St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-10-15


himself engaged in a losing business,
will some enlightened protectionist tell
us, how it will benefit the same individ-
ual to take the money, which be has
made in paving industry in Mime
sofa, and contribute it to man to ena-
bic him to maintain losing business in
Pittsburg? This is precisely what we
are doing by revenue for protection.
Let me prove to you that this is fact.
Twill suppose, to illustrate, that Eng
land manufactures cloth which is sold
upon the markets of the world, at fair
profit, for so cents yard. A man in
Pittsburg proposes to manufacture the
same cloth in his city, but he says he
cannot manufacture it at the English
price, except at loss. So he
proposes that the people, through con-
Gress. pass law that England cannot
sell her ciiGtth here unless she enters a
revenue port ana pays duty OF 20 per
cent yard On that CLOTH. England
must pay this revenue and thereby
becomes obliged to add the tariff part
to the price of the cloth, and then sells
it to an American merchant for IS cents
yard. Now, this law having passed.
the Pittsburg man need not manufac-
ture this cloth for so cents yard, which
is claimed to be at loss, but he too can
sell his cloth here for Is cents, because
no one can get it cheaper from England.
The EngliShman, however, is not in
Jured at all. He gets so cents a yard
over and above the duty, the same as he
sold it for all over the world outside OF
the United States, and so completes with
the PittSburg man for the trade of the
United States just as freely as If no
tariff existed.
THE AMERICAN MERCHANT
sells this cloth to the consumers, the
American people, for IS cents yard,
besides his profit, and thus every cent
of this protective tariff is collected as
part of the price of the protected manu-
facture from the pockets of the Ameri-
can people. 1t enables the Pittsburg
man to engage in what, without protec-
ton, is claimed to be losing business.
but it does not at all prevent the En-
glishman from competing with him for
beneficial to me as an individual to send
my good money to uphold and prolong
a losing enterprise of man in Pitts
burg than it would be to use the same
money to maintain losing business of
my own in Minnesota? Will some kind
protectionist answer this question?
And while this is as plain as the noon
day sun to any man who reflects for q
moment, some of the defenders of pro-
lection stumping the country have cheek
and audacity to shout that the tariff tax
is paid by the English manufacturerer
and not by the American people. Ii
tariff for protection is good for the
country, it is because it is beneficial to
pay taxes. Is it possible to make a
country rich by oppressively taxing its
people? To run your hand into mans
pocket and take what he has is the pro-
tectionist method of making him rich.
The benefit claimed for protection is
that it encourages American industry.
But l have already shown that it is not
all industries that are desirable; that to
maintain an industry that does not pay
its own way is helping no one. Even
prOtectionist would not seriously con-
tend that county poorhouse, and a
collection of large number of paupers,
would be decided advantage to the
county supporting it, yet the contribu-
ton to it would be no more
DEAD LOSS
than it would be to maintain any other
enterprise at loss. Suppose a man
should attempt to raise tea in Mime
sofa? IL might, perhaps, be done in
lighthouses. But it would be a losing
business. and to keep him at it, he
would need a good deal of protection.
Could it possibly be for the good of the
country to continue this man in the tea
business on the plea that it is home
industry? Would it not be better for
the fellow here to spend his time raising
wheat. and trade Off little of that with
the Chinaman for tea? This illustrates
how absurd it would be TO attempt to
Nfoft ffr 10 -
self-sustaining. And if it should hap
pen to be true that there is to-day
single enterprise or industry carried on
or maintained in the United States that
is not self-sustaining the sooner it is
discontinued, or closed up, the better
for the country. But, it is assert
ed, with the utmost defiance, that
protection is necessary to maintain good
wages to the labOring man. If this
proposition is true, itmust apply equally
to crowding us with cheap goods, be-
cause their labor is cheap. Protection,
then, if needed at all, is most needed
against countries where labor is the
lowest. But the lowest IabOr-paying
countries in the world are probably
Italy and China, and no one urges that
protection is necessary against either.
In Mexico common labor is worth from
"a to So per month. Did you ever hear
any fear from Mexico? During the
period that the Southern states of the
union were slave states, labor was cheap
any danger of the cheap goods from that
source.
The only coontry that is feared, or
against whose interest the
NECESSITY OF PROTECTION
., Dr;k 50, L.
labor paying country in the world, eX-
cept the United States. If the PROPOSE
ton is true that foreign commodities
are cheaper because produced by cheaper
labor, why are not the cheapest goods
from the countries where labor is the
lowest? Why do not China and Japan
flood the world with cheap goods? How
does it come that the low-priced goods
against which we need so much protec-
ton are piled upon US by the country
where labor is the highest? Again, if
protection has the tendency to increase
wages, we certainly must expect to find
the highest wages among those en-
plOyed in protected industries. Yet, If
there is any difference, the unprotected
industries of this country pay the high
est wages to the laboring man. And it
is about one
tenth of the laborers of the United
States that are engaged in protected in
duStries. The American farmer has got
to place his produce, his wheat, beef
and pork upon the open markets of the
world, side by side of the same products
laised by what is called the pauper
labor of Europe. The American farmer,
then, has to raise his bushel of wheat as
cheap as the bushei raised by the pauper
labor Dlaced bV the side of it. and vet
pay higher wages than are paid any
where on the average to labOrers en-
gagged in protected industries. Accord
ing to the last census the average wages
in protected Massachusetts, the greatest
manufacturing state in the United
States, was s1.02 per day. In Ohio they
.rnrn 81 nor dnIr and In CoIorndo 2.