The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-09-23
WHAT cHEAPENs GOODS.

In conversation the other day with Re-
publican friend upon the tariff question he
clalmed in common with ali Republicans
that 1t was to the tariff that we were in
deoteu Tor cheap goods In this country.
de insisted that under the protection of our
nigh tariff walls our citizens had been en-
couraged to enter into various manu-
lectures. that there had grown up a com
petition between manufacturers of the
same class OF goods until they were now
sold as cheAply to the consumer as it was
possible co sell them. We suggested that
1t was hot the tariff which had cheapened
gcoas. but that goods had become cheaper
IL spite Of high tariffs, not because of them.
we further suggested that it was the en-
ployment of machinery brought into ex-
isfence by modern ingenuity. and the con-
sequent increased productiveness of labor,
toeether with cheap and easy transporta-
lion that had lowered the price of goods;
and that we owed more to our inventors
than we did to our legislators-more to our
EDIsoNs than to our McIxINLEYs. At this
he sneered, thinking, perhaps. that no
argument could answer a sheer.
Still, our position is a true one, and be-
comes evident when we point to the fact
that not only in protected countries but In
Tree trade countries as well produces OF the
mill and the factory are vastly cheaper
today than they were generation ago. If
protection has cheapened goods in Amer
lea, free trade must have cheapened them
In England. For example, in 1860 the cost
OF producing steel was 10 cents per pound,
but now HENRY BEssEMER's process has
been 50 far perfected that better steel than
that which cost 10 cents pound can now
be made for 2 cents per pound. BEssEMER
did more to reduce the price of steel and all
its products than whole Congress of Nc
hINLEYs could do, even if all that Repub-
licans claim for Mckinney were true.
"a striking Illustration of the increased
productive power of human effort" says
respectable authority. lis found ia the
manufacture Of boots and shoes. BY COM
pairing the census rerort Of 1870 with that
OF 1850 it will be seen in reference to this
Important industry that in the year 1870,
81, 702 hands were employed in factories in
the manufacture of boots and shoes. They
produced in this year so, 627, PA pairs. This
amounted to product of $40 pairs to each
hand employed. In 1850 there were III, 052
engaged in this industry, and the number
Of pairs Of boots and shoes made aggre-
gated for the census year 125, 1851. This
shows an annual product for each hand of
l,l29 pairs. The increased productive
power of those engaged in the manufacture
or boots and shoes in factories was $50
pairs to each hand, or over % per cent"
This increased producnveness of the labor
employed in the manufacture of boots and
shoes was due, not to the high tariff laws,
but to the employment of machinery in
vented by Yankee ingenuity.
This is not only true of the steel and boot
and shoe industries, but of nearly all other
industries. The authority above quoted
gives the following facts in relation to cot
ton manufactures:
In 1870 the production of cotton goods or cot
ton fabrics amounted TO 349, 1882 pounds and
the hands employed l35.369 The product per
hand was 1850 pounds In 1850 the production
was COZ, ,241 pounds. The hands employed
were 1884, The product per hand was 1919
pounds. The increase per hand was $50 pounds
or SO per cent.
course lessons tho cost OF production, and
where trade is unhsmpered with artificial
burdens the price of goods would be cor
respondingly reduced to consumers. That
would be the natural tendency, but if it is
not altogether stopped 1t is at least re-
tarded by the Republican protective sys-
TEN, and mainly for this reason: The high
protective tariffs shut out from our
ports thu foreign competing goods;
the manufacturers of our land pro-
coed to organize trusts and combines:
they fix the price at which they sell the
products of their respective mills and fac
tories, and consumers are entirely at their
mercy. This is not theory; it is already
an accomplished fact; the trusts and com
bines are here already. $50 of them. Both
the consumers of their goods and the labor
they employ are at their mercy. They are
fleeing the people today and of course are
working to keep in power the party which
under the plea of fostering the infant in
dustries Of the United States, makes their
existence possible. They can well afford
to donate part of their ill-gotten gain to
achieve the success of that party whose
policy guarantees to them longer lease
of power TO fleece the people of this land.
A bigger fraud than the Republican sys-
tenn of protection was never perpetrated
Oh q long suffering people. IA high pro-
tective tariff cheapens goodsl" Because
you pay either to the government or to the
manufacturer about 45 per cent above
what the price of goods would be If there
were no tariff, therefore goods are cheaper
That is, the more you give away the more
you have Gould a proposition be more
absurd 2