The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1890-03-29
RESULTS OF PROTECTION.

CWceu Cue pTaCticai duu lue IneofeSieai
free trader, says the S. r. Chronicle.
The latter is constantly assuring peo-
pie that the tendency of protection is
to repress production, and that the
United States can never become ali
exporter of manufactured products on
large scale until it adopts the free
trad policy. He points triumphsntly
at our table of exports, and asks US to
contrast it's figures with those of Great
Britain. But he fails to note the fact
that all our energies are taxed to sup
ply the demand of a rapidly increasing
home market, and to draw from it the
sensible Inference that we are not ex-
porting, because we do not need to do
so. In other words he is too obtuse to
perceive that nations, like individuals,
do not go abroad to find customers
when they have them at their doors.
If the theoretical free-trader is be-
fogged on this point his practical
brother is not. By practical free
trader we mean an Englishman who
recognizes that his country has gained
such headway in the business of man
ufacturing many articles that no pro
lection is needed. Free-traders of this
kind sometimes see with great clear.
ness of vision the effects of protection,
and not having any theories to har-
monte they speak the truth as they
understand it. Among these practical
free-traders we may include the editor
Of the Iron and Coal Trades Revieso
of London, British publication rec
ognized as authority when the prod
uc.s named in its title are under dis
cussion.
In a recent number of this English
journal we find an article on American
iron which will probably astonish some
of our theoretical free traders. The
writer says:
a dozen years ago the production of pig
iron in the United States was only about
$500, 600 tons as against $500, 600 tons
produced by Great Britain; now America
has become almost as great producers of
pig iron as ourselves, for our own output
last year was under 5000, 600 tons-the
largest on record-and it can onlv be a
question of time when she will outstrip us
in the production OF crude iron, as she has
already outstrlpped US in the production of
Bessemer steel. The rate at which the iron
industry has developed during the last de-
cade in the United States is unparalleled in
the history of modern industrial develop
ment, and that the progress thus made is
destined to continue for many years to
come-perhaps in an even greater ratio-is
shown by the large number of metallurgical
enterprises which are now coming into ex-
isterce in the Southern States.
Eere is unequivocal testimony that
protection has not repressed the iron
industry, for the admission is candidly
made that we will shortly outstrip
Great Britain in its production. The
writer, too, does not share the free
trade theorists opinion that protection
will prove an obstacle to the business
of exporting iron and its products, for
in the next paragraph he distinctly af-
firms that exports must follow as re-
suit of protection. Here is his Ian
guage:
At this marvellous rate of progress, and
fostered as the industry is by rigid sys.
tenn of protection, it would be strange if
America were not in a position soon to sup
ply all her own wants in the matter of pig |
iron. Indeed, she will be able to do very
much more, and it cannot be doubted that |
at no distant date We shall have to compete
with American iron IN markets which we
are now apt to regard as almost exclusively
our own. That is the plain lesson of the
present vast expansion of the American
iron industry.
Not only does the free-trader admit
that protection has wonderfully sLimu.
lated production, and that it will re-
suit in an export trade; he has also
discerned that it has cheapened the
process of manufacturing to such an
extent that even with the advantage
Of low priced labor which England en-
Joys she cannot long successfully COM
pete with US. This is the way he ex-
presses that idea:
Americans are not only greatly improv.
ing, but reducing the cost of their processes
If manufacture, and that, although wages
ire still considerably lower here than in the
United States, thi advantage, for the rea-
ION mentioned, is not so great as it may
eem. We are, therefore. forced to con.
dude that, just as in the case of crude iron,
teel and certain descriptions Of manufact. {
lred iron, the United States will shortly be
ompletely independent of US in other re.
poets. That market-valuable as it nm
loubtedly was but few years since-is be- !.
oming of less Importance to us day by
ay.
We do not fancy that the Logic of {
acts will be accepted by our college
rofessors as more conclusive than the
eautlful theories of the textbooks,
ut common sense people will be apt
} think that American statesmen were
,stifed in adopting the protective
7stem when the results which the
ron and Coal Trades Reuiew pre-
lets shall have been reached, as they
i'll be at no distant day. ;,
There has been a little wrangle in u
le Republican party in Portland be- Il
Feen two factions, one led by Joseph t.
mon, the professional politician and 81
ire-puller, and the other by James is
otan. The county committee con- p
SITS of seven members, and by reason "
the death of Hon. Marion F. Mul- al
y a vacancy has occurred. Mr.. ell