Woodruff County news., 1901-05-30
A NEW TARIFF ARGUMENT.
Protection Are Growing More Plentiful.

Representative Babcock, who intro iuced bill in the last congress pro- viding for the reduction and even the removal of certain tariff duties, re- ports that his policy is favored by many manufacturers. However, there is one argument which he uses, and which others have used in favor of lower duties, that may be used by those who oppose more liberal trade policy. We refer to the fact that our manufacturers in. many cases sell more cheaply to foreigners than they do to the people at home. That this is unfair, and especially so from the protectionist point of view, cannot, of course, be denied. The American people have taxed themselves for years to build up and maintain certain industries on the express understand ing that ultimately they would be able to buy the products of those industries at . much lower price than would oth- erwise have been possible, and, there fore, it seems most unjust for these protected producers to charge those who have protected them more than they charge those against whom they have been protected. We have, at their request, given them practical control of the home market, and now we find them discriminating against that market.
 But in spite of all this it has al- ought to be willing to pay higher prices than foreigners pay, because by so doing they help our manufac- turers to capture foreign markets. This matter has been made very clear by foreign writers. Only the other day an English authority warned the people of England that the competi- ton of American trusts would be in- creasingly formidable as the years passed. He argued that the monopo- listic production in the United States was of the most economic kind, and that it was further helped by the tar | Tiff, which enabled them to make a great deal of money in the home mar ket. His theory was that they made 80 much at home, behind the shelter of the tariff wall, that they could af- l LOA tO SSii III lOl SiS II hSbS o NoS es i or even below it. Thus the effect of a protective tariff, in a trust-controlled market, may be to stimulate exports by increasing the power of our export CTS to compete in foreign markets. We have no doubt that this argu- ment will be pushed vigorously by those who are interested in keeping up tariff duties. It will be said that it is as important to develop trade as it was to establish industries, and that the former is as much public object as the latter. Our favorable balance of trade will be dwelt on with the ut most impressiveness, and it will be attributed to the fact that our people are willing to pay "a little more" for their goods than they would have to pay without the tariff, thus making it pC'ssiblef for our manufacturers to beat the foreigner even in his own market It will be pointed out that every dollars worth of goods sent out of the country means the employment of just so much more labor. And we shall be responsibility asked whether, for the sake of saving little money, we are willing to shut up American factories, or seriously eurtail their operations, and throw American work ingmen out of employment. It will not be easy for the converted protec- tionists to meet such arguments. But the revolt against protectionism is bound to come. Every trust that is organized in a protected industry will be an argument in favor of greater commercial freedom. And every evi- dence of fear of American competition abroad will strengthen the American people in their conviction that protec- tion is no longer needed.-Indianap- n1iS Nouyc Ind