Iron County register., 1892-02-25
Logic and Facts.

A Protectionist organ calls on the
free-trade reformers s.to note that the
new tariff gave them free sugar, OF
which they consumed 81. .46 pounds per
head last year as against $3.50 in the
year $780," and adds: That's pres
ent of thirteen pounds of sugar for
every man, woman and child in the
land as the fruits of the Mckinley
measure"
| Now this is the very thing that the
free-trade reformer is noting, and he
has fallen into train of thinking
something like this: If taking the tar
iff off sugar has so lessened its price
that each of us can now buy thirteen
pounds more for the same sum OF
money, will not taking the tariff off
wool enable us to buy more clothing,
blankets and other necessary woolen
goods, and taking the tariff off lumber
enable us to build or rent better houses
for the same money? And will not
removing, or reducing, the tariff on
tinplate, or cutlery, or glassware and
crockery, enable us to enjoy more of
these comforts and necessaries without
additional cost?
Sugar is all very well as far as it
goes, but we cannot live on sugar
alone, even when moistened with
something else. We need clothing
and shelter and furniture and tableware
and numerous other things to make us
comfortable and decent, all of which
are now heavily taxed by the tariff that
our supply of them is less than we need
or should otherwise have.
Moreover, the free-trade reformer is
noting another thing. If taking the
tariff off an article cheapens its cost,
and cheapening it's cost stimulates and
greatly increases the consumption of it,
more labor must be employed in its
production. The increased consump
ton Of sugar in 1891 over the previous
year, due to the fall in its price, was
363, 900 tons, all of which was refined
in this country, and thus called for a
large additional number of American
workmen at the rate of wages previous
ly prevailing. Hence we have more
sugar and more employment for labor
by removing a duty, whereas if the
Mckinley bill had added 1 cent a
pound to the sugar tariff there would
have been less sugar and less employ
ment for labor.
And lastly the free-trade reformer is
wondering in the light of their facts
what becomes of the arguments con-
stantly made by this same organ and
protectionists generally that the tariff
is not tax paid by the consumers, but
a license exacted from the foreigner for
permitting him to sell his goods (sugar)
in our market?
If the foreigner paid it, how does
its removal thus inure Immediately to |
the benefit of our consumers?
It will not do now to say that the |
sugar tariff was an exception to the |
rule, for it was in connection with this |
very tariff that Senator Edmonds, |
certainly not the least acute and able |
of the Protectionists speakers in the
Senate, was so carried away by what |
he conceived to be the conclusiveness
of his argument, that the tariff was
tax on the foreign producer and not
On the home consumer, that he chal-
lenged the other side to produce "a
single instance in national or human
where the increase of
duty by country has increased the
price of the article to a consumer, or
where the diminution of duty by a
has diminished it's price to the
consumer, or where putting the article
entirely upon the free list has worked
any essential or appreciable, or even {
observable benefit to the people of the
United States or any other people that
consumed the commodity SO brought
H."
Senator Edmunds correctly and ably
stated the logic of protection. a
The removal of the sugar tariff has
riven us the inexorab1e logic of facts.