Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1888-07-05
MORE CUSTOMERS.

What American Labor and Manufacture
Need at Present.
In sensible review of the political field
the New York Journal Of Commerce, q lead
ing business paper of the country, says:
II the politicians would stop their war
cries long enough to study the real needs
of the country they might find better ma
terial for their campaign tracts than now
fills the sheets sent out broadcast over the
land. Here is man with stout lungs cry
ing out for protection to home manufac-
turers," when any one not wholly blind
enough ought to be able to see that what
manufacturers need most is q wider mar
kst. There is not a leading industry in
the United States that cannot under a very
moderate tariff compete successfully on our
soil with any foreign producer of similar
goods if the home demand IS not large
enough to exhaust its capacity. 1t ia not
more protection but more customers that
il the crying want of the American pro-
duceIs of all classes.
The common theory of the high tariff
politician is that the American tabricaut,
owing to lighter rates of interest, great
outlay for wages and more con-
scientious attention to the quality Of his
product, ia shut out of our markets, and
is compelled to see the foreign substitute
made abroad under cheaper conditions by
half starved operatives take the place Of
the home made goods. The truth is that
whenever an American manufacturer OF
desirable goods has come to grief, 1t has
been because our markets have been
Clutted by over production and
domestic competition and he has found no
relief in the demand fer export.
The moment anything the product OF
human Ingenuity is wanted in this coun-
try there are found enterprising lubricants
enough to produce it. II no more is made
than consumers demand, the business is
profitable aud the industry is amply re-
warded. But the great popularity OF
American enterprise is mad propensity
to overdo any thing that holds ont prom
ise of profit. If our people are celebrated
for ingenious inventions, they are still
more remarkable for an insane desire to
seize for their own advantage whatever
another has found profitable. The over
production which has brought so many
corporations and capitalists to grief is seen
and acknowledged, but the remedy is
sought for in the wrong direction. The
usual course is to combine the competitors
into trust or syndicate or pool, and to
limit the output of the industry. Artificial
prices are thus created and maintained to
the disadvantage of consumers and to the
ultimate injury of the producers them
selves. The true solution of the difficulty
is not curtailment of the supply, bat an
enlargement Of the demand. Not fewer
goods, but more people to buy, is the real
need of the market.
1t is not protection" in making goods
at higher prices that this country needs,
but a wider market for its varied products
and manufacturers. There are 300, 0O0,-
900 of adults in the world outside of this
country who are buying to some extent OF
such produce and merchandise as can be
supplied from our fields and factories
Why should we let so many of our fertile
acres be barren, and work our factories on
half time, and wait for these customers to
get tired OF trading with our competitors
of other lands? Does any one say that the
worlds markets are open to Us, and that
all we have to do is to 60 in and possess
them?