%H3AINn .viovAvcrifr.v .N\TiiBRARYQ<^ <^mm ■OF-CALh .,. .'..nFfAtlF ^1 I W ^<:?Aavjj. f nSANCElfj"^, ilRRAI u &ii( :^ %oi\mi^^ ^OFCALIFO/?^ P^/-' ivaan-^^ 11 yn.i y o il. ^^ «^ m\ms/A o c? *s ^tLIBRARYQr ^HIB"^^' ^OJUVOJO"^ ^^^OFCAllFOff^ >t7i};vfi?iii-^^ % WNmih xmrn"^ '"'/AdjAiNi .\\^E jJIWJ'JO^- ''^i'G. THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL BY A FARMER DANIEL STRANGE, M.Sc. ANGE, G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK LONDON 27 WEST TWENTV-THIKD STKEET 24 [iEUFORD STREET. STRAND i,\^t ^lutlicrbodur yrcss 1892 ^ COPVKIGHT, 1892 BY DANIEL STRANGE Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by Ube Iknkficibochcr iprcss, IRcw l^orli G. P. Putnam's Sons Hf- nss PREFACE. The author has no new theories to advance, no new facts to offer. He has aimed to present in available form such true theories as are accepted by students of economic science, and so much of the false theories regarding tariffs, now popularly current, as the limits of the work allow room to exhibit and refute. An array of historical facts and of statistics, is also presented which may be verified by any one having the facilities, the time, and the inclination. The author has tried, and in this he thinks he has been successful, to present a greater amount of information relating to the theories, the facts, and the effects of tariff legislation than is to be found elsewhere in the same com- pass, or for many times the same expense. That the " Citizen Sovereign " of this country who reads this book may be able to vote more intelligently on the most important and far-reaching financial question of modem times, is the author's earnest hope. Daniel Strange. Cloverdale Farm, Grand Ledge P. O., Mich., July, 1S92. aSO^RZ CONTENTS. PART I. Tariff for Revenue. PAGE Tariff Defined i " The Bowery parrot says, ' The tariff is a tax.' " History . 2 Principles of Taxation 4 Tariff Taxation Expensive and Unscientific ... 7 PART II. Theories of Protection. Protection from What? 11 "The government that fails to protect its citizens, even the humblest, fails in its most im^ )rtant function." Free-Trade Theory 13 "After all is not free trade a theory of school men while protection is the practice of nations?" The Theorist 15 "Are not free-trade advocates mere theorists, while practical men advocate protection ? Is not free trade a ' boy's size ' philosophy taught in school, while protection is the phi- losophy of men ? " Protective Tariff Defined 18 " We make the foreigner pay into the public treasury the dif- ference between his labor cost and our labor cost, before we allow him to enter the American market." " That is all there is to X^vvs, great question of protection." V Vi CONTENTS. PACK TiiK FdREir.N'KR Who Pays our Taxes . . . .20 " If wc nre making railroail iron, and the Englishman brings his iron made by cheap foreign labor liere to compete with ours, we must reduce tlie wages of our men, or if we im- pose a tariff of $20 per ton which the I'nglishman must pay before he can enter our market, it gives our manufacturers just so much advantage." The Foreign Contrihutor to our Protection . . 24 " We know that a revenue tariff adds to the prices and is paid by the consumer, but protection is a tax on the foreigner to enter our market. At first we admit it increases prices, but soon competition makes prices cheaper tlian under free trade, and ever after tlie duty is paid by the foreigner." Tariff and Prices 31 " Under Democratic free trade calico costs you 25 cents a yard. Under Republican protection it costs 5 cents. Is the tariff a tax ? The duty on calico is 6 cents. You buy it in your stores at 5 cents. Can you tell me how to add 6 to the cost price and make 5 ? " The IIav-Market Transaction 34 " I relate this to show that the Canadian pays the duty on everything he brings into tlie United States, and not the purchaser." The Canadian Again Paying Our Taxes . . . .38 America for Americans ....... 42 " We want no better proof of the advantages the McKinley bill will give us than the fact that all Europe opposes it." Low Prices Under Protection 43 " We challenge the opposition to name a single article of manufacturing that has been protected for any length of time by our tariff that is not cheaper now than it ever was under Democratic free trade." Balance of Trade 49 " In the Republic of Brazil we lost last year $51,000,000. Our imports from Brazil were $60,000,000, and our exports to Brazil were .$9,000,000." CONTENTS. Vll PAGE Reciprocity 54 " To sum it all up, our imports from countries south of us, both insular and continental, on this hemisphere, were $216,000,000. Our exports to them were $74,000,000. The balance against us in our trade with these countries, therefore, was $142,000,000." Home Market 59 " Every line of your last cliapters is an argument to me for protection. We should put the duties so high that no foreign goods can come here, increase our manufactures to supply all our wants and let competition control prices. Farmers themselves should go to manufacturing." A Tilt with the "Tribune" 64 " If the amount paid for foreign tin-plate had been paid for tin-plate made at home, this country would have saved over $23,000,000 last year, as we lost that amount in paying for foreign tin." Farm Products Exported 67 " We paid $23,000,000 for foreign tin-plate last year, which was a total loss to the country, for the simple reason that we did not sell them a single bushel more of wheat than if we had purchased no tin at all." Tariff and Wages 72 " Under protection we have had great demand for labor, wages high, and money cheap." Our Laborers • • • 75 " Were it possible for every voter to see for himself the con- dition and recompense of labor in Europe, the party of free trade in the United States would not receive the sup- port of one wage worker between the oceans." Relative Wages 78 " If the proposed rate of duty on any articles on the dutiable list is in excess of what is required to giv'=: fair and adequate protection to the competing domestic industry, none will be more ready than tlie majority of your com- mittee to reduce the rate to the level of such requirement. If the duty is too higli it is prohibition, with no revenue to the government and danger of monopoly at home." vni CONTENTS. PAGE A CiiKAi' Man in a Dkar Chat 84 " The one fact that I do not need to stoii to demonstrate by statistics is that liie sc-ale of American wages is higher than that of any other country in tlie world. It is because we have for years l)y our protective tariff discriminated in favor of American manufactures and American working- men." England and America 87 *'If, then, English wages are so satisfactory, why do English operatives come to America ? Is not English agriculture as much depressed as our own, and what better than his own could wc offer the English, if protection had not developed our country ? " Free Trade 92 " If the doctrine of protection is as false and injurious as it is represented to be, how happens it that free trade does not at once meet with universal acceptance, and how is the adherence of many men, with clear intelljct and practical experience, to the opposite doctrine to be accounted for ? " , Theories ok Eminent Republicans 97 " I believe in protection and shall vote for it, not because I understand it, for I don't, but because I believe the grand old party has always been on the right side of every leading question." PART III. History of Protection. Historical Summary and Introduction .... 107 " Remember the i>ivarial>k rule that protection means pros- perity, while free trade means adversity." Earlier Tariffs 115 " The safety and interest of the people require that they should protect such manufactures as tend to render them inde- pendent of others for essentials, particularly for military supplies.'' CONTENTS. IX PAGE Developing Infant Industries ii7 " No one, Mr. President, in the commencement of the pro- tective policy, ever supposed that it was to be perpetual. We hoped and believed that temporary protection ex- tended to our infant manufactures would bring them up and enable them to withstand competition with those of Europe." First Protective Tariffs, i8i6, i8i8, and 1824 . . . 124 " In 1S16 we did what the gentleman from Texas now asks us to do, we 'took down the bars,' and instantly a flood of foreign imports swept in upon us, bringing devastation and ruin to all our industries and all the people. This condition of things continued until 1824 and 1828. Then the bars were put up again." "Tariff of Abominations," 1828 131 " Not the least curious part of the history of the Act of 1828 is the treatment it has received from the protectionist writers. At the time the protectionists were far from enthusiastic about it. In later years, when the details of its history had been forgotten, it came to be regarded with favor. Henry C. Carey, on whose authority rest many of the accounts of our economic history, called it ' an admirable tariff ' ; he represented it as having had great effect on the prosperity of the country, and his statements have often been repeated by protectionists." Last Protective Tariff of the Series, 1S32 . . , 135 " But in 1832 the enemies of protection rallied their forces again and secured control of Congress through a disgrace- ful compromise with Southern nullifiers. Protection was abandoned. The protective tariff of 1824 and 1828 was repealed, and duties too low to afford any real protection to home industries were established by that Congress. Again financial depression followed." Compromise Tariff, 1833 137 " The theory of protection supposes too tliat after a certain time the protected arts will have acquired such strength and perfection as will enable tliem subsequently, unaided, to stand up against foreign competition." X CONTENTS. PAGB Protkction Ar.AiN, 1S42 , 141 "In 1S42 the people, completely exhausted by misrule and free trade, restored the Whigs to power, and they passed anotlier highly jirotective tariff. No sooner was this done than the financial gloom passed away. The sun of pros- perity shone forth. Business revived everywhere. Fac- tories and otiier industries sprung up on every hand throughout the North." Revenue Tariff, 1846 145 ' ' The tariff of 1 846, although confessedly and professedly a tariff for revenue, was, so far as regards all the great interests of the country, as perfect a tariff as any that we ever had." Further Reduction, 1857 150 " But in 1857 the Democrats, urged on by the South, and by their natural tendency to free trade, again reduced the duties, already too low, to the lowest rates we have ever had since the adoption of the Constitution, and again financial revolution, appalling in its widespread severity and distress, involved the nation, and for more than four years tortured and impoverished our people, and exhausted our land." Morrill Tariffs, 1861, 1862, and 1864 .... 