Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-10-13
TEE QUESTION.
VIEWS OF 4 CONSCIENTIOUS ENG
LTSH JOURNAL.
A Candid Acknowledgement of the
Results Of Protection Upon the
Industries ofthe United States.

| According to our friends of the Cobde
school, American commerce and American
manufactures ought to be declining rapid,
under the whitening influence" of pro
tective tariff. Instead of this, the stats
ties to which we refer show that in twent,
years the population Of the States has in
creased by SO per cent, the hay crop ha
increased l06 per cent, the cotton crop 49,
per cent, and the production of pig iror
over 1856 per cent. Railway construction
to the extent of over q 900 miles was pro
| jected last year and over $4,000 miles of il
were actually constructed in the twelve
months. What this means will be better
understood when it is pointed out that the
total mileage of railroads existing in the
United Kingdom last year is under the
p 900 planned as asingle seasons addition
to the tracks in the United States. New
rails were required for nearly 10000 miles
Of road, and upward of 100000 tons Of
! steel rails were turned out for the new
lines in course of construction. This
quantity is three times the entire turn out
of rails of all descriptions, iron and steel
| of all the mills IN the United States in the
year 1880.
Emigration last year was on an excep.
| tionally large scale. One day the number
landed at Castle Garden depot exceeded
11,000-the highest figure ever recorded in
the annals of the New York Immigration
Bureau. In fact, the stream poured in SO
densely as to tax to the utmost resources
both Of the numerous Atlantic steamship
lines and the immigration authorities OF
the Eastern ports. Many of the lines
were obliged to order their agents to cease
booking ''steerage" for time. 4 feature,
too, of last years immigration was the un-
usual number of mechanics, bricklayers,
plasterers, and maSons from Scotland
Wales, and the north of England, who
went out to the States in response to ad-
vices from the other side stating that there
ere good openings there for such handi-
craftsmen. And yet there are scores of
politicians here so blind to what is going
on in the world as to stick to the old fetish
formula that protection is more injurious
to the country that adopts it than to the
country against which the hostile tariffs
are aimed.
But for the serious consequences entailed
upon our British working classes, who feel
every day more and more the pinch of for
eign competition, it would be decidedly
amusing to note how completely every one
OF the principles assumed by the one-sided
free-trade school of this country is mega
tived by facts and falsifed by the expert
ence of commonplace business men. We
are constantly told that protection raises
the cost of commodities that hostile
tariff-as John Bright said but few days
back in published letter to one of his
correspondents-is only tax which the
community pays to support the particular
industry benefited by it. As matter of
fact, what do we find in America? Why,
their manufacturers can actually beat us
out of the field on the score of mere cheap
ness only. So far from protection enhanc-
ing the cost of their goods, they can turn
them out at rates with which we, with all
our free trade, cannot manage to compete
The Yale lock makers can afford to pay
the carriage of their goods to England and
yet undersell the Wolverhampton masters
in the very heart of the lock trade, lust as
the Belgians can quote lower rates for
angle iron delivered in Derby than the
local iron masters of the Midlands. The
Philadelphia engine makers can turn out
as serviceable a locomotive as any English
firm, and ship it all the way to New Yea
land for e600 less than the English ten
ders. In South Russia the agricultural
implement trade is said to be passing en-
tirely into the hands of American exports
in spite Of English and German competit-
ors, though the latter are nearer by 5000
miles to the local market With the ex-
ception of made-up clothing, which is dear
because labor is highly paid, and not be-
cause the duty on stuffs is so heavy, there
is not single manufactured article pro-
duced in the United States, from carpets to
cotton, from locomotive engines to steel
axes, from agricultural implements to cut
lery and Yankee notions, as many little
domestic appliances are called, which is
not as cheap or even cheaper there than
in this country.
Another of the specious truths Of the
free-tra underlies the assertion so fire.
quently made, that were industries are pro-
tected the quality Of the product is in
ferior, owing to the indifference of the
manufacturers, who fear nothing from the
rivalry of better makers abroad; and that
people have therefore to pay higher price
for worse article glance at America
will show how utterly unfounded this
assumption is. The very ground upon
which Americans beat our own and Euro
pean manufacturers in many neutral
markets is that their articles are quite as
good as those of their rivals. \ striking
instance of the progress in quality made
under the protective tariff Is furnished by
the American silk industry. Within five
years of the adoption of protection in the
United States the Government inspectors
| were enabled to report marked improve
; ment in the quality and pattern of the
| native-made silks; and within ten years
| the Washington authorities found them
selves in position to assert that, except
ing in the very finest grades of goods, this
products of the American looms were fully
up to those of France. The assertion
| indeed, of our radical theorists that, pro
lection would lead to an inferiority o
manufacture is based upon the absurd as
sumption that there is no such thing a,
local competition.
1t is fact assumed that if the foreigner
is excluded the native manufacturers. vii
Just combine to keep up prices and knock
down quality. These theorists forgot thai
the only manner in which one native firm
can push its way as against another is By
lowering prices and raising quality, pre-
cisely in the way it has been done il
America. But for this the idea Of com
peting with English and other European
manufacturers in neutral markets woulC
be an impossibility.
The sense Of humor must be renlarkabl,
deficient in some of our free-trade econo
mists, or they would see in the fgares tha
we have above quoted singular commen
tary on some of the deaEest assumptions o
Mr. Golden and his followers. Facts, how
ever, do not appear to.count with many c
these doctrinaires, or he remaskable man
ner in which the Industrial progress of tn
| United States controyerts. their economi
views would lead them to grasvely questio
the advantages to bsderived from the ons
sided fiscal policy to which this countr
stands committed. Morning Pes
-
AS a cure for sore throat and cough
Brown's Bronchial Troches " have zee
thoroughly tesSed, and maintain goo
reputation.