The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-01-22
THE CITADEL OF PROTECTION.

A correspondent OF the Tribune lures the
editor of that paper into partial discus
sion of few phases of the tariff question,
but cannot induce him to talk to the ques-
ton
Inc correspondent, who is a moderate
protectionist, comedies the desirability of
encouraging home manufactures to supply
"a home market for our agricultural pro-
duct;n upon which the delighted editor
continues: "Not only is market supplied
Tor agricultural products, but a mighty
army of men, miners, railroad men, ETC.,
are employed, and just that much competi
ton is taken from the farmer, and he has
not only an increased sale for his products,
but his prices are correspondingly in
creased"
This is the citadel of protection, but OBJ
serve how easily it is stormed by the facts
and logic of tariff reform.
PAY US to make goods at a loss in this
country, and out of our profits we viii buy
your corn,'' is what the protected manu-
facturers say TO the farmers, whom they
are still endeavoring to delude. 'Give up
your foreign market and we will furnish
you better home market in its stead, F" is
the burden of the protection advice to the
farmer
The foreign market the farmers now
have is worth $3.50, 900 a year to them
They export that amount of surplus farm
products each year-products that must be
sent abroad or let go to waste. In return
for this surplus the farmers receive $780,
100000 worth of manufactured goods. These
imports are the farmers pay for their labor
in producing surplus; they are the
farmers wages. 1t is to procure these i'm
ports that the farmers raise a surplus,
which would otherwise be worthless.
The.farm product is practically all wages,
there being no raw material to buy, no
plant required, few expenses Of any kind.
The mill product is, by the census of 1880,
but one-ffth wages, the other four-fifths
being made up Of the cost of raw materials,
cost of plant and interest thereon, etc.
Only one-fifth as many men are employed
in making this $3.50, 100000 worth of manu-
featured goods as are employed in raising
the $3.50, 900 worth of farm products
that are exchanged for the manufactures.
1t therefore follows, with as much GER
tainty as attaches to any demonstration
EUCLID ever made in geometry, that were
the protected manufacturers to produce
every cents worth of this $3.50, O00, 600
worth of imported manufactures, they
could hire only enough workmen to earn
one-ifth that amount in wages, $50. OOO, 600,
out Of which to buy food from the farmers,
thus leaving the latter with $50, DOC, 00O
worth of surplus products on their hands,
even if the protected workmen spent every
cent Of their earnings in farm products.
When the $3.50, 900, 900 of farm surplus is
exported, the farmers have a market for
the whole of it, ana receive its value in
goods as their wages. When this export.
and corresponding import, is stopped, as
the mill-owners demand, the farmers will
lose this sure market and receive in its
place the chance of market less than one
fifth as great. For every mill worker that
is given employment in this scheme to stou
imports, four farmers will be thrown out
of employment Four independent, self
supporting free men must starve, must be
driven from the noblest and, with fair
field, the best paying industry ever en-.
gagged in by workingmen, in order to pro
vide work for one pale wage-slave in g
mill.
THUS, uthe ''citadel of protection, u
namely, the substitution of the home mar
ket in place of the foreign market, turns
out to be mere house of cards. A single
blow demolishes it, and its builders dare
not come TO its defense