Alpena weekly argus. [volume] (Alpena, Mich.) 1871-1893, 1892-01-27

Kinley bill, we have now "a tariff for
protection with incidental revenue"
Now protection is for the individual
or private interest, and revenue is for
the government.
Who and how many, we may well
ask, are the individuals who have
prior and paramount claims to the
public in taxing the people of this
country
They are that portion of our pro-
ducers who make goods that might
be competed with in our market by
goods from abroad.
They alone can be the beneficiar-
les of law that shuts out of the
country such goods, or admits them
only under heavy burdens and pen
alties, and any advantage claimed
for others must be filtered to them
through these direct benefciaries,
1 am not aware that anyone COM
petent to do SO has listed these ben
eficiaries and ascertained their num-
Der as compared with our full popu-
lation. But very competent inquir-
ers have ascertained facts, from which
a shrewd guess can be made as to the
number of those who enjoy-thanks
to great political party-the pre-
rogative of taxing the American peo-
pie, for their claim to possess this
prerogative is made, not in their own
name, but in the name of the labor
ers they employ. Fortunately we
can very accurately estimate the num-
Der of their employees, as compared
with our entire wage earning popu-
lation.
Secretary Manning submitted to
three eminent statisticians, among
them Prof. Simon Newcomb, the dis
tinguished mathematician and writer
on economic subjects, the question
how many employees were engaged in
the industries supposed to be protect
ed in whole or in part by the tariff.
Their answers, made without concert
and after careful study of the census
of 1880 and our revenue laws, were
in striking concord. The average OF
these answers was but little more than
5 per cent. of our working popula-
ton. A recent attempt to solve this
same question has been made by a
gentleman whose ability to deal with
statistics is not surpassed by any au-
thority.
Edward Atkinson, in a letter ad-
dressed to the Boston Herald a few
weeks ago, and in speech which I
heard him make before the Reform
Club of Massachusetts,, gave both his
method of solving the question and
that for the purpose alone of answer
ing the question at the head of this
article, AS the census of 1890 is yet
incomplete, the census of 1880 was
used. In that year one out of every
three, or, speaking exactly, one in
each two and nine. tenths of our pop
ulation, was occupied for gain, max.
ing altogether 100000 in gainful
pursuits.
These were distributed in round
numbers as follows: In agriculture,
as farmers or laborers, nearly 8,000,-
600; in professional and personal ser.
vice, 100000; in trade and trans
portation nearly 100000, and in
manufacture, mechanic arts and min
ing not quite 100000.
For the entire country forty-four
out of each hundred are engaged in
agriculture, but in the southern
States, including Missouri, the num-
Der so engaged is seventy out of each
hundred.
Mr.. Atkinson finds that of this en-
tire wage-working population 1,2O0,.
900, at most, are or can be in any
way subject to foreign competition,
while on the other hand 1 ,400,000 in
agriculture and 100000 factory oper-
atives, mechanics and machinists de-
pend wholly on foreign sales and the
export of the products of their labor
for their sustenance.
This is one of the most suggestive
and telling facts brought out in the
tariff controversy and cannot be too
strongly dwelt upon. After all the
Boosting of the tariff as protector
of American labor and a creator OF
home market, there are 100000
more laborers wholly dependent on
the export and sale of their products
in foreign markets than there are Ia
borers protected from competition in
any measure by the tariff.
We have, therefore, the following