The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1888-04-19
NEEDS OF THE NATION,
PROTECTION SHOWN TO BE A
BATCH OF FALLACIES.

PROTECTION SHOWN TO BE A
BATCH OF FALLACIEs.
Senator Vance Reviews Argum ents
Made I'm Favor of Pretection-Pro-
tectionism Confutes Itself.
From the Baltimore San.
ARTICLE f.
MHaving somewhat lengthily discus
sed the injustice, inequalities and dam
gerous tendencies of tariff taxation,
even under the most favorable and
well guarded conditions, we will now
examine what is said in its favor.
The pretensions made for it are most
remarkable. They frequently do not
stop at the absurd, but approach the
miraculous itself. If one-half that is
claimed for it be true, there should be
no excuse for poverty or suffering on
earth for there is no nation so slow
in civilization and intelligence but its
statesmen could enact high tariff laws
or prohibit altogether any trade with
foreigners and that, in the opinion
of protectionists is the secret of the
whole process of national wealth. And
what a cruel and uIjustifable thing
we did when we sent a feet of war
ships to open by force the exclusive
policy of Japan to the commerce of
the world! She was merely imitat-
ing our own policy in giving her own
manufacturers a home market, and
trying to get rich by trading with
each other
What are the claims put forth by
friends of protection? Let me men
tion a few, with the understanding
that nobody is permitted to laugh.
They say-frst, that it encourages our
infant manufactures that without it
they could not compete with the pau
per labor of Europe that it raises
the price of labor; that it raises the
price of the farmers products that it
lowers the price Of manufacturers pro-
ducts that it raises revenues by tax
ing the foreigner who brings IL the
goods; that it keeps our money at
home and maintains the balance of
trade in our favor. Whilst it does
all this, they say at the same time it
is not tax at all, and that the tariff
duty does not enter into the price of
the article of which it is imposed 1t
is mere pretense of taxation, kind of
commercial fiction or man of straw, like
John Dec and Richard REQ, and the
confession of ''lesse. entry and our.er"
in the old action of electment, by
which the foreigner is elected from
our market and made to pay our tax
es out of his own pocket, whilst our
own people obtain a judgment of the
court that they shall buy everything
cheap and sell everything dear! After
so many political economists and al
legged statesmen have asserted these
things in behalf of protection, what
right has any man to laugh at the
claims of the most pretentious patent
medicine ever advertised? l don't
believe l ever saw one which profes-
sed that it could kill man and re-
store him to life by swallowing for
one and rubbing outwardly for the
other purpose. Yet greater thing
than this is claimed for protection.
It reduces prices to the consumer, and
it increases prices to the producer; it
PROTECTS the manufacturer because
the duty added to the cost OF the ar
Gle enables him to compete with the
foreigner, but as the duty is not added
to the cost of the home-made article
the consumer pays no more than he
would if there was no duty at all, and
in fact he gets the article cheaper.
Let me illustrate: It costs in Eng
land twenty cents to make yard of
flannel where labor is cheap and wool
is free. In America, where labor is
higher and wool is taxed fifty-six per
cent, it costs thirty cents to make q
yard of same flannel. The Amer
lean manufacturer says he can't COM
pete, and the Englishman is bound to
undersell and drive him OUT of the
business. This is undoubtedly true,
for simple arithmetic proves it. Very
well. A duty OF fifty per cent. is then
placed on the Englishman's flannel;
this enables the American to turn the
tables on his rival and undersell him.
How so7 Simply because the duty
of ten cents yard being added to the
foreign article makes it cost thirty
cenIs also, whilst cost of transporta-
ton raises it above the cost of the
home article. So far nobody disputes
the plain arithmetic of the case. But
after the conf umer has paid many
millions of dollars-not for flannel,
but to support the home manufactur-
er in losing contest-he at last gets
tired of being taxed for another mans
pocket and proposes to remove some
of it; then the fignres which we have
known and trusted from childhood
begin to lie. The consumer is told
that he is altogether mistaken that
he is not taxed at all that the duty
is not added to the price of flannel
and assures him in proof of it that he
never bought fannels SO cheap before!
Nay, sometimes, when his blood is up,
he will go so far as to say that he
makes fannels cheaper than the En-
glishnian, and he can beat him at
his own gsme any day Now any
man in his senses will say that there
is lie somewhere in that statement.
There is bound to be. Either the
manufactures lies when he says the
tariff duty in whole or in part is NOT
added to the price. or he lies when he
says hc can't compete without the duty
hat is, without something that is non
existent In my opinion both asser-
tiol.s arc destitute of due exactitude"
to use the language of Spanish
diplomat. My observation has been
that In matters touching the tariff and
their profits under it, the reputation