El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1910-08-15

70 foster and encourage its foreign
trade With this change in the nature
OF the problem before him. Bismarck,
wholly without warning, went back on
his free trade record and became an
arr ent prOtectiOniSt At that time the
VII of TIE iron chancellor was law IN
the German parliament, and as soon as
he had worked out the details OF his
protective scheme the Reichstag passed
the first German protective tariff bill
n MAY, 1879 It is a curiOusly inter-
c<ttng coincidence that most writers OF
histories say that the rise of industrial
Germany began in 1880
bismarck a PrOtectiOnist.
Bismarck said: Free trade is the
weapon OF the strong" Therefore Brit
ain could afford free trade. but Ger
many could rot. He resolved TO give
Germany a tariff system which would
provide il with weapons Of Offense and
defense, and with " hich trade adversar-
les must reckon In framing the first
protective bill. Bismarck and his as
Sistants violated all the precedents OF
the legislative advocates of protection,
in that they did net consider the inter
Csts OF particular domestic industries,
Tor OF particular sections of their own
country They examined the weak spots
in the tariff systems of their trade RI
walls, and framed their own schedule so
as 10 gain the greatest possible ad-
vantage for Industrial Germany as
whole.
The protective systeh was destroyed
in Great Britain. because it was used
only for the benefit of the landlords,
who with pig headed selfishneSS insist
cd upon maintaining high duty on
breadStuffs in the face of the facts that
the country could EOt produce sufficient
corn to feed its workmen, and that the
WOykmen were starving because Of the
high Isrice of bread. Now that there
is q recrudeSence in England of the pro-
tective propa ganda it is interesting to
observe that the English have learned
nothing from Germany or from other
countries, and that the prevalent Eng
lish idea of a protective tariff is rep
resented in the demand of the agrarian
element for high duties on wheat,
American Tariffs.
In the United States, where tariff
measures always have been framed
within the life of a single congress,
there has been neither time nor oppor-
tunity for the scientific preparation
of the schedules according to the Bis
marcks system. There has been a tar
if commission, there is a sort Of tariff
commission now. and there may be
Tuit IteuSeO tarlII com III SStDQ again.
but there is no reason to believe that
u congress, controlled by either party,
would respect the recommendation Of
any kind of a commission
Bismarck had before him the British
and American examples, and when he
resolved to throw a protective tariff
wall around the empire he was careful
to avoid the errors of the two Anglo
Saxon nations, the chief trade rivals
of Germany. But the possibilities of
protection tempted the cupidity OF the
a grarian element in Germany, whose
interests were one with Bismarck's but
whose stupidity he did not share. The
landlords succeeded In raising the tar
ifs on agricultural products to the
point of inviting political revolution.
The climax of this protective rapacity
was reached in 1887. when an increase
of the tariff was followed by the cleo
ton of a low tariff Reichstag. Then
Bismarck was dismissed and the fiscal
policy of the country was liberalized.
Food products and raw materials need