The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-10-09
MIR. DUNHAM ON
 TARIFF FALLACY.
Veteran Manufacturer Points Out Wherein Protection
 Argument Falls Short.
SFNATOR BRANDEGEE
 SHOWN IN ERROR
War Places Customs Officer Behind Cannon Who Inn
 poses Unusual Duties.
.(Hartford Tfnes.l

.(Hartford Times.)
 Austin c. Durham, Keen and able observer of trade and finance, con tributes today another of his com prehensive articles as follows:
 One of the curious campaign prop ositions boldly put forward in the Republican platform was that the new Democratic tariff had not appre- ciably lowered the high cost of hv- ing One would think that this plank in the platform so carefully fitted to it's place and so strongly supported by the speech of Senator Brandegee, would have been con spiouous for it's pretentious fallacy.
 Every one familiar with the pro duction and distribution of all man ufacture ed articles used in our daily life knows that the consumer usu- ally, and in fact, universally, does not feel the effect of a. change in prices until about an average of a, year after the causes of such change begin to operate. For instance, the terrible war which has broken out all over Europe has inflicted a dead Iy blow on the present value of cot ton. 1iddnng cotton has declined from about 14 in 1913 to an average of about IA cents as the present cash value of the staple. The best judges of the article feel confident that midding cottons will be mar keted during the present cotton year at an average of about 10 cents, and that probably they will soon re- sune that price, but the goods made from this staple will not come into the hands of the consumer for some months later than the drop in the value of the raw. material of which they are made. The raw material has to go through the slow and re- 1uctant process of passing through fhe hands of the grower into the hands of the buyer It then has to go to the manufactures who has to be more or less sure that he is going to have a market for his goods be- 1 fore he purchases the material of which they are made. Then again comes the buyer of the nanufac- tureds goods to the front, who has to make up his mind as to what i he is going to want and how much he. Lis going to be able to sell of these articles in their great variety to his customers whowilI be able to pay for them, and the final. operation of placing them in the retail stores, where they are sold to the actual consumers and this is many months later than the first change in the price and cost of the material which governs the cost of the goods. Many Months Separation
 During fifty years of manufactur- ing experience I have never seen the time when the cost to the consumer was not separated by many months from the various causes which have changed the cost of the manufactured or imported article.
 b should not willingly accuse a gentleman of MT Brandegee's char acter and intelligence of wi1fuIIy misrepresenting what is so well known in the world of business, but when a man who has been so long as Senator Brandegee has in public life does not comprehend so simple a statement of fact as the above, it would seem to show that he was not very well fitted to represent a great manufacturing state. @
 To talk of a tariff as a means of lowering the high cost of living dur ing the few months which have elapsed since 1t tooksg effect would seem to be an absurdfty which ought to be imported into the Eng fish Punch" rather than to be ventilated in serious newspapers. However, this whole question om ac- count of the awful ca1anities which have enveloped the whole economic and social world during the last two or three months have eliminated tariff questions as such from pres ent discussion,1 and have created new tariff question which is more important to this country than any discussion has been up to this time.
 
 It is plain that asl4 source of revenue the custom house with high protective tariff has become a very uncertain method of taxation. Any nation with a more powerful navy than our own could for in stance cut off more than one-third If our entire revenue whenever 1t chose to make war upon us. Last year if we had thought best to make war with England we should have found ourselves under bond of SzS5.ooo, 900 to keep the peace
 We shall soon have I to make up l our minds how much of our taxa ton we can afford to make depen- dent upon raising our navy to the standard which England has been struggling to keep up on account of her relations with Germany during the last twenty years.
 At the present time we are en- oeaVoring to substitute the revenue. Which we have hitherto obtained rom the custom house, by some new methods of taxation, which have to De created suddenly and without any of the consideration due to such Q subject, on account of an unfore- seen and pressing emergency.
 From Women to Men.
 Instead of collecting revenue from 1aces, fine costumes, articles of lux ury of all sorts, and many articles of necessity in manufacture and or dinary use in daily life, we are shut off by a custom officer who stands behind the cannon mouth, and who insists on our paying all the enor- nous expenses entailed by war du- ties, and so are obliged by strenu- ous necessity to legislate new taxes to keep our governmental revenue up somewhere near it's former average,
 We are going to in fact transfer our taxation quite largely from fN00 the public treasury to what men. will now have to pay in the course of their business, and for the use of their ordinary luxuries.