The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1937-09-29
BIBLE THOUGHT
FOR GOD ALONE
LOGIC OF HIGH TARIFFS


"Why can't something be done about
the TARIFF" is the question asked by The
Texas Weekly The Weekly answers at
length with its views, some paragraphs Oh
which we herewith quote:
A double penalty is assessed against the farmer
by the high tariff system He is compelled, as ne
has always been, to pay artficially maintained
domestic price for everything he buys with the
proceeds of his crops But in addition to this, bis
foreign customers, if he has any left, are COMPEL
cd to purchase his product across the high tariff
wall and this has a strong tendency to impel for
egn buyers TO escape this necessity by buying tnelr
supplies elsewhere if they are available at all This
latter penalty is by far a greater burden to the
farmer than that placed upon him by high domes-
tic tariff prices. The bonus paid to the farmer Is
designed to compensate" him for this latter bur-
den but it does not affect at all the greater bur-
den of q declining foreign market This greater
burden is something new in American experience,
being the result of the change brought about by
the war, which, by making the United States a
creditor nation, without any annual net pay
mentS to be made on debts abroad every year, de-
stroved an important source of foreign purchasing
power. BY importing gold and then by exporting
capital in the form of investments in foreign Sc
obscured But it has been in full operation since
the depression, and especially since the enactment
of the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act. 1t is still! new to
American experience, however, and consequently
is not widely understood Because it is not widely
understood there has been no widespread demand
for tariff revision. And yet it remains true, re-
gardless of its not being understood, that the high
tariff policy of the United States is the chief
cause of "the farm problem" and that tariff re-
vision constitutes the very heart of the problem.
The logic of protection has two premises which
are fundamentally in conflict with some of the
essential elements of prosperous agriculture. One
is that the ideal of sef-sufficency is desirable and
attainable. The other is that the United States
should be primarily an industrial nation and that
national policy should subordinate all other con-
siderations to the promotion of industrial inter-
ests The true proteetoniSt sincerely believes that
it Isl better to produce almost anything within the
boundaries of the United States, even inefficently
and at high cost, than to import it from outside
the country. And the typical American protection
list believes that the national interest be serv-
ed best by promoting manufacturing at the ex-
pense of agriculture, even to the extent of de-
stroying entirely whole branches of agriculture.
Indeed, this latter belief is decidedly funda-
mental tenet of the American protectonistS creed
free raw materials which contradicts the other
premise. The doctrine of "free raw materials is
that while it is desirable to produce almost any
thing in the United States rather than to import
it from abroad it is not desirable to penalize
American manufacturing by keeping out foreign
raw materials in the interest of domestcally pro-
duced raw materials. We haven't heard a great
deal about "free raw materials in recent years,
but once American agriculture generally is re-
duced to domestic basis, with the accompanying
essential element of an increase of the production
of foreign materials to volume sufficient to
make the rest of the world independent of the
American supply, we may expect a revival of it in
the interest of triumphant industrialism During
the past week the Bureau of Agricultural Econom-
les saw fit to call attention to the fact that the
250,000 bales of foreign cotton imported into the
United States is chiefly of varieties that do not
compete with American cotton. This, of course, is
true. But the Bureau saw fit to add the following
obseFvations Exporters of foreign cotton will
never, except under very unusual circumstances.
ind lIt to their advantage to ship to the United
States cotton of the same quality as is being
exported from the United States in significant
amounts" Never is rather comprehensive
word. 1t takes in lot of territory. so to sneak
And we think it is just little too sweeping in the
present connection. As long as the outside world
Is not producing enough cotton to supply its own
needs, and as long as any quality of cotton is
being exported from the United States in signfi-
cant amounts" it will remain true that exporters
or foreign cotton will not find it to their advan-
tage to ship cotton to the United States. But the
crop Of foreign cotton this year is greater in
amount than the total consumption of cotton OF
all k9nds outside the United States only 10 years
ago, and only five years ago the experts at Wash
ingtdn were telling that it would be impossible
for the production of foreign cotton to be inerea