The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-08-21
A SAMPLE BRICK.

We select from similar mass of errors
this sample from our high tariff contempt
rary:
1t is a shame for US to be importing $780, Co.,
600 worth of stuff annually, two-thirds OF which
We ought to produce ourselves. The great
hardship is first. that our own workingmen do
not do their own work, and second that what we
buy abroad and what Americans spend abroad,
keep the country practically drained of money
lit is not shame for US to be import
ing $500, Geo. GOO worth of stuff annually, for
every dollars worth we import is payment
for ninety cents worth of our own pro-
ducts that we have sent for it. Not
dollars worth of foreign goods will come
into this country until it is paid for by
goods sent out. The goods we send out
have been made by US, and have given en-
ployment to our own labor The Republi-
cans who say these imports must be
stopped do not take the trouble to explain
that the imports are the pay received for
our exports. In 1887, for example, our ex-
port of products was SIG, 1921. Our
import of products was s716, OS69 What
we sold we were paid for with the pro-
ducts of other nations. They received our
products, to the exact extent that we re-
ceived theirs. And our goods cost us less
to produce than it would have cost us to
produce their goods directly, or we should
not have made the exchange We we're
benefited, and so were the foreigners, by
this exchange of products.
2-lt is not true that this Importation of
rr,. ,,t, Il
laborers of work. Americans, being eff
ticient workers, produce surplus, which
they must either burn or sell. Tf they sell
this surplus they will receive foreign goods
in payment for them. Not cents worth
of foreign goods will come to us till we Of
fer our own surplus products for these
goods.
One-half the workers of the United
States are farmers. They supply the home
market and still have surplus of farm
products, which they must either sell or
let go to waste. They cannot sell the sur
plus here, for the market is supplied. They
must send their surplus abroad. The
amount of farm products sent abroad in
1888 was $500, S40,0S6. This was the export
Of agricultural products alone. The pay
ments for these goods are the ''imports''
which Republicans fear so much. They
pretend that these imports are the product
of foreign pauper labor: but foreign labor
does not enter this transaction. These i'm
ported goods are really the product of
American farm labor. They are what the
farmer worked for in raising his surplus.
They are his pay, the result of his own
labor. When the protectionist says these
imports must be stopped, he reallf means
that the export of surplus wheat, beef,
cotton, machinery, and silver bullion must
be stopped, as the imports are simply the
pay for these exports.
The only way to stop the imports is first
to stop the exports; it's impossible to stor
one without stopping the other Ameri
cans could make some of the things thew
import by ceasiLg to produce a surplus,
and by directly producing some of the i'm
ported goods instead. But they cannot
make the foreign goods and their own sur
| plus also. One days labor on an American
farm or in an American shop produces
goods that are exchanged for the product
of two days. labor in an English wooden
mill or French silk factory Shall the
American stop working one day on his
farm or in his shop and work two days in 9
mill for the same amount of silk or woolens
as he now gets with one days LAHORE That
is precisely what he must do if he is pre-
vented from exporting his present surplus
and importing the foreign silk and woolens
to pay for it.
3tWhat we buy abroad does not keep
the country drained of money.
Gold and silver are not exported to pay
for imported goods. Every coin in Great
Britain could not pay for the imports of a
single year. All large purchases are made
with checks and bills of exchange. When