Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1909-03-07
TARIFF AND PRICES

TN AN interesting article, doubly
interesting because it shows a
Il change of sentiment in mercantile
New York, the New York Journal of
Commerce and Commercial Bulletin
reduces the doctrine of high tariff to
neat and palpable absurdity. Our east
ern friend says the doctrine spread
that the way to get to the top of the
fence was to lift yourself by the waist
band. Protection bred protection and
put up prices and the cost of living and
of doing anything all along the line.
America is the greatest agricultural
country on earth, and the world is the
market for its agricultural products. If
it were not for American farmers the
British would have been starved to
| death long, long ago.
What the farmers had to fear from
the competition of nations they were
feeding cannot be imagined by any
ordinary brain, but evidently it ap-
pealed to some extraordinary Repub-
lican Uranium, with the bump of pro-
lection strongly developed, for the
farmers got protective duties on grain
and vegetables, on cattle and on hens
eggs. These duties have never done
the deluded farmers the slightest bit of
good in the world They couldn't, be-
cause countries that are gasping for
American farm products, and would
come to grief if deprived of them, are
not at all likely to have any surplus
farm products of their own to send into
the United States to compete with ours.
| Our farmers who feed the British
| islands surely do not need to be pro-
tected from the competing products of
the farmers of the British islands. But
our farmers who produce our chief sur
plus for export and have absolutely
nothing to fear from foreign competi-
ton were infected by the protection
| fever, and got duties on grain, Vegeta-
bles and cattle and on hens eggs. Nat
urally enough, these duties have by no
means compensated the farmers for the
high prices Of various articles they
imported, and of domestic articles that
would compete with imported If the lat
ter were not loaded with duties and
kept down or out.
When the wooden manufacturers got
protection the wool growers demanded
it. When the shoemakers craved and
obtained protection the leather tanners
and hide growers asked where they
came in, and demanded protection
When the users of machinery got pro-
lection makers of machines and pro-
ducers of the materials of which ma
chimes are made came to the front with
their demands for protection. Cost and
prices were put up all around in the
manufacturing world, and farmers and
fruit growers and industrial people
were forced to appeal for protection,
not so much against foreign competi-
ton as against the prices they had to
nav for articles used by them in their
business! In order to protect them
selves against protection they obtained
protective duties on the articles they
sent to domestic markets, and UP went
prices in domestic markets. Then the
people who had to pay extra prices for
staples began to say, Look here, If
these fellows make us pay such prices
we must obtain prices that will enable
us to pay these prices" And so there
was another artificial increase in
values. 1t resulted in a most unnat-
ural business condition, and one con-
stantly exposed to danger because OF
it's fundamental insecurity and insta-
bilty. Indeed, the financial panic Illus
trated one phase of the danger by
showing our great industrial country
Is at the mercy of INSCRIPTIONS finan-
cial adventures who dignity them
selves by high sounding titles and their
gambling and predatory operations
with highfaluting words which deceive
the unsophisticated. 1t will be grand
day for the nation when artificiality is
taken out of the financial, commercial
and Industrial system.