The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-05-19
WHAT PROTECTION Is FOR.


what protection" is and what it is for.
protection is a misnomer; the proper
word is discrimination
For all that the government can give to
one man, or to one class of men, must be
taken from the other classes. Thus, the
government takes money from A, B and G,
and gives it to D. and we call this protec-
| ton. 1t is protection for D, but not for
the others. Now, if the government would
| reimburse A, B and G, by taxing D, in turn,
the same amount that had originally been
| given him, the others, as well as d, would
be protected; that is, each would gain
nothing and lose nothing; in other words,
there would be no discrimination, and hence
| no protection.
1t must not be imagined that the govern
ment can give to one class without taking
| that amount and much more from the other
| classes. Republicans often maintain that
1.-THE foreigner pays the tariff" Let US IL
lustrate.
An American buys 100 yards of cloth In
London at 81 yard pays another 500 at
the custom house. and then sells it for $3.50.
lIt goes to the middleman, who makes an
other $50 on it, and then to the retailer who
must also make his $50 out Of it. The total
price is now $3.50, and if you buy ten yards
of it you will pay $50.
| Without the tariff, with the same ratio of
merchant profits, you could buy ten yards
for $3.50; adding $40 for the tariff, makes
only $3.50; but you pay s35 for those ten
yards. What is this extra ST.. 80 and why
do you pay its 1t is the interest on the 800
duty, as it grows passing from one dealer
to another. You pay the tariff tax and the
accumulated interest.
The present tariff is simply war on the
farmers by the protected mill owners.
American farming should be the best
paid industry the world has ever known:
and it would be if it had fair field and no
! favors.
| One-half the workers of the United
States are farmers. They supply the home
market and still have large surplus of
farm products, which they must either sell
or let go to waste. They cannot sell the
surplus here, for the market is supplied.
They must send their surplus abroad. They
exchange ten bushels of wheat for a ton of
pig iron. The farmer raises the wheat
with five days labor; the Scotchman
would have to labor ten days to raise that
wheat but not quite so long to make ton
OF iron, while the farmer would have to
labor ten days to make the iron. Hence
the farmer will get the iron for five days'
labor instead of ten; while the Scotchman.
though gaining less than the American.
still gains enough by the transaction to
nyyin fO,n
THIS way, much iron would be produced on
American farms by turning wheat into iron
by exchange, the country would be well
supplied with iron, and farming would paw
well. Many more would then be employed
on farms and at high wages, for the farms
would furnish not only our breadstuffs. but
many manufactures through exchange, re-
celVlng the low priced goods in pay
ment for farm products.
But right here the manufacturers object
and get Congress to lay tax on the goods
the farmer receives in payment, 80 that the
farmer shall not turn his sur
plus into any articles that the
mill-owner has for sale. This tax on the
farmers pay averages 80 per cent of his
whole payment. In 1888 the export of our
agricultural products was $500, $40, OS6, and
the tax collected on the pay the farmers
received for it was S155, S62, 154. The
farmers paid every cent of this almost
fabulous sum in one year. 1t took twenty
two hard earned dollars out of the pocket
OF each farmer of, the land to do it. This
tax Is not needed by the government. 1t is
levied solely for the protection of mill
owners against farmers. The mill owners
pretended that the foreign goods are the |
product OF foreign pauper labor, and thew |
desired to protect American labor from |
foreign competition; but foreign labor does |
not enter this question at all. for these i'm |
ported goods are really the product of
American farm-labor. They are what the
farmer worked for in raising his surplus.
Ihey are his pay, the result of his own
labor; and the wheat he sent is what the
foreigner really worked for and is now
this foreigners pay and product. When
the mill owner says he wants to make
these articles instead of letting the for
eigner compete with him, he means that he
doesn't want the farmer to make these ar
tlcles on the farm by exchange of products.
nv ioiCishOl CdunOG compete with the
mill owner, but the farmer can and does
No person on earth expect the American
farmer can enter into competition with the
mill owner. The farmer is the only com
petitor that the mill-owner desires protec-
tion against.
Inc purpose OF protection is to drive two
million farmers from their occupation. One
filth OF them could possibly find EMPLOY
ment IL factories, but four-tift of them
could not.
Protection is rapidly accomplishing its
purpose. In 1880 our agricultural exports
to So per cent. of the total export
Of goods from this country. In 1888 the
products constituted ONLY "a
per cent. of the total of exports. But dur
ing this time the export of manufactures
rose from per cent. to 10 per cent. of the
whole. What the farmers lost the mill
owners gained.
Inc report OF the treasury department.
shows that for the first two months of the
present year our agricultural exports were
slS, 067, 4S7, as against s26, 7,79S for the
same months last year. The MCKINLEY
bill is helping along the good work of de-
stroying the farmer
WHAT 1T COSTS.
MMgf ha full