The Bottineau pioneer. (Bottineau, N.D.) 1885-1895, 1890-08-16
PROTECTION---pRICES.
THE TENDENCY TO LOWER PRICES
Is GENERAL.

Lne IrOtectlOn1SCS claim Ihat 1t L. the
Tariff That Does 1t, but the Figures
Of the Treasury Department Show the
Same Decline in the Prices Of Imports.
The report on Foreign Commerce
and Navigation" recently issued by the
treasury department, gives some highly
interesting figures as to the general de-
cline Of prices Of goods imported into the
country.
One Of the cheapest tricks Of the pro-
t~ectionists is to call our attention to the
decline in price of some domestic arti-
Gle, and say, ."See there. What a good
thing protection isl" The simple souls
fancy that if the price Of any article
happens to go down after protective
duties have been imposed, nothing but
protection could have caused this de-
cline, and eve the champion protec-
ZIONIST himself, Secretary Blaine, claims
that the general effect OF protection is to
lower prices. But it is evident that the
protectionists will have to adopt some
more trustworthy method Of proving this
statement. It will not do to point to
prices when the duty was first imposed
and prices at the present time. That
method simply proves nothing at all, for
in nearly every department of human
endeavor there have been improvements
of processes and Of machinery which, as
can easily be shown, have had an enor-
NOUS influence in bringing prices down.
When a machine has been invented
which will do the work Of ten men we
shave a factor which cannot be ignored
in estimating the of lower prices.
Improved processes and machinery are
things whose effects can be accurately
measured; the effects of protection can
never be stated In dollars and cents, and
a at best only be guessed at, even by
protectionists themselves. In the absence
Of anything tangible they ''clahm every
get hold Of a price list of some line Of
domestic goods they fondly point at how
the tariff has brought down prices.
A protectionist Of this stamp is Mr..
T. j. Clark, who was a delegate to the
recent Illinois Republican convention.
Mr.. Clark is a farmer who fancies that
protection has done a great deal for him.
In this convention he made a speech to
his fellow protectionists, and among
other things he pointed out the beauties
of protection in the following luminous
words: 1.-The blankets under which I
sleep, that cost me $12 per pair fifteen
years ago, a be bought today, the same
weight and kind, for SO per pair. Cotton
and dress goods have decreased in price
since 1860 in like proportions. The ak l
use cost me seventy-ive cents-a better
Ak in every respect than the one my
father bought in ~ for a So bill. The
wagon l use cost me $50, and a better
wagon than my father bought during
the good old Democratic free trade days
Of 1866 to go for $40"
That may be very convincing to the
simple, childlike faith" of a man like
Mr.. Clark; but what would he say when
it is pointed out that the prices of nearly
all foreign goods have declined in the
same way? Would he claim that pro-
lection did that, too?
Men like Mr. Clark should study the
figures on pages % and "a in the latest
report Of the treasury department. on
Foreign Commerce and Navigation"
These pages give the prices of several
different kinds Of manufactured and
crude articles imported into the country
from 1878 to 1889. The price Of ordinary
unpublished window glass in 1878 was
3.4 cents per pound; in 1880 it was 10.
In 1878 foreign plate glass cost 77.3 cents
per square foot; last year it was 32.4.
This latter fact Is very interesting in
view Of a dispatch from Pittsburg, Pa,
which was recently printed in the daily
papers, and in which it was claimed that
until a few years ago very nearly all
the plate glass used in America was i'm
ported and was sold at about $50 a
foot" But the treasury reports for
twelve years back give the price Of for
eign glass as 77.3 cents; and the decline
in price has been more than one-half.
But this Pittsburg dispatch goes on to
say: "Now the home manufacture has
grown to such a degree that importa-
lions have ceased almost completely, and
the price has come down to 65 to 30 cents
a foot" The question arising here is,
if protection caused the price of domestic
plate glass to fall from $3.50 a foot to 65
to 80 cents, what caused the imported
glass to fall from 77.3 to 32.4 cents per
foot9 Protection could not possibly have
caused the foreign glass to decline in
price; and if this declined without pro-
lection, why may not the domestic ar
ticie have declined likewise with no re-
gard for protection? As a matter Of fact
the decline was due in circumstances to
improved methods.
But returning to the treasury report
we find that in 1878 foreign pig iron
sold at 81. 728; last year it was $40. 1876.
Bar iron fell from 80 cents a pound to
1.8 cents. Steel rails started at $3.50
a ton; last year they were 1928. 956-a de-
cline of more than half in twelve years.
And yet it is steel rails, above all things
else, that the protectionists point to as
having been cheapened by protection.
Tin plates fell from IL cents to 80; raw
sugar from ~ to 3 cents. The average
price Of foreign carpeting of all kinds
was 81. 482 a yard in 1878; in 1889 it was
1913, and in 1890 it is as low is 65.7
cents.
We have been trying to keep up the
price Of domestic wool by means Of high
duties, but the attempt has not sue
ceeded, and foreign woods have been
coming in at steadily declining prices.
The prices per pound are as follows:
1878 1889.
Clothlng WOODS.
Combing wools BAG ........xS.1
Carpet wools. 1914 .......11.6
The same general tendency to lower