New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1888-05-09
The Tariff, Protecting the
Mecls02aic and Farmer.
{Continued.1

this through protection. There is not
an industry, competing for the markets
of the world, which did not begin its
career under the rule of protection, e.
g. the cotton industry of the South, the
cotton spinning of Lancashire in Eng
land, the iron and steel industry of Gen.
tral England, and Pittsburg in Penn
sylvania.
England to day upholds its influence
as the workshop of the world not
through the principle of free trade,
which, as we have shown before, al.
ready tends to otrammelits iron industry
but through the claim of priority as a
manufacturing centre, and as it pos
sessed the main control of manufacture,
through an unequalled excellencv of
machinery, equalling to day the work
of 450,0O0,000 persons, it becomes no
easy matter to wrest this attained efici-
ency from the British Lion. But if
British legislation does not recognize
the fallacy of its free trade policy, it
will witness the supremacy of all other
nations in each and every respect, for
our protective tariff, by aiding our ma
nufacturers and furthering thus their
full development, permits us to day to
defy English competition. But yet we
hear, and it is the favorite expression
of the free-trader, that manufactured
commodities are still cheaper in Eng
land than here, and they demand the
repeal of the protective tariff and the
substitution of the English system, to
enable the English manufacturers to
bring their products here free of duty
and to sell them to our farmers and la
borers at a lower price than that
charged by our manufacturers Aside
from all other points, directly to be
considered, let US ask our farmer and
laborer whether he would, if he could
wear cheap English clothes, take up
with the life and misery of British
subject; an irish peasants life for in
stance?
If we transfer the manufacture of all
these commodities from this country to
England we throw our people out of
work, and we consequently injure our
farmers home market to this extent.
1t is the profit on these commodities
and the wages we pay to labor that
make business, stimulate trade, enrich
our country, and enable our working
people to live as they do, much better
than the laboring people anywhere else
in the world. Take away this work
from our people and give it to the
people of England and what would be
the consequence ? The profits which our
now earn would be
earned there; and the wages that our
work-people now earn would be earned
by the work-people there. These pro-
fits and these wages would then go to
the people of England ssinstead of to our
own people. They would be heaped up
there, and enrich that country instead
of our own country. You would enrich
them and impoVerish us. If you do not
pay wages to our people how can they
buy from the farmerp
The next difficulty that meets us is
this: All imported goods under the
present tariff, except those on the free
list, now pay duty, and this duty takes
the place Of tax and goes toward de-
fraying the expenses of our Govern
ment. Nearly al the expenses of the
General Government are paid in this
way; and the people, including the
farmers, are relieved to this extent from
direct taxation. When you repeal the
tariff and introduce Free Trade your
revenue will cease, and you will have
to provide some other method of pro-
curing the money necessary to pay
these expenses. There is but one way
left, and that is by direct taxation in
some form or other, levied directly on
the farmer, mechanic, and others.
There is no escape from this.
The foreign manufacturer who brings
his goods here now pays duty upon
them, and in this way helps to pay our
taxes. Repeal the tariff and you then
permit him to bring his commodities in
to this country and sell them without
paying one cent of cur taxes, and you
shift the whole burden OF the payment
of these taxes upon our own people
our manufacturers, farmers, and me-
chanics.
You would certainly not adopt the
policy of England to ruin your manu-
facturers, to deprive the mechanic OF
his bread. Or would you bring him to
the level of an old-World pauper, even
recognizing that an Inauguration of free