160 " Have any of the manufacturers come here to complain or to ask for new duties ? Is it not notorious that if we were to leave it to the manufacturers of New England them- selves, to the manufacturers of hardware, textile fabrics, etc., there would be a large majority against any change ? Do we not know that the wooden manufacture dates its revival from the tariff of 1857, which altered the duties on wool ? " Duties Inxreased after the War, 1S67, 1S70 . . . 164 " I will say with regard to the duty on wool ami woollens, that I regard it, not as an intentional fraud, but as operating as though it were a fraud, upon the great body of the people of the United States. The effect of the wool tariff has been to materially injure the slieep-husbandry of this country. , . . The price of wool has been constantly depreciated. " CONTENTS. xi PAGE Tariffs of 1872, 1875 170 " The grand result is a tariff bill reducing duties $53,000,000, and yet leaving the great industries almost intact. A re- duction of $53,000,000, and yet taking only a shaving off from protection duties. The present tariff was made by our friends, in the interest of protection." Work of the Tariff Commission, 1SS2 . . . .175 " Reduction in itself was by no means desirable tons. It was a concession to public sentiment, a bending of the top and branches to the wind of public opinion to save the trunk of the protective system. In a word the object was pro- tection through reduction." The McKinley Tariff, 1890 181 " If the proposed rate of duty on any articles on the dutiable list is in excess of what is required to give fair and ade- quate protection to the competing domestic industry, none will be more ready than the majority of your committee to reduce the rate to the level of such requirement." Experience of Australia 197 "Wages in Australia are only 3^ cents on the dollar lower than they are in the United States. England controls the markets of Australia. Why have not the cheap goods of free-trade England made the wages in Australia lower and reduced the laborer there to a pauper ? " Experience of England 206 " Ah, but they say, ' Why is n't free trade a good thing ? ' It is if you are finished and completed, if you have stopped growing. But here decay steps in." PART IV. Practical Results of Protection. Introduction 218 " The protective tariff, the burden, duty, or tariff on foreign people encourages our own people. . . . We know what thirty years of protection have done. Shall it be changed ? " Xil CONTENTS. PAGE F.KFKCTS (IK I'KOTKCTION (?) ON WoOI 222 " In 1867, tlie price of wool was 51 cents ; in 1870 46 cents ; in iSSS, \vliicl\ was an abnormal year, 40 cents per pound. This was the rksui.t of the imlicy of protecting the wool grower, as it is in all industries, to gradually kkduce the price. Under the operation of the existing law, the tariff of 1S67, the price of wool has gradually gone down." Trotected Woollens 229 " The introduction free of duty of such wools as we do not produce would stimulate the manufacturing of goods requiring the use of those we do produce, and therefore would be a benefit to home production." Protected Lumber 234 " The conversion of the raw material into lumber is done by the sturdy stroke of the axe and solid days' work by this army of men, and the estimated cost of producing lumber is $13.50 per thousand, the average price received $14.57, leaving $1.07 profit. Protected Salt 239 " The title of the bill should be changed to read ' A Bill to Prevent the Blessings of Divine Providence from being Enjoyed by the People of the United States.' " Protected Coal 243 " If there was no duty on coal between Canada and the United States, I think the Nova Scotia region would sup- ply Canadian territory east of Montreal and most of the State of Maine, and perhaps some in Boston." Protected Iron 247 "Who pay these taxes? When the manufacturer of iron comes to the Senate and says, ' I can live, or I can make a profit if a certain duty is imposed,' what is he saying? " Protected Steel and Iron Products ..... 252 "My observation has taught me that the greatest obstacle to American competition in foreign markets, to nearly every class of goods, is the high price of our raw material. Take off the duty and we will send our goods everywhere. Wages would increase here under such a system rather than become lower." CONTENTS. XIU PAGE Protected Copper 259 " The mine owners have publicly stated that they are able to produce more than all the copper this country consumes, and a large part of it at a cost not exceeding 6 cents per pound, and that they proposed to the French bankers, who held enormous unsold stocks, to fix the selling price at about 13 cents a pound, more than double the cost." Protected Tin 265 " The existing tariff presents the anomaly of placing a higher duty upon the sheet-iron and steel, which constitute the chief element in the production of tin-plate, than upon the tin-plate itself, which is a manifest wrong." Protected Sugar 272 " When it is considered that this increased cost due to the duty falls on an article of prime necessity as food, your committee are persuaded that justice as well as good policy requires that such an unnecessary burden in the way of a direct tax should be removed from sugar, etc." Small Fruits, Protected ? 279 " I can cite cases where, through being able to obtain cheap sugar, struggling growers have been in a position to pay the whole of their rent by turning their waste fruit — other- wise positively unsalable — into jam." Dairy Farming, Protected? 283 " In a few years you will see the present owners of farms in many instances tenants on them. The cities are prosper- ing though. New York City has added about $50,000,000 property to its real value the past year. Brooklyn has added between $20,000,000 and $30,000,000 to its real property." Farm Products, Protected ? 289 " The home production of sugar does not materially affect the price, and the duty is therefore a tax which is added to the price not only to the imported, but of the domestic product, which is NOT TRUE of duties imposed on articles produced or made here substantially to the extent of our wants." XiV CONTENTS. PAGB EKKKCT on TIIK I'AKMKK 302 " c;oo2> P^^ cent, it made the price to the consumer eight cents per box. 8 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. W'itlioul tlio stamp ihcy still cost to manufacture a half cent. The fust seller, taking, as before, a profit of 25 i)er cent., makes them five-eighths of a cent ; the jobber, taking the same percentage as before, gets for them six-eighths of a cent ; the retailer, in turn, taking -^^^ per cent, profit, sells them at one cent per box. Plainly the three-cent excise tax cost the man who finally paid it seven cents, and I never heard it questioned that the consumer paid it. Now if the consumer paid seven cents, for the govern- ment to get three, who gets the other four ? I answer it is lost in friction. The dealers get it, it is true, but they gain nothing thereby. Or when he no longer paid it, the government lost the three cents ; but who lost the four? I answer, no one. The dealers still get the same percentage as before. The laborer who had bought each month three boxes of matches for twenty- five cents, now buys twenty-five boxes for the same money. The next month he needs no matches, but buys a toy for his children, which they never had before. The next month he buys a book. The merchant makes the same as ever, but the $1.75 which the poor man saves on twenty-five boxes of matches gives him many new comforts in his home. The government releases only seventy-five cents, and the merchant nothing. Plainly the dollar was lost in friction. I buy a cheap knit shawl for my wife, on which the present duty is 240 per cent. I pay $6,80, — two dollars for the shawl, and $4.80 for the tariff. If there were no duty on it, I could also buy a cloak for each of my girls, or a hat and shoes for my boy, who must now go barefooted above and below. The merchant would have the same, and my children would be clothed, and the $2.40 or less TARIFF FOR REVENUE. g which the government got I could easily pay in some other way. Two dollars and forty cents ? Yes ; for the government really gets but a small part of the tariff we pay. I have asked many, very many merchants for their estimate of the combined profits of all the dealers through whose hands goods finally reach the consumers. They answer that, with the exception of a few staples on which the profits are small, the price is doubled between the other side the ocean and the consumer. If this shawl, then, cost the importer ^c in Germany, it should cost me $2 ; but the government at once demanded ^2.40 (which the foreigner in this case could certainly not pay and sell it for a dollar). So the cost to the importer was $3.40, instead of ^i, and to me ^6.80, instead of ^2. The government is now collecting in round numbers $400,000,000 per annum by indirect taxation. It costs the people $800,000,000 to pay it. The other $400,- 000,000 is lost in friction, doing nobody any good. To illustrate this fact : If a merchant has $16,000 to invest in trade, he wishes to make a certain percentage on this. If he can invest it all in goods as such, well and good. But if he can invest but $10,000 in goods and $6,000 in duties on the same, he asks the same percent- age in one case as the other. If his profit is 25 percent., his customers would certainly as soon pay $20,000 for $16,000 worth of imported goods as to pay him $20,000 for $10,000 of the same goods — lost in friction. Why do we tolerate the system ? Whatever may be said for protection, a revenue tariff is a relic of barbar- ism at best. A few years ago it was defended in many of our text- books on the ground that State, county, municipal, and school taxes were paid upon assessed property. There lO THE FAh\^rKRS' TARIFF MANUAL. were vast numbers of men enjoying large salaries or other liberal incomes who had little or no taxable property. These men often indulged in imported diamonds, stat- uary, silks, and broadcloths, and by taxing imported luxuries these men were very justly reached. Whatever of force there might have been in this under former tariffs, it offers no excuse for the i)rescnt tariff, which is notorious, above all other reasons, for the fact that the /lig/ust >aft-s of duty are in nearly every case laid upon the cheapest grades of goods. Diamonds, statuary, etc., are now on the free list. The poorest man with twelve children is made by the tariff law to pay more, not indeed to the government, but for protection, than the man with an income of $100,000 per year. Why do we tolerate the system ? I ask again. The only answer any one at this time would think of giving, is that it is for protection. This, then, will be considered in the following chapters PART II. THEORIES OF PROTECTION. PROTECTION FROM WHAT ?