The sun., 1893-09-07
REPLIES TO A REPUB.
CLEARLY SHOWN WHY PRICES
GO DOWN.
They become Lower In Splits of aud Not
because OF ProtectIon-The Democratic
Party Is Falsely Accused-Not a Lack of
Currency.
Answer to a Proteotlonlst.


TO acknowledge the receipt of letter
from Democrat in Illinois, wao ad-
mits that he has been talked to q
standstill by an intelligent Republican
of his acquaintance, and he appeals to
this paper for help. Here is the sub
stance of the argument submitted by
the Republican,:
Granted that protective tariff increases
cost of goods to consumers ut first, 1t always
results In cheaper goods ultimately. For in
stance, wire nails cost when nrst invented, 10
posed, but Mr.. Mills exclaimed, "0h, that will
never do. Twill make them cost l6 cents" !"
but the tariff was put on and Is on today. vet
the wire nails sell at three cents per pound.
Again, steel rails were costing $S5 or $40 per
ton; tariff of $40 was put on, which stimu-
lated home production SO that now they sell at
$25 per ton, although the high tartn of S26 Is
still on for foreign rails.
So is it ever the case that q protective tariff,
Dy,ce Dy of Soods SSsin While hs Dpces of
manufactured goods are still at 3 high figure,
the farmer can well afford it, because 1t makes
q larger margin of profit. A thrifty farmer
can sell, say 81 200 worth of produce and spend
500 in clothing, tools and other manufactured
articles. Now let protective tariff be removed
and the scale OF all prices comes down exactly
one-half. The farmer sells the same produce
for 5000 and pays $3.50 for his purchases. thus
pocketing $3.50, where he formerly pocketed
alent to the former 500, the farmer might still
be no worse off; but then low wages at the
mills have m antime driven many operators
to the farms to become competitors of the
farmer, and also his market at the mills is
smaller, and he is not su OF selling all his
produce, as in former years.
We make room for this long extract
in order to present the argument en-
tire, and also because the last part of it
is an answer to the first part. The first
argument Is that protection is right
because it makes prices lower. The
second argument Is based on the as
sumption that the removal of protec-
tion would lower prices One-half. These
two theories cannot stand together.
The pretense that protection lowers
prices is based on the impudence of
protectionists claiming credit for what
happens in spite of them. Owing to
the many discoveries of this century,
the use of steam, the introduction of
improved machinery, and many labor
saving inventions, labor has been grow
ing more and more productive. It hap
pens, therefore, that the labor of a
man will produce, with the aid of ma
chinery, ten, twenty, or even fifty
times as much of some objects of de-
sire as it would one hundred or two
hundred years ago. This has had two
results. It has cheapened commodi=
ties and it has raised the wages of
labor. Commodities are cheaper be-
cause they cost less labor, while wages
are higher because they produce so
much larger quantities of commodities
This change has occurred under high
and low tariffs and under free trade.
The Protectionists, however, a3sum-
ing that no one knows what is going on
abroad, have tried to account for this
universal tendency by ascribing it to
laws passed in the United States, al
though it has gone on here under
revenue as well as under a protective
tariff. Apart from these improve
ments In machinery, it is competition
that cheapens commodities, and this
competition stimulates invention. It
is the manufacturer most pressed by
competition who is most likely to dis
cover devices for saving labor, accord
ing to the old adage that necessity is
the mother of invention" This COM
petition is inconvenient to manufacture
ers, and they try to diminish it by
shutting the foreign producer out of
the market. By this means they are
able to keep prices higher than would
otherwise be possible. In process of
bIIuS uOIu0SblC CCLllpCblblOu may spring
up and help to reduce prices, but, Of
course, the domestic competition alone
cannot, ordinarily, make prices as low
as both foreign and domestic cqmpeti-
tion would. Steel rails afford very
good illustration of these principles
when the whole truth about them is
told. The use of steel for rails was made
possible by the cheapening of steel, and
that was due to a new process. If pro-
lection had made them cheap in Amer
ica, free trade would have made them
high in England, The fact that they
were $40 ton higher under protection
shows what the tariff is for. The gen
eral decline in the price Is due to in
vention; the difference between the
English and American prices is due to
protection.
The Republicans cannot adhere to
the theory that protection cheapens.
It is a wholly artificial theory, and
they are always forgetting all about
it and talking about the ruinous prices
at which goods will have to be sold un-
der free trade. They ere continually
telling the wool-growers, for example,
that the bare prospect of free wool
has put down the price. This shows
plainly enough that there Is no SINGER
ity in the plea that protection cheap
ems. If protection really cheap
eped the product no producer would
ask for 1t, for every one wishes TO sell
at the best possible price. Louisville
Courier-Journal (Dem.),