Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-01-24

ously under the sway of protection. When
the barrier erected by a protective duty is
so high that no foreigner can overlap it,
that duty enables the home manufacturer
not only to charge a high price, but to force
on the consumer bad article. Thus, with
an extravagant duty on foreign corks, we
had for our own use the worst corks in
Europe. And yet again, protection causes
waste of another kind in large class of cases.
Suppose the natural disadvantages of the
home producer to equal Is per cent, but the
protective duty to be 80 But cheapness re-
quires minute care, economy and dispatch at
all the stages through which production has
to pass. This minute care and thrift depend
mainly on the pressure of competition. There
were among us, and there may be elsewhere,
many producers whom Incidence tempts to
neglect; who are not sufficiently drawn to
resist this inertia by the attraction of raising
profit to a maximum, for whom the prospect
of advantage is not enough without the sense
of necessity, and whom nothing an spur to
a due nimbleness of movement except the
fear of not being able to sell their articles
In the case | have supposed, the second Is
per cent. is free margin whereupon this in
dolence may disport itself: the home pro-
ducer is not only covered for what he wastes
through necessity, but for what he wastes
from negligence or choice; and his fellow
countrymen have to pay alike for both. We
suffered grievously from this in England, for
oftentimes the rule of the producer is, or
was, to produce not as well he can, but as
well only as he must. And happy are you if,
through keener energy or more troublesome
conscience in production, you have no similar
suffering in America.
There is yet another point which l cannot
mass without nOtipe I bava not admitted
that protection keeps at home any capital
which would otherwise go abroad But |
now for the moment accept and reason upon
the assumption that this is effected. And |
ask-lndeed, by the force of argument may
almost require-you to make an admission to
me which is of the most serious character,
namely, this: that there is a great deal of
capital undoubtedly kept at home by protec
ton, not for the purpose of dear production,
which is partial waste, but for another kind
of waste, which is sheer and absolute and
totally uncompensated This is the waste in
Cured in the great work of distributing COM
modities. If the price of iron or OF cotton
cloth is increased so per cent by protection,
then the capital required by every wholesale
and every retail distributor must be increased
in the same proportion. The distributor is
not and cannot be, in his auxiliary and essen
italy domestic work, protected by an import
duty, any more than can the scavenger or
the chimney sweep. The import duty adds
to the price he pays, and consequently to the
circulating capital which he requires in order
to carry on this traffic; but it adds nothing
to the rate Of profit which he receives, and
nothing whatever to the employment which
he gives This forced increment of capital
sets in motion no labor and is compelled to
yyorl. IN tho uncovered fold If oman trada II
has not the prilna facie apology (such as that
apology may bel which the iron maker or the
mill owner NAV make, that he is employing
American lepor which would not otherwise
be employed If the waste under protective
duty of 80 per cent. be a waste of so per cent,
the waste of the extra capital required in dis
trbution is waste of 100 per cent on the
cost of the operation; for it accomplishas alb
solutely nothing on behalf of the community
which would not be accomplished equally if
the commodity were so per cent. less in price;
just as the postman distributing letters at a
shilling performs no better or other service
than the postman distributing letters at
penny But of distributors the name is
legion; they constitute the vast army of the
wholesale and retail tradesmen of a country,
with all the wants appertaining to them. As
consumers, they are taxed on all protected
commodities; as the allies of producers in the
business of distributing, they are forced TO do
with more capital what could be done as well
with less.
PROTECTION CANNOT WORK IMPARTIALLY.
But the view of the genuine protectionist
understand to be that protection is a mine
of wealth; that greater aggregate profit re-
suits from what you would call keeping labor
and capital at home than from letting them
seek employment wherever in the whole
world they can find it most economically
But if there be this Unborn fertility in the
principle itself, why are the several states of
the Union precluded from applying it within
their own respective borders3 If the aggre.
gate would he made richer by this internal
application Of protection to the parts why is
it not so appliedl On the other hand If the
country. whole, would by this device be
made not richer, but poorer, through the in
reference with the natural laws of produc.
ton, then how is it that by similar interfer-
ence the aggre :ate Of the states, the great
commonweal-A Of America, can be made, in
its general balance sheet, not poorer but
richer
But i'll America, besides the iealously pail
saded field of dear production, there is a vast
open expense of cheap production. namely,
In the whole mass ito speak roughly of the
agricultural pre- 'Icts of the country, not to
mention such gifts of the earth as its mineral
oils In raising these the American capitalist
will find the demand of the world umexhaust.
ed, however he may increase the fupily. WY,
then, is lie to carry his capital abroad when
there is profitable employment for it al h )mei
If protection is necessary to keep American
capital at home why is not the vast capital
now sustaining your domestic agriculture, and
raising commodities for sale at free trade
prices, exported 10 other countriesl Or, con
versrly, since vast capitals find an Unlimited
field for employment in cheap domestic pro
duction without protection, why is it demon
strated that protection is not required in or
der to keep your capital at homel
No adversary will, think, venture upon
answering this by saying that the profits are
larger in protected than in unprotected in
dustries, because the best opinions seem to
testify that in your protected trades profits
are hard pressed by wages.
My claim is this; A country cannot possibly
raise its aggregate wage fund by protection,
but must inevitably reduce it, 1t is con
trivance for producing dear and for selling