Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1898-09-02
ON HIGH AUTHORITY.
GREAT LIES TOLD AGAIN AND
AGAIN.
Great Exports Do Not Necessarily Mean
Prosperity and Protective Tariffs Do
Not Necessarily Mean Good Times
As History Records 1t.

What an ass man must be to as
sert that protection always makes good
times and free trade bad times, says
Holt. What did we have from 184S to
1861? Free trade. Read protectionlst
Kennedy's census report for 1860. He
Is astonished at our wonderful pros
perity from 1850 to 1860. He can't
understand it, and wonders what would
have happened IL we had had protec-
ton. Over eighteen thousand new
factories started. See also Blaines
Twenty Years in Congress" Blaine
says it must have been caused by call
fornia gold. Then came along 1870
up to 1880, when we had the greatest
protective tariff ever before known.
Over fifty thousand factories went
down in the great smash of 1873; anu
with double protection and wealth we
increased our factories but seventeen
hundred, as against eighteen thousand
from 1850 to 1860.
What kind of times have we now?
What kind of tariff?
There is another bold, fragrant lie
repeated over and over For example,
a late Scientific American states that
our exports the past few months nave
exceeded our imports several hundred
millions. This, says the Scientific AM
erican, with proud complacency, shows
that Europe owes us several hundred
millions on our exports that she must
yet pay us! This means, of course,
repetition Of that poor old blunder OF
economists Of centuries past. If your
imports are more than your exports
you are growing poorer, and vice YER
sa. That is, If you get more than you
gave, you are running behind. II you
get less, you are growing rich. This
was as firmly believed in with as
strong faith as the savage African be-
lieves in his fetisches, or as we held
to the righteousness of slavery up to
1868, CIR as the goldites hold to gold
as money today. Seventy years ago
McCulloch, great London merchant,
declared it was a ridiculous lie, and
predicted, in his work on commerce,
that if England should ever adopt free
trade her imports would constantly
exceed her exports, and that she would
grow constantly richer for that very
reason. In 1s4S she began her free
trade policy. What has been the re-
suit? From that time on till now,
some fifty years, without one single ex-
ception, her imports have exceeded ex-
ports by from three to five, and as
high as eight hundred millions per
year! Yet her population is but little
over half ours. Little Belgium, and
Holland, too, have pursued the same
course, with the same result-imports
enormously exceeding exports every
year. And yet our politicians, our big
authorities, our scientists and Scien-
tific Americans continue to repeat that
old exploded fallacy-the less you get
for your exports, the more you have.
We can tell the Scientific American
that when 1t gets out of the patent
business into politics or potatoes it Is
not infallible. We can also suggest
why our imports for last years ex-
ports are so few. About half our eX-
ports went to settle balances due on
bonds, stocks and to pay travelling eX-
penses Of our touring millionaires and
their toady followers.