The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1888-04-05

1t IS paid by the consumer, Tor Lnere Is
no one else to pay it; it does support
the manufacturer, for he clamors for
it and says he cannot live without it.
Otherwise we would have the strange
spectacle of manufacturer begging
for duty on goods which nobody was
to pay, which did not enhance the
price of anything he made to sell, and
which he would die if he didn't get,
and that man still at large outside of
the lunatic asylum Such are the
arguments, analyzed.
The chief equitable ingredient of a
contract is mutually; there must be
a giving as well as taking. Now
how is a farmer to be recompensed
under protective tariff? Where are
the mutual benefits in deal between
him and an iron or woolen manufact-
urer? He goes to the iron master to
buy his farm Implements the price
is fixed by the cost of the foreign ar
ticle plus the tariff duty; in other
words, he buys in restricted market.
To pay for his purchase he sells his
wheat or his cotton in free-trade
market at a price fixed in London in
competition with all the wheat and
cotton of the world. He sells in the
cheapest market and buys in the dear
est market, reversing the economical
condition which his interest requires.
Is it beneficial to him? Is it honest
or just to force him to sell for the
lowest price and buy for the highest :?
No man will say SO; and the only an
swer is denial of the fact by attemp-
ting to show that when the foreigner
is kept out, domestic competition be-
comes so great that prices become low
er than they would be without any
duty at all and, therefore, so far from
protection being a tax upon one class
for the support of another, it is, in
fact, a benefit to the man who is sup
posed to be taxed ! Stripped of its
verbiage, this simply means that the
manufacturer is a greatly maligned
man that he has no idea of taxing
the consumer by placing high duty
on everything consumed-this he does
for the purpose of reducing the prices
to the consumer-and that his ankle
ty for protective tariff is because it
is the surest and most direct way OF
reducing the price of his own wares
for his neighbor's benefit A plain
man, unaccustomed to the logic of
protection, would naturally suppose
that the manufacturer could put down
the price of his own goods, if he wish
ed to do so, without an enabling act
but it would seem not. If he could
only lower his prices under the force
of competition, it would appear at
first blush that the competition of a
foreigner would answer the purpose
quite as we'll as that of an American.
But again, it seems not. Domestic
competition alone can enable the home
with the aid of high
tariff, to so lower his prices as to
prove blessing to his neighbor. Such
being the effects, and therefore the OBJ
ject of protective tariffs, its advocates
resent with much scorn the idea of
there being any moral wrong in thus
to benefit their neighbors.
But the wrong is apparent to the COM
monest understanding, and the alb
surdity of the defense only serves to
it. It is bald and naked
system of using the taxing power of
the government for the unjust purpose
of enabling one class to enrich itself
at the expense OF another. 1t can no
more be justified in morals than in
economy; for it is happily true that
good morals and good economy agree
well together. Woe to our world if it
were not sol It is the true glory of
freedom that her institutions are based
upon great moral principles, recogniz-
ing all the essential rights of man. In
no other manner have these rights
been SO commonly violated as in the
matter of taxation. Law and advan
cling civilization have long since stop
ped The seizure of mems property Y
the strong hand. The mailed plum
derers of the middle ages have all pas
sed away, and SO have the grosser
forms of monopoly and class privilege.
But the spirit which animated them
the fierce desire to get riches by
reaping where others have sown-
still remains, and will remain until
human nature is changed. It is this
which still troubles our Israel. It is
the old foes under new faces. Tt was
the custom of the wives of the old bor-
der robbers to serve up a covered dish
with pair of spurs inside whenever
the larder was empty of beef Upon
this hint, the husbands with their
clansmen organized an armed foray in
to the pastures of the lowlands to drive
off cattle. They had one virtne in
their lawlessness, however; they told
no lies about their motives or the re-
suits oftheir conduct They confessed
that they lived by these levies upon
their neighbors; they did not declare
that it was for the good OF the cattle
breeders, and try to prove they got it
all back in the sslong run They
wanted beef, and they went and took
it, because they knew no other way
to get it. New England could have
shown them more excellent way.
She could have shown them how to
get their neighbors' cows by law, and
taught them to show how their trans
fer from The pastures of their own
ers to the larders of their captors
was no robbery, but a most admirable
process of political economy, and q
blessing in disguise ! That it increa-
sed the quantity of beef, raised the
price of beef, and reduced the price
of beef all at the same time, whilst
both robber and robbed grew rich to.