— " The government that fails to protect its citizens, even the humblest, fails in its most important function." In the preceding pages I have spoken only of a tariff for revenue. We now come to consider the vastly more important topic, a tariff for protection. There is something very enticing in the very name. Protection is certainly the fundamental function of government. If we are threatened by dangers from without or foes within our nation, or even by dread disease, it is the function of the combined force of our people — our government — to protect the weakest of our numbers against injustice from which he cannot protect himself. But what is this terror from which we are asking gov- ernment to protect us by a tariff ? Have you thought of the question seriously and deeply ? Do you know of any man who has, and who can answer ? If so, you will per- haps be surprised at the answer. It is inevitably this : The danger is that we, the individuals who comprise the whole nation, if entirely uncontrolled by legislative authority, will, in purchasing with our own money for our own necessity, comfort, or pleasure, purchase more cheaply than somebody else wishes we might do. And n 12 THR FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. for this protection laws arc enacted, legislators are cor- rupted, electors arc bribed, and the purchasers themselves have voted. When the miners in search of gold in California had gone beyond tlie reach of established government and found their camps infested by robbers, thieves, and mur- derers, tliey organized for i>rotection. Can you imagine them finding tliemselves buying things too cheaply and so organizing to protect themselves against this evil ? The pilgrims on the Mayflmver organized for protec- tion. Was it to protect themselves from buying too cheaply ? Just when in the history of the free American citizen did it first become a crime for him to buy goods cheaply, so long as he bought them honestly and paid the owner's price ? Natural Protection. — Unnatural as it may seem, or otherwise, it is none the less a fact that some men engaged in producing wares or goods have wished, and some still do wish, to be protected from competition by others from a distance. Well, nature has protected them. The farmer in New England was once protected against the farmer in Ohio, so that he obtained a dollar for a bushel of wheat while the Ohio farmer was selling for less than one fourth this sum. The natural obstruc- tion to transportation gave him a protection equal to the difference, and the New England purchaser of wheat had to pay for the protection. Did the whole people love this protection and seek to increase it ? On the contrary, they constructed canals, and thereby destroyed half the protection. There was still a protection of forty cents, which the New Englander paid. Did they seek to in- crease it ? Instead railroads were constructed and the THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 13 protection reduced to half a dime. Do you hear any urgent demand that the railroad shall increase the protection ? Every manufacturer in America is now protected against competition by our customers in Europe, who buy from $400,000,000 to $700,000,000 per annum of our products by the difficulty of transporting across the ocean. Why in the name of all reason should we, the 60,000,000 purchasers, seek to increase this protection and pay it ourselves for the sake of enriching less than a half million who are in any way benefited by the protec- tion ? (I use these numbers advisedly, and will prove them before I am through.) Or if we approve the pro- tection, why not do it in a natural way by increasing the difficulties, dangers, and expense of crossing, instead of fining ourselves for trading? The effect would be the same. If we abandon lighthouses, prohibit steam navi- gation, and suffer pirates to infest the ocean, European goods would come as high perhaps, i.e., if the dangers were sufficient, as under our present tariff, and our manu- facturers would have precisely the same advantage they now have and which they have planned and worked so efficiently to secure. FREE-TRADE THEORY.— " After all, is not free trade a theory of school men while protection is the practice of nations ?" Free trade is natural trade. Nations do not trade ; trade is entirely between individuals. If left to himself, every man will naturally trade where it is most profitable to him, and in the aggregate, of course, most profitable to all. It needs no theory ; it is a practice as natural to man as to put food to his mouth. If we accept the definition of theory in Webster's 14 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MAXUAL. Dictionary, " An explanation of the general i)rinciples of any science, the philosophical explanation of phenom- ena," I confess that free traders are the best theorists ; but if we mean by theory mere speculation, or a pre- tended demonstration of what is really fallacious, then we shall learn that the protectionist is the theorist, the only theorist, the absolute theorist. He found us trading at our own sweet will, each man selling where he could get the most, whether the goods should go far or not, just as every man still seeks to do, and buying where he could get the most for his money, just as every man still seeks to do. He came with the beautiful theory that we were sending altogether too far and getting things too cheap, that this would become a " dumping ground " for all the good things we desire, that if we would just put a tariff on Ids product for our benefit it would make his goods cheaper than the "dumped goods" when we bought them, but would make them very high when he sold them ; that the high price at which he would sell goods would lead him to pay high wages, and that the low price at which his laborers would buy his goods would enable them to pay more for wheat than we were getting in Europe. A beautiful theory, truly ; and the most wonderful thing about it is, that he found able men to advocate it for him, and found intelligent men among us to believe it. Did he believe any of it himself ? What think you ? Every protectionist tells us the pro- tection on his goods is going to make them cheaper. Did a farmer ever ask for protection on wheat, corn, tobacco, or wool, believing it was going to make his product cheaper ? Did a manufacturer ever ask pro- tection on his product, expecting it would make it cheaper ? Did any employer ever ask protection, ex- THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 1 5 pecting it would make him pay higher wages? If they believed the theory which they and their paid politicians teach us, would they not every one be set dead against protection ? THE THEORIST.— " Are not free-trade advocates mere theorists, while prac- tical men advocate protection? Is not free trade a 'boy's size ' philosophy, taught in school, while protection is the philosophy of men ? " College professors, outside of their specialties, are not always the wisest or most practical of men, and it does not require an immense intellect to repeat a sneer at them as " theorists " Astronomers were theorists when they offered a " philosophical explanation of the phe- nomena " of the rising and the setting sun. The man who put a stone on top of a flat stump, and watched all night to see if it fell off in the night and dropped back when the earth righted up, was certainly a practical man. Chemists are theorists, but when the practical miner would know the composition of his ore, he trusts im- plicitly the knowledge and research of the chemist. The entomologist is a theorist, but when a new insect pest infests the wheat, every intelligent farmer expects the professor who has given his life to the study of insects may know more of this pest, or, not knowing, can investigate and learn of its habits and enemies, much better than can the man who has never studied in this field of natural history. In short, practical men practi- cally regard these same professors as the most practical men procurable, i.e., in the practice of their professions. If the political economists are not esteemed by us, may it not be because we sustain much the same relation l6 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. to them that the masses did to the chemists and astrono- mers when it was thought pert to sneer at them as theorists ? If it is not tlic brightest of boys who are sent to col- lege, it is the brightest of them who remain to complete the course, and the brightest of these who are asked to remain as tutors, and only the ablest of these who become professors ; and of all scientific research it is certain that political economy requires and employs as high order of intellect to intelligently consider its intricate i)roblems as any science. " The history and discussion of the results of the experi- ence of mankind in getting a living and in securing an abundance " requires as philosophic research as the history of the experience of mankind in shooting each other. A professor who has not an extensive knowledge of history, an accurate knowledge of statistics, a logical method in his deductions, cannot maintain himself and secure a following among the learned. We all know that sometimes a very ignorant man or boy has assumed to teach grammar, and sometimes in college classes a professor of botany may be called to teach history for a time, when he knows but little of it ; and sometimes a venerable theological professor may attempt to teach political economy, when he has no conception of its simplest elementary principles. But he does but little harm. His pupils have no regard for his opinions. But the men who establish reputations for themselves, and secure followers among the intelligent, must be as cer- tainly right as are the chemists or astronomers. Practical men are those who understand their own business. In all things else they may be most thoroughly unpractical. No better illustrations of this truth can be THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 17 found than among the many (successful in their own business) who have attempted to legislate for the nation. David A. Wells cites a case in point of a New England Congressman who voted with the majority to reduce the duty on coal. One of his constituents visited him soon after, and congratulated and thanked him, told him that New England ships were now loaded with their manufac- tures and taken to Nova Scotia, where they were sold, and the ships loaded with Nova Scotia coal, which was peculiarly adapted for the manufacture of gas. This coal was brought to Washington, and the public build- ings were lighted with it. There the ships again loaded with Maryland coal, which was especially valuable for the furnaces of New England, where it was taken, and the ships again loaded for Nova Scotia. "Well," said the Member, " if I had any idea that Nova Scotia coal could be used in Washington, I should not have voted for the bill. I think I made a mistake." I think it not possible that a professor of political economy could exhibit such obtuseness. It would be amusing in the extreme, if it was not humiliating, that this is a fair sample of the unwisdom of " practical " men who represent us in Congress. Farther on, when discussing the tariff on wool, I will relate an incidental discussion with a practical woollen manufacturer, who knew his business well, but had no more knowledge of the application of the tariff to the price of wool than he had of the application of the Chi- nese language to Choctaw. As to the practice of nations, it is, alas, true that slav- ery, polygamy, and restriction of trade have been prac- tised in all nations. But the most enlightened nations are rapidly emerging from their thraldom. This country l8 THE FARAFF.RS' TARIFF MANUAL. and Great Britain l)ot]\ abolished the last evil in 1846, and both were blessed by such an era of prosperity in the years following as other countries have never known. How we became again enchained by tiiis relic of barbar- ism will be the theme of later sections in this work. PROTECTIVE TARIFF DEFINED.