artists.
artisans, laborers, or by other terms of
designation; and who have the right
to demand that their estate also shall
be defended by the nation, though
their defense shall require other
agencies than the power of a navy and
army. The daily wages of these toll
ing millions are the units of measure
ment by which their estates are told,
and their means of comfort and health
ascertained. And, Irepeat it is the
duty of government so to adjust the
regulation of its trade and COM
merce as to secure its own people
whatever benefits are to be derived
from the development of the material
resourc es of the country and the con-
version of it's native raw material into
useful commodities.
A tariff adjusted to these aims
would protect every branch of indus
try, yet would not call into existence
a single monopoly. 1t would, like a
benefcient Providence, shed it's bless
ings over all, and prevent the recur-
renee of such seasons of suffering, de-
preston and want as occurred be-
tween the close of the war and the
going into effect of the tariff of 1924;
between, the overthrow of protection
by the Compromise act of 1888 and
the adoption of the tariff of 1912; or
again, such as followed the free-trade
tariff of 1916, in spite of the fact that
our gold fields had, in a single decade,
yielded 81, 100, 100000. Here was a
direct and unexpected gift from Provi-
dence, bestowed for the purpose of
proving, even to the willfully blind,
the truth that protective tariff is the
only defensive instrumentality known
to modern industrial warfare; and
that, by securing the prosperity of all
classes of the people. and thus avert
ing long seasons of idleness and dis
tress, it is, while apparently law for
the benefit of producers only, in fact
a boon to those who neither sow nor
reap, but are consumers only.-Will-
lam d ReLLeh in E0r.nr1