The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-01-12

they say of protection, for if they did it
would be reflection on their Oh aracter
to charge that they have allowed any
interests to continue to rob" the people
because they are great.
1t seems, then, that this is a discrimi-
Mating tariff-a tariff which favors some
industries--generally, it will be found,
those whose owners are high in Demo-
cratic councils, or who have contribut-
ed literally to Democratic campaign
funds.
A few specimens may be cited. An ar
ticle of food like rice is given protective
duty of So per cent, while many north
err1 farm products, including wool, are
placed on the free list, and others given
q duty of is to 25 per cent.
Fhe marble quarries of Tennessee are
protected as to stone in blocks by a
protective duty of 30 per cent: but inn
granite blocks Of New England is placed
on the free list. Hoop iron when made
into ties for cotton is free, and hoop
iron when made into bands for hay
has a duty of 2b per cent. Such dis
ordinations run though this bill.
All the so-cailed raw materials, such
as manufactured lumber, wool, farm
products, coal, iron ore, ETC., which are
not raw materials, but completed PRO
ducts of Industries used by more aG-
vanced industries. are placed on the free
list. The gentleman from West Vir-
ginia. {Mr. Wilson) claims that this is
not discrimination against the labor
employed in these industries, because
(as he avers) it costs no more in money
TO produce these articles here than it
costs abroad And yet after making this
assertion, be places his advocacy of free
raw materials on the ground that it will
cheaper their money cost TO advanced
manufacturers to admit them free of
duty.
If the latter be true then whatever is
saved by free importation of these ar
ticles must arise from the fact that the
labor cost of their production abroad
is less than here
The reductions of duties which appear
on the face of the bill, are largely in
creased by the substitution of single adj
valnrem for specific or mixed duties,
under which there are always great I'M
dervaluations that deprive the govern
ment of revenue and remove any
chance for protection against foreign
industries employing cheaper labor. In
view of the fact that every Democratic
Secretary Of the Treasury from Gallatin
to Manning walker alone excepted)
has protested against ad valorem duties
because they encourage fraud, nothing
but determination to make war on pro-
lection could have brought about their
adoption.
Notwithstanding some Industries are
left fully protected by this bill, yet the
rule has been to SO tar reduce duties as
to increase foreign competition and i'm
portations, in which obedience to the
revenue is the only cry, with a view of
other reductions from time to time in
the future until the British free trade
policy is made our own.
The theory which has has animated
+ In si,,f r., al
though there are some not able, excep-
tions, is that a protective duty, j. e, a
duty equivalent to the difference of
labor cost of protection and distribution
here and abroad on an imported article
where such an article can be made or
produced here withoutnatural disadvant-
age, increases the cost to the consumer
OF the domestic article to the extent of
the duty, and is therefore tax which
does not go into the Treasury, and which
gives no compromising advantage to any
one but the manufacturer or producer.
This is the assumption which runs
through the entire argument of the gen
tleman from West Virginia in favor of
this bill.
This free trade contention-for the
tariff for revenue only theory rests on
free trade arguments-is based on the
mistaken idea that men are consumers
only, and not producers also. 1t uses
the term cost" only in it's money sense
as applied to the price of products dis
sociated entirely from the price of labor
or service. The true economic cost of any
article is not it's cost in money, but it's
cost in labor or service. Strictly speak
ing, it costs no more to produce or make
an article here than it COSTS broad when
no more labor is required here than
elsewhere. 1t will cost more in money
because given amount of labor receives
higher wages here than abroad, but it
will cost nosmore in labor or service or
the products of labor in which most men
ultimately pay for whatever they buy.
Money is the only medium of making
the exchange. s4.p
All that protective duty does is
simply to make the basis of competition
here our high-wage and high-living
standard, instead of the low wages
abroad. Tt simply says to the foreign
manufactures, You must pay our gov
ernment as duty the difference be-
tween our wages and your wages in the
production or manufacture and dlstrlb u-
tion of any article. which you have
withheld from your labor, and which
we have paid ours"
The cost of any article thus manufac-
tured in this country under protection
may be more in money at particular
time, because of our higher wages, but
no more in labor or service. The money
out reference to the duty, provided it is
protective, and as low as it can be and
pay American wages. And experience
shows that the money price is gradually
reduced here and elsewhere by the com
petition thus induced by protection, so
as to be lower than it was when we re-
lied upon foreign manufacturers and
ultimately lower when measured by la
Dor or service than anywhere in the
world.
The gentleman from WestVirignia (Mr.
WILSON, asserts as his theory of the
effect of protective duty, that the
tariff of 1890 increased the tax on all the
wooden goods used in this country $50
on every 500 worth and the tax on
cotton goods ST. on each hundred and SO
on; when the fact is that whatever in
crease was made in the duties on inn
ported goods in these schedules by that
tariff has not affected the price of
wooden and cotton goods in this country
at all, for the reason that we use main
lY domestic goods on which there is no
tax or duty. Woolens were five per cent.
cheaper the year after these duties were
increased than they were the year before,
because the increase of duties gave our
domestic manufacturers larger mark eff