Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1888-10-05
ENGLAND AND GERMANY.

Protective Tariff the Cause Of Prosper
ity-some Comparisons Drawn.
Robert Ellis Thompson: The greater
the variety of industry in any country
the greater Me association among its
people IN mutual service, the more effec-
tive labor will be in producing those
things which minister to human nee is.
and the higher will be its rewards. Take
the case of England and Germany. Eng.
land is far ahead OF Germany in the at
tainment of varied industry. Ii she
had not sacrificed her agriculture to the
ambition to manufacture for the world
she would now be ahead of the world in
this respect and she would be paying
the highest wages of any country in the
world. But how did she reach the point
she now occupies In industrial develop.
mentP Not by free trade. Five centu.
ries ago che was the poorest and least
developed country in west Europe and
had nothing but an impoverished agrl-
culture, which hardly sufiiced to keep
her $500 900 people from starving,
Then she gave up free trade and adopt
ed fret prohibitory and then protec-
tive tariff, in which she pelseyered until
date within the recollection of many
OF my readers. The fruits of five hun
dfed years of protection and not OF forty
years of free trade are seen in the vast
manufacturing system which gives en-
ployment to millions of the English peo.
pie, while the desertion of the protective
policy Is bearing fruit in the decay OF
the home market and the sufferlngs OF
east London under the sweating system,
Germany. on the other hand, was not
nation until but yesterday, and had
no common fiscal policy until her great
protectionist economist, Friederich
List, began the establishment OF the
Customs Union (Z0lt0ereSn) in 1878.
She had derived some benefit from the
exclusion of British wares from the
continent by Napoleons policy, and to
save what she had gained she had to
secure common protective tariff by q
union which was independent of those
iiues of political division which cut up
the country Ipto 1877 sovereign states.
England did her best to break up the
union, and used her grip upon Hanover
to keep the northwestern states out oi
1T. But 1887 she lost Hanover, and the
| whole OF Germany entered the union
| Its policy was moderately protective un.
| tai 1864 when the persuasions of Ger
man economists who taught English
| theories in the universities, and the ex-
| ample OF France in 1860 (Cobden treaty
carried the country over to free trade
For fourteen bitter years the manufao
turers of Germany were given over TO the
mercies Of British competition, with the
most disastrous results. Even the ex
traction OF the 81 ,0C0,000,000 of war in
demnity from France in 1871 did moi
suffice to maintain the currency OF the
country; and the wretched condition oil
| the wage earners in the great cities made
It casy work for the social democrats te
enlist them by tens of thousands in the
plans OF a violent revolution in which the
| rich and poor we're to be put on The
same footing.
In 1878 Biemarck saw the mistake thu
| country was making and threw his FREE
trade advisors over. The national lib
erals were the party OF free trade and OF
the kullurkampf. They had control o.
the ministry and of the majority of the
reicbstag. He declined to follow theil
free trade policy any farther and sheil
| statesmen resigned from Office. England
besouRht and implored them to stand
| firm for free trade, bat the party spill
| into two sections, one of which stuck tc
free trade while the other followed Bis
marck. In his speeches vindicating his
new departure Bismarck appealed tc
the example of American prosperity
under protection, declaring that was
worth more than English theories as
guide to statesmen. 1t is not quite ter
years since Germany returned to pro.
lection. The result has been grea,
improvement in the condition of the
laborlng classes. Wages have risen and
are still rising. the flood of emigration
flows less rapidly. and the growth of the
party of revolution has been checked
That wages have not yet risen to tn,
English level is exactly what protec
tionists would have predicted. The,
will not reach that level until Germany
gets much nearer to that balance of th,
industries which Jefferson was the frs
to indicate as the proper condition OF
prosperous country.