— " We make the foreigner pay into the public treasury the difference between his labor cost and our labor cost before we allow him to enter the American market. . . . That is all there is to \.h.is grc'at (jucslion of protection." — Major McKinley. Many advocate a tariff for revenue ; others a tariff for protection. What, then, is the difference ? A tariff purely for revenue is levied on articles which we do not produce, as tea, coffee, tropical products, diamonds, etc. It is not intended to check their importation, but if very high it may do so, and when it does, by just so far, it de- feats its purpose and fails to yield revenue. All that the people pay for this kind of tariff goes into the national treasury, except the expenses and percentages, as ex- plained in a preceding chapter. A tariff for protection, on the other hand, is laid, or levies duties on such articles as we do produce with a view to excluding the foreign product and advancing the price of the domestic, and if it does not accomplish these results, it affords no protection. Protection means this and nothing else. A protective duty is laid on carpets, of which we make many and import a few. If the tariff checks importa- tion, it by so much fails to yield revenue, but protects our manufacturers by giving them the work, unless indeed it has so advanced the price that we purchase less carpets, and by whatever amount the foreign goods are increased THEORIES OF PROTECTION. ig in price the domestic producer is enabled to advance his competing price, and this is called his protection. If we produce one hundred yards of carpet while we import but one, and by putting a duty on carpets do not exclude that one, the only protection is in the increased price the American manufacturer can get for his product. If he is protected to the amount of the duty, the consumer, when he pays ^loi tax on carpets — not a tax, for a tax is money collected for the use of the government — pays ^loo tribute to carpet makers that the government may get one dollar. How far the makers of carpets may be able to avail themselves of this protection, depends upon their ability to combine. If there were but one carpet maker, he would certainly take the "pound of flesh." If there were two, three, or a dozen, they would very readily agree on a schedule of prices as if there were but one. If there are many hundreds, it becomes more difficult to form a trust or maintain it, but if they were as numerous as the 9,000,000 farmers in America, it is plainly im- possible to combine so as to reap any benefit of a pro- tective tariff, and if they had a surplus of perishable products, as the farmers have, depending upon the foreign market for their sale, the combination could have no possible power to control prices if maintained. To answer the quotation at the head of this section, and to show its utter falsity, it is only necessary to recall the fact that, according to the United States Census, the total labor cost of all the manufactures of the entire country is less than 18 per cent, of their value,' and if labor in Europe cost absolutely nothing, an 18 per cent, tariff is all that could be imposed for this purpose. If labor ' By the census of 1880 the entire ])rocluL't of our manufacturers was $5,369,579,191, and the entire sum pp^-d for labor was $963,135,460. 20 THE FAAWF.RS' TAKTFF MANUAL. in Europe cost but lialf wliat it docs here, a tariff of 9 per cent, would be ihc utmost tliat he could offer an excuse for, while his tariff imposes an average duty of 60 l)cr cent, on all dutiable goods. The labor cost in luirope will be considered in subsc- (piont chapters, and it will be demonstrated that no tariff whatsoever, high or low, protective or otherwise, can by any j^ossibility benefit the wage-earner, but at present we will consider the possibility of the foreigner ever paying into our public treasury any atom of a })rotective duty. THE FOREIGNER WHO PAYS OUR TAXES.— " If V7e are making railroad iron, and the Englishman brings his iron made by cheap foreign labor here to compete with ours, we must reduce the w^ages of our men, or if we impose a tariff of $20 per ton which the Englishman must pay before he can enter our market, it gives our manufacturers just so much advantage." These were the exact words of a very able lawyer in a public speech, and the same sentiment is repeated in every protection speech uttered. They illustrate nicely the lawyer's ability to tell just so much of a truth or so near a truth as best suits his purpose. Of the thousands who have cheered this sentiment, how many have analyzed it, or even considered it ? Suppose the Englishman replies : " That 's all right. We are getting $160 per ton, and it only costs me $40. Here is your $20." And he goes on as before selling for $160. Where docs our man have any advantage ? Where is your protection ? The English iron is competing pre- cisely as before. The Englishman has contributed to our revenue, but not a particle to our protection. But you THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 21 say these prices are impossible or absurd. Granted. I have already shown that the foreigner never pays our tariff, except in the rarest instances and to the slightest amount. Try other prices and learn if he can. Suppose it costs him $15 laid down here and is selling for $35. Having a large stock on hand and wishing for ready money, he sends it along and pays the duty. He still sells it at $35. He makes nothing, but where is your protection ? So long as the foreigner pays it there is no protection.' But suppose it costs him $25 and sells for $35, then he cannot pay the duty, and protection begins. Although he is willing to lay it down here for $25 our men are get- ting $35, and we all pay $10 more than we would if trade were free. Again suppose the natural protection of the ocean and their difficult mining to be such that both our iron and theirs can be sold in our markets at the same price, $35 per ton. Our men tire of the competition and ask pro- tection. A duty of $20 is imposed. Foreign iron is excluded, but unless our men advance prices they can pay no better wages than before. Our men say they can thrive with $45 per ton. Now, although the tariff is $20, they have availed themselves of but %'io. This ^10 is added to the cost to all who buy as certainly as it is added to the profits of the protected. Free traders are misrepresented as claiming the whole amount of the tariff is added to the cost. No one would claim that it is in all cases. What we do claim and prove is that the whole of the protection is invariably added to the cost, and is always paid by the consumer. A tariff of $400 or $40 or 40 cents or 4 cents per bushel on wheat, ' See table of actual prices, p. i8o. 22 THE FARMERS' TAKIEE MANUAL. corn, or oats can have no possible effect wliatever/ costs nothing, can yield nothing, and was simply put there to fool the fanner. If it could add to the price of grain it would certainly be paid by the consumer. Now suppose foreign iron continues to come, but in limited amount, and sells with ours at ^45 per ton. This is $10 more than it cost before, and every consumer is paying the protection of $10 on all iron, foreign and American. But the duty is $jo. Who pays the other %\o} In the case we have supposed it is the foreigner, but this is not the protection. It is the revenue, and all that was said in Part I. about the foreigner paying it applies here. We have now iron that it was supposed could be sold here from either country at $35 now bring- ing $45 with a duty of $20 on it. It plainly nets the foreigner but $25, and he can only sell it here at a loss, and he will only bring the one cargo, paying, as before, a little tariff on a little amount and for a very little time. To assume that he continues to bring it while it thus nets him but $25 is to assume he would sell it here for ^25 if there were no duty. In that case, since it does cost us $45, we are paying the whole duty, $20 per ton. Turn it in every light you can, the logic returns to this point : the protection is inevitably all paid by the con- sumer, and the tariff for revenue which the government gets is all paid by the consumer, excepting an infinitesimal amount on which the foreigner may sometimes be caught. Secretary Foster, in his first annual report, says they have abundant evidence from the workings of the McKin- ley tariff to show that the tariff is paid by the foreigner for the privilege of entering our market. He says : ' See pp. 25 and 289. THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 23 " A comparison of the prices of goods imported respec- tively under the old and new tariffs, where rates have been increased, will demonstrate that the tariff is a tax upon the foreign competitor in our markets. Duties . . . are paid by the foreigner as a tax for the privilege of selling his goods here." This is a very pleasing statement, and is calculated — was calculated — to make votes for protection. Does "Calico Charlie" believe a word of it himself? He is himself a millionaire manufacturer of window glass at Fostoria, Ohio, making the stuff from clean sand by the use of natural gas, both bounties of nature and costing him next to nothing. Ask him to explain to any of his employees why they need a tariff on glass, and he will promptly assure them that it is to keep the price up and enable him to pay them present wages — that without it the Germans would undersell us and compel us to shut up shop. Very well, if the Germans would undersell us and make glass cheaper than now, but by the tariff we maintain present prices, then the American consumer is paying the tariff, and not the German. The German is now under- selling us by more than one half, but the duty is added before it is sold again, both to his glass and to Secretary Foster's. Moreover, Mr. Foster knows that the duty on unground window glass is from 115 per cent, to 132 per cent. Now can he please tell how a German can afford to bring $100 worth of glass here and pay $132 for the privilege of our market, and sell it for $100, and continue the business, as Germans do continue selling glass here ? Young-Man-Proud-of-His-Tail, as the Indians called 24 Till: l-AKMKRS' JAKII-F MANUAL. liiin, sliould know Itcttcr than to tell this even to a " Digger " Indian. THE FOREIGN CONTRIBUTOR TO OUR PRO- TECTION.