, 1921-05-25
PRETENsE AND iNcoNsIsrENcy

The New York World, a free trade Democratic or
gan, has taken the American congress- 10 task for the
temerity of proposing an emergency tariff measure
for the protection of American agriculture. You al
ways expect inconsistency and pretense Of friendship
for industry in a Democratic party organ and in the
World there is no disappointment in its latest ex-
preston. It says:
There is hardly a chief exportable commodity Of
Canada, or Argentina or Brazil or Chile OF any other
country in this hemisphere at which the bill does not
aim crushing blows. 1t does this in the name of pro-
lection to the farmers Of the United States. But for
the most part it is a ~pretense and a fraud in that
respect
contains tariff duties large enough to act as a crush
ing blow to the agricultural interests of Canada, Ar
gentina, Brazil and other countries, then those du-
ties must be such as to keep out Of this market i'm
mense quantities of goods which would otherwise he
shipped into the United States. Unless the tariff act
has the effect of keeping out large quantities Of goods
1t could not act as a crushing blow at those industries.
If those other nations of the western hemisphere
are expecting TO dump immense quantities of agri-
cultural products into the United States, those prod
ucts would constitute injurious competition with the
American farmer, To admit those products to the
American market would deprive the American pro-
Queer of a corresponding portion of the domestic
market. The emergency tariff law would, therefore,
give needed protection to the farmers of the United
States and would not be a pretense or a fraud.
In one respect or the other the World is bound to
be wrong. Either the other countries of the western
hemisphere are not contemplating exporting to the
United States goods on which the emergency tariff
law places a high duty, or they are threatening to
hhJure N Hmerican market. II they are expecting
to ship us immense quantities Of goods, then the
American producer needs protection. II they are not
expecting to ship their products here, then they will
not be injured by the emergency tariff law. Both
theories advanced by the World cannot be true. The
emergency tariff law will either not hurt our COM
meroial rivals or it will protect the farmers of the
United States.
1t IS not necessary to consider, alone, agricultural
competitors in this hemisphere. We learn from Toxic
that officials of the social bureau Of that city dis
guised as laborers spent twentyfour hours among
Japanese laborors in order to get first hand knowledge
of living conditions. They found that a common la
borer received 60 cents for a day Of TO- hours. That
was city labor, and farm labor works for a far less
sum per day and for a longer period of time. 1t is
with that sort of labor. in part, not only in Japan but
in China, that the American farmer completes. The
southern grower of peanuts completes with the peanut
grower of China; the cotton growers who produce cot
ton seed oil as a by-product, are competing with the
soy bean oil producers of the Orient; the rice pro-
ducers of California are competing with the rice pro.
ducers OF Asia; manufacturers of various commodities
in the United States are competing with the cheap Ia
Dor of Japan and China. 1t is against these CONNER
cial competitors as well as against the agricultural
producers of Canada and Argentina and Brazil that
the Republicans propose to protect the American
farmer.