Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-04-24
A HEAVY INDICTMENT.
French Opinion of Protection-The
Many Robbed for the Few,


Many Robbed for the Few,
The high tariff agitation in France is
calling forth such an opposition to pro-
lection as would not have been possible
if the government had not been led away
by our McKinleyism in the direction of
higher taxation. An evidence of the
opposition called forth by the French
McKinleyism may be seen in a new
magazine, LIE Monde Economique, which
has been recently established in Paris.
This journal is resolutely opposed to the
whole system of protection.
In recent number of it NJ Paul Beau
regard draws such true and heavy in
dictment against protection that it can
be read with profit in our own land.
The writer says:
We hold it as self evident that every
protective measure is unjust, because
such system has for its object the en-
richment of small number of individ-
uals at the expense of the others. When
duty is imposed upon wheat and meat
the farmers may dispense with the i'm
provement of their processes of culture,
but consumers are obliged to pay more
dearly for their food. This, therefore. is
TO take out of the pockets of all the profit
which Is given to the few. There is no
process of reasoning which can show
that this is not unjust.
Now, If this is the case with every
restrictive tariff measure, what is to be
thought when these protectionist claims
reach the degree of extravaganza which
we see today? So long as the protected
classes were not yet masters of the situa-
ton they simply pleaded that the state
should let them live. They could not
continue, they said, with their own re-
sources-they must be helped Would
it not be an advantage to France to have
within her borders complete cycle of
production, and not be tributary to any
nation for its supplies? If the sacrifice
was a burden, at least patriotism i'm
posed it!
What do we see today? The same
party, believing itself secure of major
ity, has lost all moderation. Petition
gives place to threats, which are speed
lily carried into execution. There is no
longer question of living at the expense
of others, but of suppressing them and
getting rid entirely of their competition.
Deplorable enough IN itself the protec-
ZIONIST reaction serves still further as the
occasion, as the preteXt, for struggles in
which the strongest destroy the weakest.
Such are the civil wars, which promote
private vengeance.
What, we ask, must be the effect of
such spectacle upon public morality?
Is it right that the state should become
the distributor of fortunes to some at
the expense Of others? Do the protec-
tionists reflect that by the side of the
manufacturers and capitalists enriched
or ruined there will be thousands of
workmen, here plunged in misery, there
the witnesses of or the sharers in a sud
den and unjust prosperity?
From such a spectacle they will con-
clude that the state can do everything,
that everything that it DEGREES is legiti-
mate, that 1t is easy and right for it to
secure the welfare of its favorites by
drawing, whenever needed, upon the
purse Of others, and. arguing from their
number, from their wants, from their
precarious situations they will demand
to be those favorites.
This is the open path to socialism,
state socialism first and socialism unlim-
iJed afterward. Being accustomed to a
moderate protective tariff, many have not
been able TO see this truth during the
past thirty years, but now it is becom-
ing as clear as daylight. The socialists
have never been deceived in the matter
They have always pointed to protection
as practical application of their own
theories, but an unjust one, as it operates
for the advantage of the rich.