Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1901-02-18
FREE TRADE AND
FOREIGN MARKETS.
'Protection" vDiminishes American
Exports, Restricts Foreign Trade
and Handicaps the Struggle for
Foreign Markets.


notably Henry Clay, its grandest apostle.
urged it as the temporary means of build
ing up American manufactures, which.
they claimed, when once well developed.
would maintain themselves without fur
ther government support, or permanent
burden upon the people. Said Clay, No
one in the commencement of the protect
i've policy ever supposed that it was to be
Perpetual" Declared Garfield, II am for
a protection which leads to free trade"
Surely we have now reached that stage
to which they looked forward, when our
industries are fully grown and establish
ed, and abundantly able to stand alone.
This is demonstrated by the vast and in
creasing number and quantities of manu-
featured goods we are sending abroad,
fifty million dollars in value last year.
In sober fact, the country has at last fair
ly outgrown protection" granting all its
pretended needs in the beginning Ger
tainly the great lines of manufactures
now seeking foreign markets have nothing
to fear from free trade. They cross the
ocean and undersen the foreigner in his
own market. How, then, can he compete
with them in their home? There is no
doubt that the great majority Of Amer
lean manufacturers could to-day success
fully sustain unrestricted foreign compe-
tition, and lift here remain any who are still
unable to do so, the protection" which
even the lowest and most strictly revenue
tariff that we can have for many years
would give, would be sufficient. Every in
telligent man knows that our manufac-
lures are now so developed-and whether
by means of or in spite of protection"
matters not-that they glut the home
market and are overlooking into foreign
rSarkets on all sides. They no longer
need protection against the foreigner; no
longer can it do them any good as against
him. But the cry is now raised that even
If not needed, protection" can 90 no
harm and should be preserved as wall of
defence for the future The plea is a spe-
cious ore, and calls for a little scrutiny.
1t does not follow necessarily that
measure that does no good, can work no
harm; indeed, the reverse is true in most
cases, and this on examination will De
found a striking instance of that fact.
No harm that the country is overrun by
protection" born trusts like noxious
weeds which keep the prices of steel lum-
Der, coal, glass; lead, salt and scores OF
and profit? No harm that every consumer
in the land is forced to pay tribute to
these monopolists, who having foreign
competition shut out for their 'protec-
ton promptly combine to stop domes-
tic competition, and exact every cent
possible~from the people? No harm. then
why are so many public men and jour
mails, Republican as we'll as Democratic
and Independent, lamenting this state of
things, and declaring that the true way TO
correct it is to abolish the protection
which cave it birth?
The victor in the great struggle for the
worlds markets will be the nation that
produces goods at the least cost and sells
them at the lowest price Every cent of
extra cost levied by these trusts upon the
articles used in manufacturing is bur-
den upon our industries, and a handicap
III the race for foreign trade. The aim,
effort and effect of protectonists and
trust monoDolists alike is to hold up
prices to an abnormal level, level higher
than the natural one. When nearly every
material of manufactures is thus raised
in price, even though in some cases the
extra cost is slight, the goods produced
must be greatly enhanced in cost, and so
much less able to compete in price in for
eign markets. But how much greater is
the handicap when the tariff trusts actual
ly sell their products abroad cheaper than
they will at home The public little
knows how extensively this has been done,
and is being done, but the discrimination
in this way of the great steel trusts is so
fragrant that it is attracting general at
plates by thousands of tons to British
shipyards at prices far below what they
exact from American shipbuilders And
some Of the very men responsible for such
unpatriotic discrimination against their
own countrymen are foremost in trying to
force the ship subsidy bill through Con-
gress on the ground that American ship
yards cannot compete with British Let
any one who doubts these facts read the
report of the United States Commissioner
of Navigation for October 1890, and the
Monthly Summary of Commerce and Fin
ance for last December Of the Bureau of
Statistics, pages 1893. 1896, 1901
The Boston Herald of February 10th
gives another instance 1t says that two
great steel companies, the Illinois, Steel
Co., OF Chicago, and the Lorain Steel Co.,
OF Cleveland, have just sold Il, 40 tons of
steel rails to be delivered in Melbourne,
Australia, for S2S.65 per ton. The price in
the United States is. and has been for
some time, $50 al the mill Deducting the
cost of transportation TO Melbourne not
less than so a ton, and the price at which
these companies sold their steel rails in
Australia is only SIS or SO ton. which is
81 or S ton less than the price they ex-
act from American railroads Does the
protection" on steel rails Of s7.S4 a ton
work no harm, which enables these great
steel companies to grant such advantages
10 foreign consumers, while denying them
10 Americana This tariff-trust policy of
high prices artihcially maintained at
home, and selling goods abroad at low
prices viii make America pay tribute to
the world at large, and convert her for
eign trade from a benefit into a grevious
burden
A like burden is thrown upon all our
industries by the protection on the raw
materials of manufactures, such as wool,
fax, hemp. hides, ores, coal, lumber and
many other articles, which enhances the
cost TO the manufacturer even when not
aggravated by trusts. No other civilized
nation. not even highly protected France
or Germany. thus taxes the food of their
factories, the materials upon which their
artisans exercise their skill. and adds an
extra and unnecessary cost upon their
products to handicap them in the race for