The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1889-11-02
Easy Lessons in Protection.

The following from the Louisville
Courier-Journal is full of interest
and instruction, and ought to satisfy
every one that efree trade" as it is
called is not so terrible "bogie" as
the protection communists would
make people believe
"Mr. T. E. Willis has prepared a
series of questions and answers
which is published in the New York
World under the title of The Pro
teetionists Catechism.' In this form
are given some interesting facts and
figures bearing on the subject of pro-
lection, which ought to be as famil-
lar to the American people as the
multiplication table is to the stu
dent of arithmetic. Some of the sta
tistics given in the answers are here
summarized.
"What protectionists call British
free trade is simply tariff for
revenue. Great Britain collects at
her custom houses about 100000
600 per year, while our highest rev.
enue from customs during the civil
war was only $102,000,000.
"'British free trade has been in
existence since 1860. From the Nor
man conquest (1066) to 1850, she
adhered to the policy of protection.
From 1850 to 1860 was an era of
transition.
ga comparison of the two periods
is instructive. The greatest wealth
of Great Britain per capita, in the
period from 1906 to 1850, nearly 800
years, was 1926. From 1900 to 1910
it declined from 1926 to $3.50. In
1877, after seventeen years of a strict
ly revenue tariff, and ten years of
transition from one system to the
other, her wealth was 81, $50 per cap
tia, an increase of 5000, or so per Ct
over 1S40
From 1850 to 1860, decade
when tariff for revenue only pre-
vailed, the increase Of wealth in the
United States averaged $235 for each
inhabitant. In no decade in our his
tory has the increase of wealth been
so great in proportion to population.
This increase was greater than Great
Britain experienced in 200 years of
protection.
"Under the operation of revenue
tariff New South Wales has accumu-
lated wealth which averages 81 POS
for each inhabitant From 1840 to
1877, the wealth of Scotland rose
from $505 to 1885 per capita. The
average wealth per capita of the Uni
ted States in 1880, after twenty years
of high protection, and, in spite of
the enormous gains by immigration,
was only $940.
Protection is said TO be beneficial
to the workingmen, and British free
trade ruinous to his interests. How
far this is borne out by statistics
may be found in the following figures:
The average wealth of the rich peo-
pie of Great Britain has declined
$4,000 per head since 1910, but
their number has trebled. The av-
erage wealth of the middle class has
declined $2,170 in the same time,
but their number has doubled. The
average wealth Of the poor increased
from 1920 in 1910 to $3.50 in 1879,
without any perceptible increase in
number. Whence came the increase
in the numbers of the rich and the
middle classes? These classes were
recruited from the ranks of those be-
meath them in point of wealth. Many
of the middle class joined the ranks
of the rich, and many of the poor &C
cumulated property enough to be
ranked with the middle class or with
the rich.
1.-THE tariff rates now prevailing in
the United States can not continue
year after the falsehood that high
taxes make the workingmen pros
porous is once fully exploded. The
figures here given, collated from
standard statistical authorities show
clearly enough how utterly baseless
is such contention. Our wealth
and population are growing all the
time, and protectionists claim that
the increase is on account of protec-
tion. A comparison of our progress
in eras of high protection with the
advance of this and other countries
under a revenue tariff shows that
our progress is not because of pro-
| lection, but in spite Of it, and that
protection greatly retards the in
crease Of wealth. :