— " We knov7 that a revenue tariff adds to the prices and is paid by the consumer, but protection is a tax on the foreigner to enter our market. At first we admit it increases prices, but soon competition makes prices cheaper than under free trade, and ever after the duty is paid by the foreigner." If the above is true, it is one of the most important truths in all economic science. That it is believed to be true by thousands of intelligent men, I am well aware. That it is told as truth by hundreds of speakers and writers, you are all well aware. The defenders of the system depend more upon this one statement, perhaps, than upon any other to i)erpetu- ate the system ; whether it is true or not, becomes one of the most important questions we can consider. It may seem to many it was sufficiently answered in the preced- ing pages, but it has been answered again and again, and many thousands are still bewildered with the question. It is one in which more people are misinformed, perhaps, than any other. I wish then, even at the risk of becom- ing tedious, to turn the question over and over. It is a question, however, which every thinking man can deter- mine for himself, if he will but take the data and con- sider them intently. I suggest a line of thought, but, like a mathematical demonstration, it can do you no good to read the words or even to memorize them unless your intellect traces the demonstration. I know a man so violently insane upon this subject that he has written a book to argue that the statement at the THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 25 head of this chapter is true, and while he furnishes no proof whatever, I have a personal friend, a pious, in- telligent man and professional, who has read the book without discovering its sophistry, but on the contrary is so far carried away with it that he gives up a portion of his time, otherwise valuable, to recite in public these un- founded sophistries. That every man may consider for himself I present herewith a table suggesting every condition that can arise. It will pay you to study it until you are sure you see all there is in it, " if it takes all summer." CONDITION. NORMA! PRICE. TARIFF PRICE. Foreigner pays but there is no protection. {Garfield's ideal. Ourtarif!,'88&-9 McKinley tariff. Free trade. 2.00 2.00 2.CX) 2.00 2.00 2.00 X 1.50 2.50 2.00 1.50 1.50 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.50 •50 •50 .50 •50 ■94 1.20 .00 .00 2.00 2.00 2.00 1.50 2.00 2.00 3 . GO 3 . CO 3-50 2.00 1.50 3-50 2.00 1.50 Encourges trusts. Impossible to continue Retail prices. 4.00 6.00 7.00 Would sell at 4.00 3.00 3-00 I take any article whatever, as hats, shoes, cloths, or what- not. Our prices have settled by American competition to the normal level of %2. In the first line I assume that the normal level of the foreign article is $2.50 and a duty of 26 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MA A" UAL. 50 cents is imposed. This is the condition of many articles at present, as agricultural products. Of course the tariff has no effect whatever. No foreign goods can come here under this condition, tariff or no tariff. The only possible effect of this kind of tariff is this : If there are but a few producers, they look the situation over and say : '* Those foreign goods cannot get into our mar- ket for less than $13. Let us combine and fix our prices at $2.99 or some approximate figure." In the second line I assume that both ours and the foreign product would sell here at $2. Put on a tariff of 50 cents for protection. If the foreigner pays it he still sells at $2 and there is no protection. Neither can you conceive that he will pay this himself without conceding that without the tariff he would sell at $1.50. Try it then in line three and unless you are careful you will now trip and say : " That makes his goods $2 like ours." Not so ; if he pays it he still sells at $1.50, and you cannot conceive this unless he is willing to sell for $1 without the tariff. Next move you reduce his price to 50 cents, and next time to nothing. It is impossible to conceive of the foreigner paying the duty for any length of time. In the remaining lines I have indicated the inevitable truth. We pay the duty and it is added to the price of both the domestic and the foreign product, as it invariably is so long as the foreign competing goods are imported. In the first line I indicated the other condition, which is a very common one. In the remaining lines I have also indicated retail prices. I have interviewed scores of business men, mer- chants, within the past year, and asked what in their opin- ion is the profit or advance in the price of goods from the time they are made, or leave the custom-house, until THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 2/ they reach the consumer — i.e. the combined profit of wholesalers, jobbers, retailers. They answer that, with the exception of a few staples, handled at nominal profit, the prices are at least doubled. Cost to consumers is then seen to vary from %\ under an honest tariff, to $6 under our old tariff of 48 per cent., to $3 under free trade, while the McKinley tariff, which imposes an average tariff of 60 per cent, on all dutiable goods, makes the same goods cost the consumer $7. In the fourth line I have indicated the kind of tariff advocated by General Garfield, a tariff to equalize the difference in cost in different countries, but not to exclude the foreigner or check the competition.' The next line shows the effect on prices of our old tariff of 48 per cent., and the sixth line the present tariff of 60 per cent. If anyone still questions that these are the inevitable effects on prices of all goods that are imported or the like goods produced here, I ask him to cool his fevered brow, take off his hat, think it all over once more, and then read the following chapter. In the eighth line I have indicated that awful condition so often pictured to our excited imagination, when England without hindrance will " dump " upon us the products of her industry. Remember they Avill never " dump " one cent's worth of anything in America unless they receive an equivalent in the products of our labor in return. What are the products of our labor that they are •"Duties should be so high that our manufacturers can fairly compete with the foreign product, but not so high as to enable them to drive out the foreign article, enjoy a monopoly of the trade, and regulate the price as they please. I am for protection which leads to free trade." — J. A. Garfield, House of Representatives, April, 1870. 28 THE FAKMKKS' TARIFF MANUAL. after, that they take rather than gold ? Our farm pro- ducts, are they not ? Europe now takes $500,000,000 per annum of these and "dumps " on us the product of her pau- per labor in return. Uo you think that under free trade she would " dump " three times as much ? If so it would make an outlet for some of our " over production," would n't it ? For she will certainly take home as much as she brings, and it will invariably be in the products we prefer to sell, for we have just as large-sized voice in the trade as she. What would be the effect on the farmers ? We now produce $2,500,000,000 on our farms, feed all America, and export $500,000,000. I have just attended a series of Farmers' Institutes, and heard the wail repeated that we produce too great a surplus. If from the " dumping " process Europe would take $1,500,000,000, it would relieve the surplus, and I think some farmers would pull off their coats and try to increase our product to $3,500,- 000,000, that we might have plenty to feed America and have $1,500,000,000 for the next year's " dump." What the effect ? If we can export three times as much as at present and buy at retail — our way of buying — for three dollars as much as now costs seven, we should get for our exportable surplus, instead of $500,000,000 as at present, just seven times as much, or goods at present prices worth $3,500,000,000. Read that again and see if there is any hole in that skimmer and then tell me, brother farmers, how you would like to try a few years of it. Ex- porting three times as much and buying for $3 what now costs $7, we receive 2\ times as much for every dollar's worth exported. 2\ times 3 is 7 ; $3,500,000,000 in- stead of $500,000,000. But what is the effect on our manufacturers ? I have not forgotten them. You see I saved $2,000,000,000 of THEORIES OF PROTECTIOI^. 29 farm products for our consumption and to feed them, and if we cannot do better we can have them and all their employees boarded on Fifth Avenue at $5 per day, and save, according to the last census, %x 10,324,364 per annum, rather than to deal with them on the present basis. In the first column of the eighth line of the table, I represent them as holding up their hands in holy astonish- ment and asking what these farmers will do next — their tariff pap all gone. They produce nothing — for a whole day. In the fourth column, I place a very small $1.50, to indicate they might possibly go to work and produce a very little at the same price others sell for. 1 then look up the United States census, and see that they paid average wages of $348 per annum, and after paying out- rageous protection prices to each other for materials, the census shows that, according to their own returns to the enumerators, they still made a profit of ■Ty(>\ percent.' A STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE, 1880. Capital invested,$i2, 104,081,440 Men employed . 7,670,493 Value of product (sold, con- sumed, or on hand) $2,213,402,564 Amount required to pay farmers average wages $2,669,331,564 Total product was not suffi- cient by $455,929,000 to even pay these wages, allow- ing nothing whatever for profit or interest on the investment. I regret that the corresponding figures from the census of 1890 are ' U. S. CENSUS FIGURES OF 1880. Capital in manu- factures $ 2,700,127,000 Cost of m.aterial .$3,396,823,549 Value of product.$5,369,579,i9i Paid for wages. . . $947,953,795 Men, women, and children em- ployed 2,738,895 Average wages per annum. . . . $348 Annual profit on capital 361 ^ 30 TllK FARMERS' TARIFF MAXl'AL. very little arithmetic shows tliut they can still i)ay precisely the same wages, pay, if they choose, the same prices to each other for material, and still sell for $1.50 every- not yet (Marcli, 1S92) published. Wry little of that census is yet made public. Of manufactures almost nothing is published, except the statistics for the District of Columbia. We have, however, in advance sheets very recently issued, statistics of the iron and steel industry in New England, with the following table showing their relative condition in iSSo. It will be seen that the capital has considerably increased, the value of the product is also increased, the number of establishments, on the other hand had decreased nearly one half. The big fish have eaten up the little ones. The number of hands employed has also decreased nearly 25 per cent. Ten years' continued protection has not, in this case, given employment to labor. The amount paid for wages is, moreover, over $333,000 less than ten years ago, and while material is costing hundreds of thousands of dollars less per annum than ten years ago, they by some means manage to claim their product is more valuable than ever. It is very plain who has reaped the benefit of the protection. A little computation will show that while their capital is not two millions greater than ten years ago their annual profit is greater by over $1,100,000, and the percentage of profit on capital invested is greater by more than 7^ per cent. The abandoned farms of New England tell more eloquently than words can do that the farmers have not shared in this increased profit from protection, neither has that home market for which they have for so long time paid so dearly, yielded them the oft promised profit. IRON AND STEEL MANUFACTURING IN NEV\r ENGLAND, Census of 1890. 