Los Angeles daily herald., 1890-01-11

mIs DlhlHo's prluclphl DhttoIieo oio
directed against it. He claims that the
foreign commerce of the United States is
only one-twenty-eighth part of its inter-
nal commerce, and brings all the argu-
ments of different conditions of growth,
production, geographical position, and SO
on, to bear against Mr.. Gladstone's g COM
mon sense suggestion.
Mr.. Blaine's leading postulate, dis
missing his long historical resume, may
be condensed in nutshell. He says
"viewing the country from 1861 to 1889
"full twenty-eight years-the longest un
"disturbed period in which either protec
"tion or free trade has been tried in this
"country-I ask Mr.. Gladstone if par
"allel can be found to the material ad-
vancems snt of the United States"
In the multitudinous figures advanced
by Mr.. Blaine, which are entirely too
voluminous for reproduction in brief
newspaper article, the gist of his argu-
ment is contained in the proposition
that protection, while stimulating,
and even creating the industries
of the United States, has inn
mensely lowered the price of the
protected staples. OF the great expanse
of matter presented by him to confirm
his views we take simply one head, that
of steel rails.
He says: "John Edgar Thompson,
"late President of tho Pennsylvania Rail-
"way Company, purchased one hundred
lions of steel rails in 1862 at price
"Qreight paid to New York; duty of As
"per cent. unpaid) of $103.44 gold coin.
"(By way of illustrating Mr.. Gladstone's
"claim to superior quality of manufac-
"tures under free trade, the railroad
company states that many of the rails
"broke during the first winters trial.)
"In 1864 English rails had fallen to $Ss
"per ton in New York, the freight paid
"and the duty unpaid. English manu-
"facturers held the market for the ensu-
''ing six years, though the sales at the
"high prices were limited. In 1870
"Congress laid specific duty of $2S per
"ton on steel rails. From that time the
market has been held by our own man
"ufacturers, with steady annual fall in
"price, as the facilities of production in
"creased, until the past summer and
"autumn, when steel rails were selling
"in Pittsburg, Chicago and London at
substantially the same prices. Does
"any Free Trader on either side of the
ocean honestly believe that American
trails could ever have been furnished as
"cheaply as English rails, except by the
"sturdy competition which the highly
protective duty of 1870 enabled the
American manufacturers to maintain
'against the foreign manufacturers in
''the first place, and among American
manufacturers themselves in the second
"place? 1t is not asserted that during
1.-The nineteen years since the heavy duty
"was first established Except during the
"past few months) American rails have
"been as cheap in America as English
trails have been in England,
"but it is asserted with per.
"fect confidence that steadily and
Invariably, American railroad com.
'spsnies have bought cheaper rails at
"home than they would have been able
"to buy in England if the protective duty
"had not stimulated the manufacture of
"steel rails in the United States, and if
''the resulting competition had not
"directly operated upon the English mar
"ket."
In the foregoing we have limited at the
salient points of Mr.. Blaine's argument,
as in the previous article we labored to
present Mr.. Gladstone's purely abstract
propositions. In third and concluding
article We shall endeavor to give the
Democratic attitude, historical and con-
temporaneous, on the highly absorbing
topics of free trade and protection.