The herald., 1897-04-06
! LABOR VS.. TARIFF F.:
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BY ABBOT KINNEY.
III.


out of labor. There is no other way.
ing two dollars day. He buys bicy-
Gle costing one hundred dollars. This
means fifty days work. Protect the BIZ
cycle corporation and raise the price to
two hundred dollano. The man must
now work one hundred days to get the
same bicycle. You have diminished the
value of his labor one half. Whatever
addition is made to price by law Is to
the same extent diminution of wages.
The interference by law with the liberty
of exchange of the producer is limita-
ton of liberty. Protection diminishes
the value of the produce of all labor to
the extent that the taxes from the peo-
pie are turned over to favored corpor-
ations or classes. All taxes are paid by
products. All product is produced by
labor. Money is the medium of ex-
change which we use to pay taxes. 1t
is of course merely representative of
produce or labor, a token capable Of
convenient subdivision by which we ex-
change service and produce. The tax
is paid by produce. The produce is OBJ
tanned by labor. Money facilitates but in
no way changes the transaction. In
eastern countries taxes are still paid in
kind. This is because they have no ade-
quate medium of exchange. In Utan
when I first went there taxes were paid
in products and not in money 1t is the
laborer by hand or brain who pays taxes
Every tax requires diversion of his la
Dor from his personal satisfaction to
whatever or whomever the taxing power
orders. In the case of protection this
forced tribute of labor is given to IA
vored combines. The operation of tax
ing is shown in it's primitive directness
in the corvee. This is an Egyptian sys-
tenn whereby under force the entire pop
ulation of a sections is set to work to dig
canal or build a dyke There is no
pay. 1t is a tax. Our system is the
same thing conveniently commuted by
credit and money. A protective tax re-
duces the value of labor not only in the
country that imposes it but also in ev-
cry country with which it trades. That
part of product taken from the laborer
to enrich. let us say, Mr.. Carnegie, Mr..
Rockefeller or Mr. Hanna, is a reduc-
ton of the trading power of the pro-
ducer; It not only Injuries him but 1t must
also injure those with whom he trades.
No one can tell in our civilization where
the injury stops. That portion of our
laborers who are called laborers and
who receive wages by agreement for
the day or month, are instinctively op-
posed to the forcible transfer by law of
the produce and labor of one man or
class to another man or class. It is such
a clear steal that the people feel it where
they have not had opportunity to con-
slider economic principles. A tax i'm
posed for the benefit of private interests
is a robbery under the forms of law
The powers OF a government granted 20
prevent robbery are prostituted when
used to promote robbery. tits the taxi
ing of one mans labor or product to be-
stow these upon another. The percep-
ton of these facts makes the recognized
laboring class democratic in principle.
The principle is thar a public tax is
justified only by public use. Under
Democratic principle no public tax can
be given in bounty or the tax power be
delegated by law to any person or to
any class upon any excuse. The percep-
tion of the rank injustice of the pro-
tective system in diverting labor and lis
products from the laborer and producer
to great combines and trusts for their
enrichment is not Confined to the So
called laboring class. The protected
demonstrate their recogni-
ton of their robbery of the people
through the law by thin excuses and ex-
plantations One thing they say is that
the true object in lobbying and bribing
to have public taxes turned into their
private purse is to equalize labor con-
ditions. Protection is to enable free
man, an intelligent and progressive
American living in a country above the
nv I1a< Of anrtxr q n
life to compete with a pauper and
slave The tax is not for Carnegie but
for his workmen. The public bounty
was not for Huntington. but for the
camps of Chinese he imported to con-
struct the bountied road. The delega-
ton of the taxing power on iron from
the people to Rockefeller was not for
Rockefeller. but for his horde of Huns
living ten in a room and tagged with
brass numbers to humanely tell them
apart. This little piece of hypocrisy Is
in reality a confession. 1t proves that
the protection beneficiaries know and
admit that they themselves have no
right to the public taxes They seek
therefore to hide behind this monumen-
tai lie. Everyone knows that a bountied
baron of the trusts gives nothing to la
Dor. Labor gets from him only what it
exacts. The hardest masters are the
protected millionaires The hardest
condition of labor is in their industries
and mines. The greatest poverty and
the greatest oppression is in the ranks
of the protected mems gangs. 1t is
amongst them that discomfort and re-
volt against an unjust government is
rife 1t Is in the ranks of the protected
employers that we see the greatest dan
ger to order and the threats against
property and life.
With all this brutal stupidity, trans
parent fallacy, overthrow Of justice and
deadly lying Of protection, 1t is well TO
look the future in the face as far as hu-
man intelligence permits. Men make
nations; men make and maintain inst-
tutions. Institutions affect men in dis
tinctly secondary way. The plan of our
federated republic has been copied all
over Central and South America, but
the resulting government is not the
same. The men who made the consti-
tuition of the United States have thus far
been able to enforce it, not indeed with
out cost and danger. The Spanish
American states are only slowly ap-
preaching our advance and are still far
behind US. Our institutions transported
to Dahomey and left to the natives of
sultry Africa would Immediately col
lapse. All government is the result of
consent. Government exists because
men feel themselves better off with it
than without it. The ultimate object
of government is to secure life and prop
erty. The progress of man is encour-
aged in proportion as he is secure in
enjoying the results of his labor. Where
a man gets what he works for he is en-
couraged to invention, enterprise and
effort. Society is humanity organized