The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-07-05
WHEN. WHOM AND HOW PROTECTION
PTOTECIS.

What, then, is real protectionl 1t is con-
troll of prices in the domestic exchange
market This is all there is to il. II any
one thinks there is any more. let him ask
himself where anything more can be added.
EThis control of prices may be secured In
two ways.
/. BY natural or business monopoly,
which under our present form Of govern
ment cannot be touched by law, and is con-
sidered the inalienable right Of the indi-
vidual. If Jones, owning land in western
Virginia, finds on it mine Of aluminium
ore, he may charge any price for it he
pleases. There is no other mine in the
world. If Wong, in China, finds another
mine, he and Jones may agree upon sell
ing price. No law can touch them. This
is private protection. With more than one
producer able to supply the whole market
there is no protection without combination.
BY getting the government 10 shut out
foreign competition while aome producers
combine" and so destroy domestic compe
titiou. When q constituent of MIR. Dawes
found on his Massachusetts, farm a mine of
emery ore, he could not charge what price
ne pleased. There was no other mine in
the United States, but there were many
that their owners could not combine and nix
the price. They were compelled to sell in
open competition one with another, and the
owner of the American mine had TO COM
pete with them. But MIR. Dawes believed
in Protecting American Industry in capital
letters. He was chairman of the ways and
means committee, and in the next
revenue bill he inserted these words:
emery ore, p per cent"
Than the owner 0f fna American mine
added 70 per cent to the foreign price to all
he might sell TO his countrymen, and they
had to buy of him or pay blood-money ana
black mail; but he could not add anything
to the price when he sold ABROAD. This was
special protection by law, by giving him
control Of prices. The United States gov
ernment protected him in charging his
countrymen more than the market price.
We import l3,000, COO worth Of brown
and bleached linens yearly, which pay ST.
OO0 600 duty. We have five little linen mills
whose combined total product is worth at
the market price 500, 45l. II is not neces-
sary for them TO combine, as the market
price must be higher by 81 per cent, and
their competition would not lower it.
But whenever the domestic product is
large enough to affect prices, there can be
on real protection without combination.
There is now no protection on steel rails,
although there is very heavy duty. The
Steel Trust, which controlled prices, was
broken some months ago, and while another
is forming, the competition of the Bessemer
rail makers drives prices here down to the
natural level. Whenever the twenty-nine
firms patch up new trust or selling agree
ment. the price OF rails will go up to the
amount of the protection.
Can the farmers combine, They number
7,610.493. The protected mill owners in all
industries number less than 1850. The
largest number in any one industry is less
than two thonsand-in point of actual fact,
less than one thousand.
II the farmers were few in number, or
gained, as each one of the protected indus
tries is, into a small society; if this society
fixed the price at which each member could
sell, as the protected industries do, then
the farmers might benefit by the tax. No
one except a farmer wants protection I'M
less he can control the price at which he
must sell.