1880. Number of establishments 35 61 Capital invested 113,415,450 111,560,480 Average number of hands 6,645 8,654 Total wages $3,324,318 $3,557,9" Total cost of material $9,286,050 $9,518,570 Total value of product $15,105,441 $14,558,627 THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 3 1 thing they have been selling at the " normal price " of $2, and yet make a larger percentage of profit than the farmers have had any year since 1878, So I return to my table and write the ninth line with a large $1.50 as the new normal price of manufacture, in- stead of the %2 of old, indicating that not a factory need go out or reduce wages a cent, but can go on and compete with all the world, and sell at free-trade prices, greatly to the relief of all consumers. This is anticipating somewhat, but in the later chapters I shall demonstrate beyond question that this is possible, and I trust many of us will live to see it realized. In the meantime the question will not down. Is the tariff added and paid in the price of the goods ? The first line of the table given says, " not necessarily," or not under all circumstances. Read the following chapter and learn how often it is added. TARIFF AND PRICES.— " Under Democratic free trade calico cost you twenty-five cents a yard. Under Republican protection it costs five cents. Is the tariff a tax ? The duty on calico is six cents. You buy it in your stores at five cents. Can you tell me how to add six to the cost price and make five ? " — J. Benson Foraker. Whatever we may have been told about the effect of the tariff on prices, the following propositions are indis- putable and self-evident : I, If we continually import an article, the tariff is added to its price. The opposite of this is unthinkable. The importer adds duty and all expenses, and every man handling the goods adds a percentage not only to the original cost, but to all added costs. Thus, the con- sumer not only pays the tariff, but also pays percentages on the same, doubling the amount. 32 THE F.tA-MKKS' TARIFF MANUAL. A single consignment may l)e lirought here and sold at a loss, and the importer — perhaps a foreigner — have to pay the tariff. liut he will not repeat the experiment until he is sure of the market. To assume that he con- tinues to bring goods and pay the tariff is to assume that he would bring them and sell for just so much less if there was no tariff ; this is reasoning in a circle, for if this is so, then we ])ay the tariff and not he. 2. If goods are not now imported, but would be if there were no tariff, then a part only of the tariff is added. Protectionists are fond of telling us that the duty on calico is six cents, and its price here but five cents. And they laugh themselves silly as they ask how the tariff is added. But ask them what would be the effect of free-trade, and they tell us at once that England would compel our manufacturers to sell at four cents. If this is true, then calico is protected 25 per cent. We pay 25 per cent, more than we would under free trade, and the manufacturer gets 25 per cent. more. Protection means just this, and can mean nothing else. If an article vi protected the producer gets more for it and the con- sumer pays more for it. If wool is protected we get more for it than if 't were free. If we do not get more for it, it is not protected, whatever the tariff may be. 3. On articles which we never import the tariff can have no effect. A tariff mountain high on wheat, meats, and other products we never import has no effect. Pro- tection on most farm products is simply impossible. Hence the absurdity of the demand or pretence that farm products shall have the same protection as manufactures. A tariff on wheat has no effect except in the rare instance when some choice variety is imported for seed. Then the farmer sowing it pays the tariff. A tariff on horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs is only a tariff for the farmer to THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 33 pay in the same way. Yet the boss granger of America, whose interest in partisan politics exceeds his interest or knowledge in farming, went to Washington to ask that such a tariff be imposed to protect (?) farmers. 4. If material of a certain quality cannot be produced in this country, but is needed to combine with material of another quality which we do produce, the moment you compel the manufacturer to pay a higher price for the foreign element he is compelled to pay less for the por- tion purchased here, unless he gets a higher price for the finished product. For example, a certain quality of iron ore which we do not mine in this country, is indispensable for certain wares made by mixing with our iron. If the maker of the wares is compelled to pay more for the imported part, he must pay less for the native portion, unless he gets more for the wares. To present these four propositions more plainly to the eye, and to fix them more firmly in the memory, I arrange them in a table, which I wish every farmer boy in the land would study : CONDITION. 1. When we con- stantly import the article 2. When we would import the article if there were no tariff 3. On articles which we never import 4. When a similar article of same name is imported not to compete, but to combine with our material. EFFECT. The tariff is neces- sarily added to its price. A part of the tariff is added to its price. Tariff can have no effect. Unless the manu- facturer can get a higher price for prod- uct, he must pay less for our material. Sugar — Costing 8 cts. here, while same grades sell in England for 3 cts. Calico — Tariff 6 cts. ; now costing 5 cts. If free, would cost 4 cts. Wheat, meat, and nearly all farm prod- ucts. Tariff has no effect. Wool — If a foreign wool must be taken to mix with our wool, and we compel manufac- turers to pay more for imported, he will pay us less. 34 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. So mucli for theory, which is certainly indisputable. It only remains to inciuire as a matter of fact under which of these conditions is wool found ? THE HAY-MARKET TRANSACTION.— " I relate this to show that the Canadian pays the duty on everything he brings into the United States, and not the purchaser." — Russell A. Alger. In every well-regulated protection speech the orator always has a personal reminiscence of his experience in a town on the Canadian frontier. It is always necessary to name and locate the town, and if he chance to say Muskingum or Oconomowoc, it goes " allee samee." He walked out and saw a number of farmers, well dressed and intelligent — this is an important point and must be expanded — each with a choice load of hay to sell. Ap- proaching the first : " Good-morning, my dear fellow, and do you reside in this immediate vicinity, till your own soil, gather hayseed from your own vine and fig-tree, with the lilac sparkling over the door, the kittens twining about the trees, and the children frolicking upon the lattice ? And what is the price of your hay ? " " Good-morning, and luck to yez, and its tin dollars a tun." All this must be long drawn out, but the price we get at last — $io. He walks along and finds other farmers illy clad, igno- rant, etc. Their hay is of the same quality and same price. But they are from Canada. " How is this, im- ported hay, and a tariff of %2 and selling at the same price as ours ? I thought the tariff was a tax and the con- sumer paid it." " No indeed, we paid the officer $2 our- self to get into your market, and gladly, for at 'ome it is slow at $8, and 'ere we compete with the Hamericans." ' See p. 222. THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 35 " The tariff is a tax, is it, and paid by the consumer ? " And the cheers of the multitude resound through the temple of fame. How many of the one thousand men who stamp and shout, have thought or can think intelligently of his question ? Suppose he had changed the conditions slightly, and had bought the load in Canada for $8, and brought it across himself, then who would seem to pay the duty ? Now, the truth is, — if the story had any foundation in fact, and undoubtedly it had, — hay is a bulky crop, and enjoys a natural protection in any locality against all hay from any distance. In time of scarcity in any locality the producers there are protected, and the consumers there pay it. In Northern Michigan the few small farmers raise hay, oats, and potatoes for the lumbermen and miners. Bulky crops, and nature protects them against the larger farmers abroad, and the consumers pay for the pro- tection. On wheat or wool the protection would be but little, and little cost to the consumer. The farmers then at the town where the story was located may have been protected, and the consumers there suffered from it with- out it having any general application to the people or prices throughout the country. As General Hancock would say, " It was a local question." Every city in an agricultural section naturally will draw its supply of hay mainly from within a radius of twenty miles. If now an arbitrary line is drawn by the laws of man through or near the city, cutting off one half or a third of the territory from which nature and nature's God designed they should be fed, it is a crime for which some must pay the penalty. The Creator of the universe created natural locations for cities with territory adjacent 36 THK FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. from wliich to food tlu-in. If men in their folly exclude a portion of the territory they will themselves suffer. But to the problem. Suppose these farmers are pro- tected to the amount of the tariff. Then $8 is the natural normal price for hay, but by excluding a part of the land that should feed the city the price is made $10. Who pays it ? Certainly not the Canadian, but every man who buys hay. Suppose the price was not increased. Ten dollars there was the natural legitimate price of hay. Then the farmers were not protected, for Canadian hay was still competing with them on their own ground at its normal price. No protection at all, but in this case the Canadian pays revenue to our government for no service rendered, and this was robbery, and, as we will see presently, it cannot continue. Suppose, what is more probable, that the natural nor- mal price of hay here is $9, but by the tariff of %2 the price is crowded up to $10, how much is the