Red Lodge daily news combined with Carbon County news., 1933-01-18
LOW TARIFF PROPAGANDA BENEFITS
ALIENS, VICTIMIZES U. S. INDUSTRY
AND LABOR

uepTeSSlOu5 perhaps lue mOSb lulOllC 10 UIc pIOpOool
that we reduce our tariffs SO as to admit into this
country more goods of foreign manufacture in con-
sideration of a corresponding or proportionate low
ering of tariff barriers by the nations Of Europe.
We owe this sapient suggestion to those founts of
interested and self-serving counsel, the internation-
al bankers and their trained seal economists
1t deserves about as much consideration as the
proposal made by a vice president of one of the larg-
est of New Yprk's banks, that an issue of British
bonds be floated in America to provide Great Brit
ain with money with which to reduce her debt to us.
The American people surrounded by a ring of I1r-
ropean debtor nations, who have already repudiated
or announce their purpose to r~epudiate their Dor
rowings of the past, will hardly look with favor up.
on a RESUMPTION of LENDING.
1t is hard to keep a straight face in the presence
of such absurdities.
As to opening our markets still further to the en-
try of foreign goods, it would mean a further sacri-
flee of what is left of our domestic trade, with no
possible countervaiing gains whatever.
There was perhaps a time, now long past, when
international tariff restrictions might have lent
themselves to constructive adjustment in the inter-
ests of general trade revival, but with the resort of
some forty foreign nations to deprecated curren-
cies, an ENTIRELY NEW CONDITION HAS
ARISEN.
"
If foreign-made goods can pay the American high
tariff duties. and WITH THAT SEVERE HANDI-
CAP, still DRIVE AMERICAN GOODS OUT OF
THE AMERICAN MARKET, how are American
goods going to compete in foreign markets with
foreign goods where the latter are relieved Of the
handicap of our tariff duties?
In other words, American goods are made expen-
sive by the high standards of American wages and
American living.
Foreign goods are made cheap, by cheap labor,
further pauperized by deprecated currencies.
1t is obviously impossible for American goods to
compete with these cheap foreign goods in foreign
markets, unless American labor is also to be pauper-
lied and American standards of living to be sacri-
feed.
To be specific, if a foreign article manufactured
at a cost of one dollar by foreign cheap labor, under
the added ~cheapness of a deprecated currency, is
offered in competition with a similar American art
icle made by highly paid American labor, which
costs for its manufacture two dollars, how can the
American article at two dollars survive competition
with the foreign-made article in foreign markets?
Obviously the only way the American article can
compete in American markets is to add a dollar of
duty to the fo~reign-made article, making it cost
two dollars, and giving the American article at two
dollars an equal opportunity to compete.
But in foreign markets where no such advantage
can be created to favor the American product, the
foreign product, manufactured with cheap labor
and cheap currency, will unquestionably drive the
American product completely out of the foreign
market.
There is the reason why America s .foreign trade
has diminished. And there is no remedy for this
situation except to p~auperize our own labor.
So let us cease to consider foreign trade in COM
petitive articles and consider only the protection Of
OUR HOME MARKET, which is the greatest mai
ket in the world, FOR OUR OWN PRODUCTS,
made by properly paid American labor.
Where we manufacture certain goods, let us keep
similar foreign-made goods out of our country.
We have AS MUCH RIGHT to REGULATE I'M
PORTS as we have to REGULATE IMMIGRA-
TION.
We have as much RIGHT TO EXCLUDE GER
TAIN IMPORTS, DANGEROUS to our AMERI-
CAN STANDARDS N IDEAS, as we have the
right to EXCLUDE certain IMMIGRATION which
is a MENACE TO OUR AMERICAN STAND
ARDS AND IDEALS.
Washington Herald.