Los Angeles herald., 1891-08-26
THE PRICE OF PROTECTION.

Under this head the Cleveland Plain
dealer discusses with clear and conclu-
sive logic the fallacy OF the war-tax
advocates that high tariff has the
paradoxical power to raise prices to the
producer and lower them to the con-
sumer. The Plaindealer's argument is
SO terse and pointed, and its logic is so
complete and unanswerable, that we
give it entire. 1t says:
Candidate McTintax has been forced
to a concession that the tariff, when
stripped of everything else, is a
question of taxation. In other
words, the tariff is tax. Its
alleged object is to foster home indus
tries. The producers of iron, wool, etc.,
are told that the fostering process in
sures higher prices for their products,
and the consumers are assured that
this same process will reduce the prices
of these same products. The world has
laughed for half century at the poor
Irishman who, hearing that a certain
kind of stove would save half the fuel,
bought two stoves, thinking he would
thus save it all. The laugh will last
even longer at the idiocy OF the man
who solemnly asserts that tariff raises
prices to the producer and lowers them
to the consumer.
In the so-called science of protec tion
high price is the sole object of high
tariff. If that be not accomplished the
measure fails in its purpose and is left
without excuse for its existence. The
fact is pointed out by the McTintaxists
that for the past thirty years under
high tariff prices have steadily declined.
So they have. All over the world, since
the world began, prices have been
steadily declining. This is due to the
invention and improvement of ma
chinery; to the cultivation of the skill
of the hands; to the application of steam
and electricity to the discovery of
cheaper materials and better processes
of manufacture, and, above all, to the
cheaper transportation over railroads
and steamships, the ever active and in
suppressible agents of free trade. The
only part protection has ever played in
this gradual and healthy decline is that
of partial obstruction. A high tariff
can raise prices TO onr own people and
that is the limit of it's power.
Ever since our farms have produced
more grain than home consumption re-
quired the surplus has been sold at Liv-
erpool in direct competition with the
cheapest labor of the earth. Not only
is the price of this surplus fixed in for
eign markets, but the export price is
the price paid for all consumed at home.
Every bushel of wheat the farmer pro-
duces, then, is sold at price fixed in
foreign market. This is selling under
free trade. There is no protection here
ag,nst ''pauper labor" But when the
farmer comes to buy he finds the price
of nearly every article he requires en-
HANGED at an average OF more than one
half. This is buying under protection.
The mortgages that plaster the farms
and the enormous shrinkage of agricul-
tural values tell the disastrous result.
On the other hand there is numerous
brood of Carnegies as the foul spawn OF
a system that sacrifices the masses to
the greed of the millionaires.
The addition of Blaine's system of
reciprocity to the Mckinley tariff is a
recognition of the fallacy OF the high
protection principle, for that system,
carried to its legitimate conclusion, is
free trade pure and simple. We shall
soon see the complications and incon-
gruities that must inevitably arise from
the partial carrying out of the policy of
reciprocity and that other policy Of
abolishing the duty, on certain articles
and substituting a bounty to the pro-
ducers and manufacturers OF the same,
The high-tariff people do not seem to
realize that the Blaine system and the
Mckinley system are repugnant logic
ally, and that in practice they will prove
so, when the glitter OF their novelty in
the science of craftsmanship has been
washed off.