farmer pro- tected ? One dollar. How much is the consumer taxed by this ? Just one dollar for protection, paying $10 instead of $9. How much is the Canadian robbed ? One dollar ; getting $8 instead of $9. Will he continue ? We will see presently. Suppose again the natural average price here and everywhere hereabouts is $9.50. Hay outside will not be shipped here for that. Other products will be shipped in easily. These farmers then have an advantage in raising hay. An average bonus every year of 50 cents per ton is sufficient to lead them to make hay a specialty. They will come in time to raise nearly the average supply of the city. Not the full supply ; if they did, price would drop to S9-5°> ^^cx cent. Hence they can get but $312,500 in goods, and bring along $5187,500 cash to pay the duties. (Importers have a cash reserve in bank for this purpose, but our grangers have not.) When landed then these goods have cost just !5!5oo,ooo, and must be considered worth that and sold for that. With a sixty per cent, tariff goods worth $3,125 in Europe are worth 1^5,000 here, without adding a cent of profit for bringing them. So the next time our patrons have a consignment ready the merchants here say : " You need not go to Europe unless you choose. We will give you the same trade, $500,000 in goods, for your grain." " But," say the grangers: "those goods are worth in Europe but |!3i2,- 500." " Very well, go to Europe if you like ; this is just what you have when you return after paying duties." " But," argues the granger salesman, "you are saving the entire expense of the freight both ways across the ocean. You get your material here cheaper, your provisions cheaper, and Jas. G. Blaine says, ' undoubtedly the in- equality of wages is more than equalized by the greater efficiency of the American laborer and his longer hours.' In other words, you really have cheaper labor ; can you not afford to give us a better trade ? " " Afford," they reply, " what do you take us for ? This is a matter of business. You have 25 per cent, more grain than can be eaten in this country ; $500,000,000 of it must go to Europe or rot. We will give you the same bargain you get by crossing the sea twice and paying tariff besides. We would be fools to pay more, for that is the price at which all grain here is always sold." And so it comes about that the manufactured products of this country, worth really $3,355,987,000, are reported, counted, charged, and sold at wholesale at $5,369,579,191. THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 49 So the farmers, laborers, and other consumers are beaten at the first step outof $2,013,592,191, besides the percent- ages on this which the merchants must take. Then comes a like proportion all must pay to railroads, etc., etc., which have been built with material all likewise " protected." Then the prices we must pay to doctors, lawyers, preachers, teachers, barbers, bankers, and thousands of others, in order that they may be able to pay these " pro- tected " prices for protected goods. Is it any wonder our farms are mortgaged ? The wonder is that we still occupy so large a proportion of them. BALANCE OF TRADE — "In the Republic of Brazil we lost last year $51,000,000. Our imports from Brazil were $60,000,000, and our exports to Brazil were $9,000,000." — Jas. G. Blaine. The reader is perhaps aware that the whole theory of protection rests on the absurdly ridiculous notion that we ought to export and not to import. That our exports should exceed our imports ; that it in some way benefits us to send our products out of the country, but it is a dead loss to receive pay. This expressed in words is so absurdly ridiculous that it seems no sane man could be- lieve it. Still you can scarcely pick up one of their papers referring to foreign trade but it will say the balance was against us if we made a profitable trade. I cannot begin the discussion better than by quoting President Chapin, one of the most eminent writers on economics : ** According to the old mercantile theory which long ruled the commercial world, trade was regarded as profit- able only as it brought money into the country. It was so THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. assumed that the statistics made at the port of entry fur- nished trustworthy data for determining the comparative value of the country's exports and imports, and that the difference between the two must always be adjusted by the transmission of specie one way or the other. Hence the inference that the balance of trade must be in favor of a country when its exports exceed its imports, and vice versa. "A better exposit.on of the principles of political economy has shown that the theory is false, that the data are uncertain, and that the inference is unfounded and misleading. The theory rests on the idea that money alone is wealth. But money constitutes but a small frac- tion of the wealth of an individual, a nation, or the world, and its value consists simply in its utility as an instrument of exchange. The true advantage of foreign trade is found in the imports. By means of it a people obtain things which either they cannot produce at all, or which they must produce at a cost beyond the things exported to pay for them. As Mr. Mill says : ' Commerce is vir- tually a mode of cheapening production, and tends to the general increase of the productive powers of the world.' Trade between two nations is profitable when it yields to both this advantage, made evident by the fact that with each the value of its imports exceeds that of its exports. This supposes the estimate to be made of the exports as they leave, and of the imports as they come in. Just here it is that the Custom House statistics are fallacious. Since the exports are stated at their value here, and the imports at their value in foreign countries. " It is to be noted further that the custom-house returns omit altogether some important phases of the trade, and the old theory of the balance of trade sets down the real THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 51 profits of trade as against the country. This may be illus- trated by one of the two hypothetical or real cases thus presented. " American merchants ship to England beef, boots, etc., worth in New York $100,000, worth in London $110,000. The avails of the sale are invested in British goods worth in London $110,000, worth in New York $121,000. The custom-house returns show for the transaction, exports, $100,000, imports, $110,000. Balance against us $10,- 000, and yet the merchants have made a profit of $21,000 real benefit to the country. " Again, there are shipped to Cuba wagons worth in Bal- timore $1,000,000, in Havana, $1,100,000. The proceeds are invested in cigars, worth in Havana $1,100,000, in Russia $r, 2 10,000. The avails are invested in Russian iron, worth in Venezuela $1,331,000. This is sold and invested in South American products, worth in Spain $1,464,000. There olive oil is bought worth in Australia $1,610,510. It is sold there for gold which is brought home. The custom-house reports, exports, $1,000,000, imports, $1,610,510, balance of imports set down against us, $610,510, though the excess is so much profit received in that which, according to the theory, is to be considered above all things else, real wealth. " The profits of a foreign trade must appear in its im- ports whose value exceeds that of the exports, and under a sound condition of finance it is of little consequence whether the surplus brought in takes the form of money or of goods." These fundamental truths are familiar to every student of political economy, and the extent to which the old theory is still repeated by those who pretend to believe it is astonishing. 52 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. As a familiar sample of the extent to which this idiocy runs rampant I quote the following from the Toledo Blade of January 30, 1890 : " IN OUR FAVOR. " The foreign commerce of the United States for the year ended December 31, 1889, is summed up below and compared with the figures for 1888 : I8S9. EXTORTED. IMPORTED. Merchandise, 1827,250,273 $770,302,657 Gold. 50,933.460 11,980,528 Silver, 40,690,172 20,237,693 Totals, $918,873,905 $802,520,932 1888. Merchandise, $691,760,050 $725,411,371 Gold, 34,526,447 10,960,773 Silver. 29,880,405 15,907,969 Totals, $756,166,902 $752,280,113 " That is, we sold or exchanged abroad over $ri6,ooo,- 000 more of our products than we bought abroad. Last year the balance of trade was only a little less than $4,000,000. As long as we sell more than we buy we are making money." Was ever darkness so dense ? Was there really a cash balance of four millions due us at the end of 1888? If so, when we brought it home in 1 889 it only added to the balance against us in that year. Is there a cash balance due us there at the end of 1889 of $1 16,000,000 ? If so, it makes a balance of that amount against us this month if we bring it home. I asked the editor : " Suppose we had found a better market and had received for our goods 1,000 millions instead of 802, put- ting the balance on the other side, in whose favor would that be?" Suppose we had shipped $100,000,000 more THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 53 than we did and had sunk it in mid-ocean, then the bal- ance " in our favor " would be 2 16 millions. The truth is there is no such thing as a balance between nations. Nations do not trade. Individuals trade for goods that are worth more here than in Europe, and send in payment goods worth more there than here. Every trade has brought profit each way or it would not be made. We receive a profit on every thing we send. Why then were our exports more than our imports ? Because we paid interest in Europe on our debts and paid it with our products, perhaps equal in amount to our profits in trade, and this $1 16,000,000 represents just $1,000 each spent in Europe by 11 6, coo tourists from this country, and in- stead of being in our favor it represents so much lost to this country, unless indeed they smuggled enough home to equal it. Why do intelligent men repeat and pretend to believe this absurd theory ? Simply because they want to create a prejudice against imports as something injurious. Why do they want to do this ? Because they know that not one man in a hundred has looked into the matter or un- derstands it, and creating this prejudice farmers will con- sent to a fine of 60 per cent, being imposed on imports as they are told they don't buy imported goods anyway. By increasing the price to consumers of imported goods manufacturers can increase the price of their own, as we have seen. By the prices they were able -to force on to us they called their product in 1880 $5,369,000,000. They now call it about 7,000 millions. We can consume about 7,500 millions of manufactures. The farmers have surplus products about 500 millions more than can be eaten in America. It is simply com- 54 THE FAKAfKRS' FA K IFF MANUAL. petitit)n between tlie farmers and the manufacturers to supply the other 500 millions of manufactures. The manufacturers understand it so ; the farmers do not. The result ? If we ship our 500 millions abroad, as we must do, they fine us when we bring the proceeds home 60 per cent, average duty on dutiable goods, or 300 mil- lion dollars. Now will each farmer answer himself what difference does it make to him whether they fine him 300 millions when he goes out with his wheat, or 330 millions when he returns, as they do if he has made ten per cent, profit in trading ? Will each farmer answer what difference does it make whether he goes with his wheat or sends it ? RECIPROCITY.