The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-02-14

admitting the ridiculous supposition that
the national wealth increased faster during
the civil war decade than it has ever done
since), or whether we take the amended
figures as our authority, in either case 1t IS
shown that the wealth of this country in
creased faster during the low tariff period
from 1850 to 1860 than during any protective
period. The increase per head from 1850 to
1860 was more than twice as great as from
1870 to 1880, and nearly twice as great as
from 1880 to 1890.
We observe, then, the juggling of pro
tectionist. in first including the free trade
decade in his forty years of protection, and
second of accepting the census figures OF
taxed wealth for the first two decades as
if it were the total wealth, and thus
making out vast increase for protection,
when in reality the increase does not exist.
NIUIHALL's dictionary of statistics shows
(p. 400 that the increase per head in
wealth from 1870 to 1880 was 81 in the
United States and e25 in the United King
dom.
During the same decade, five states de-
creased in wealth: Connecticut, New Jer-
lana; and in only twelve states was there
an increase in wealth per inhabitant in this
protection decade.
1t is the same with Great Britain and
Ireland. Under protection from 1900 to
1910, her wealth per head declined from
el65 to e155. Then came the free trade
agitation and it's adoption as a national pol
icy in 1860. In that year the wealth per
| inhabitapt was e191, which had increased
by 1882, to e249. The yearly increase I'M
der free trade was thus Sl3.1S, as COM
pared with yearly increase of S2.l6 under
the sixty previous years of protection.
The yearly increase per inhabitant in this
country during the ten years of protection
from 1870 to 1880, was by our census 50:
but by MULHALL it is given as only $3.50
Take which authority we will, and the rate
of increase in England distances that il
our own country.
Of this vast increase of wealth in our cou : try
Mr.. HEWITT said that 90 per cent. had gone int
the pockets of wage earners while 10 per cent
had gone to capitalists y = If this does no
show that the poor are not growing poorer, i
speaks well for the thrift well as the prosperit
of the laborlng class in those states.
MIR. SHEARMAN has recently shown tina
half the wealth of this country is owned
by 10000 families, and that three
fourths of it is owned b,
900 families, leaving the other II, 752, 0O
families with only one fourth Of the pres
ent wealth of this country. 1t may well b
doubted whether impe rial Rome ever mad
worse showing than this in the distribu
ton of wealth. SHBARMAN shows that tn
income of 10000 families is more than nal
OF the total income Of all.
Thus it appears that the wealth per in
habitant of the United Kingdom, is in
creasing much faster than in the Unite
| States; that wealth increases about 81:
times faster there under Tree trade than
did under protection; that wealth Increase
twice as fast in this country under FIRE
trade as it does under protection; and tia
| the increase in this country is mainly goin
) to very small portion of the people Will
! the vast majority are scarcely holding thei
own. With these exceptions the auega
tons of the Tribune may be correct. A
with most other protection arguments, tn
facts are against them