— " In the Republic of Brazil we lost $51,000,000. Our imports from Brazil were $60,000,000 ; our exports to Brazil were $9,000,000. In Mexico we lost $10,000,000. Imports from Mexico were $21,000,000 ; our exports to Mexico were $11,000,000. To sum it all up, our imports from countries south of us, both insular and continental, on this hemisphere, were $216,000,000; our exports to them were $74,000,000. The balance against us in our trade with these countries, therefore, was $142,000,000, exceeding our gains from all the rest of the world by $13,000,000. By no figure of speech can we flatter ourselves into the belief that our trade with our American neighbors is in a prosperous condition. How can this state of affairs be remedied ? " — JAS. G. Blaine's famous Waterville speech, Aug. 29, 1890. To this I published the following reply. I repeat it here because I wish to press home the truth regarding the balance of trade until none of my readers can again be deceived by it. I hear scores of men just now speaking of reciprocity as something entirely new and a surprise to statesmen. THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 55 I have always understood all free-traders as asking just this — not that the duties imposed by this country alone should be removed, but that trade between nations should be free. No intelligent free-trader has ever asked the abolition of our duties on any other basis. We would not, as a Republican Congress did, repeal the import duty on coffee that Brazil might impose an export duty of like amount. But the reasons Mr. Blaine gives for reciprocity with South America are unique and a surprise alike to Repub- licans and to students of political economy. He says the McKinley bill will not open a market for a bushel of wheat or a pound of meat. Hence he asks for reciprocity with nations which have no use for an atom of either. If he really wishes to aid the farmers in enlarging their mar- ket, why not advocate reciprocity with nations which need or would purchase farm products ? France and Germany are both now prohibiting our products in retaliation for our abominable tariff, which threatens to impoverish every farmer in America. Mr. Blaine says : " The United States has reached a point where one of its highest duties is to enlarge the area of its foreign trade. I mean expansion of trade where we can find profitable exchanges." This is what every intelligent man has always wanted, but from the Republican standpoint it is the rankest heresy. If we exchange at a profit and bring home any possible thing, even tin plate, which we do not produce, does not the great Tribune and the little idiotic Tribune, and all of the other echoes, at once announce that it is displacing American labor, and treat the whole importa- tion as a loss ? What does Mr. Blaine mean ? He says : " Let me tell 56 TJIK FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. you. We lost $41,000,000 in Cuba, from which our im- ports were $52,000,000, and to which our exports were but $11,000,000. Forty-one million dollars is a pretty large sum to lose in one single year." Was dcmagoguery ever more brazen or astounding ? *' Lose in a single year " is a ringing phrase, and thou- sands who never think are applauding yet. In the same way he says: "We lost in Brazil $51,000,000, and in Mexico we lost $10,000,000 ; or, to sum it all up, our im- ports from countries south of us were $216,000,000 ; our exports to them were $74,000,000. The balance against us is, therefore, $142,000,000." What does he mean by a " balance against us " anyway ? He knows very well that we owe them nothing. There is no balance due. He knows we never paid them any balance in money. One hundred and forty-two million dollars is more than double the entire amount of gold we ever exported in any year to the entire world. When we reflect, what must we think of the American press that applauds this twaddle ? If they really gave us $216,000,000 for $74,000,000, is it not one of those " profitable exchanges " for which he sighs ? But Mr. Blaine knows very well there is not the shadow of truth in the assumption, the theory, or the ex- planation. He knows perfectly that the bulk of South American products are brought here in British ships and are exchanged for agricultural products, which are taken to Europe, where they are wanted and are worth more. There they are exchanged for manufactured goods which the South Americans want, and with these another cargo of hides, coffee, and sugar is purchased to again make the circuit. The trader makes a profit at every exchange. The Cuban makes a profit on the trade he makes, and we THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 57 make a profit as well, getting what we want for a surplus we cannot use. Where is the " balance " of nonsense he was giving us ? In this same — not sane — speech in Maine, August 29th, he states that our entire exports for the year were $732,- 000,000, and our entire imports ^745,000,000, showing a net profit in trade of $13,000,000. But three times over in this speech he calls this $13,000,000 profit "a bal- ance against us." The whole system of protection is founded on the assumption that all profit in foreign trade is a balance " against " the country making the profit ; and the system is as wicked as the theory is false. Is it not plain that his scheme for reciprocity with dis- tricts south of us only, is not to make market for a bushel of grain or a pound of meat, but is intended to make market for New England manufactures, and the product of his own mines, while fooling the farmers, and, in so far as it succeeds, these will displace European goods, and so make it impossible for Europe to buy our farm products "i We have already made it impossible for them to pay us with what they produce, and have driven them to India for wheat, or to pay us in coffee and sugar ; and, when this trade is supplanted, will it not, by so much, destroy the European market for our farm products ? If Mr. Blaine really wishes to encourage our trade ' with South America, and at the same time to relieve the ' I wrote the above the day I read Mr. Blaine's speech, Aug., 1890. Dec, i8gi, I read Secretary Foster's first official report of the workings of the reciprocity treaty during the six months ending Sept. 30, 1890. He tells us our exports of merchandise to Brazil amounted to $6,208,804, ^.nd during the same period of 1891, under the operation of the reciprocity treaty, to $7,515,858, an in- 5S THE farmers' tariff manual. farmers and to benefit every man in America except the millionaire manufacturers, he knows of a plan worth a thousand times more than the scheme he has named. He knows that the only reason we do not now sell goods in South America is our outrageous prices made possible or necessary by the tariff on material, not only in the goods but in the entire plant, machinery, means of transportation, etc., etc. He knows if these duties were removed, or reciprocity offered to Europe, that the profits of his favorites might be reduced from 36I per cent, to possibly 30 per cent, and perhaps a profit of 6| per cent, remain to the farmers. He knows he has successfully fooled the farmers for twenty-six years with his protective absurdities, to which they are now opening their eyes, and he believes that if he can but fool them for twenty-six months with the absurd nonsense of selling beef in South America his vaulting ambition may yet be gratified. He knows that with all duties removed the American manufacturer would still have the advantage over Euro- peans of double transportation across the ocean, and that with free material offered them thousands of European manufacturers would come here to increase their profits, crease of $1,307,054. This increase in exports to Brazil since the reciprocity treaty went into effect has been mainly in locomotives, steam-engines, machinery, and cars for tramways and railways, etc. " There has been a decrease in the exports of 7uheat, lard, and cotton manufactures." President Harrison says : " The increase in the value of our exports of manufactured products was $16, 838, 240." Here is a conundrum for our Great Father at Washington. If our manufacturers can thus pay freight abroad and sell in competition with the world with no protec- tion, what need of an average tariff of 60 per cent, to enable them to compete at home, with no freight to pay ? THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 59 compete with our millionaires, and consume our products. Profits of millionaires would not be 36|-per cent, and Mr. Blaine will not advocate this at present. But if he finds the farmers begin to see through his little swindle as they now do his great one, he will next ask for reciprocity with Europe. HOME MARKET.— " Every line of your last chapters is an argument to me for protection. We should put the duties so high that no foreign goods can come here. Increase our manufactures to supply all our wants and let competition control prices. Farmers themselves should go to manufacturing." Why not ? Well, for one, I don't know what to manu- facture, or how. Farmers are not manufacturers, and, as a rule, cannot be. Secondly, our manufacturers now pro- duce If of all we can consume, and lie idle \ of the time to reduce surplus and keep up prices. If they would keep at work they would produce more than we can con- sume without adding one to their numbers. Adding to them would only increase the number of idlers we must feed. With the outrageous price the tariff compels them to pay each other for material and machinery they can- not export, and if they did they must bring home imports, and we gain nothing by the scheme. Again, we have tried that method for thirty years and -lave wellnigh ruined the farmers and laborers, and are farther from the home market than ever. In other words, after thirty years of protection the farmers are obliged to export a larger percentage of their product than in 1850, forty years ago, under free trade, so-called. Finally our total farm product is now 2,500 million dol- lars. 6o THE FARMERS' TARIEE MANUAL. The farmers consume in round numbers 950 millions. The manufacturers consume 350 millions. All others in America consume 700 millions. We still have to export 500 millions. If we double the number of manufacturers in America for no purpose but to feed them, we still have a surplus of 150 millions from our farms, which leaves us in pre- cisely the same boat as ever, so long as the tariff continues. By the census of 1880 the entire number of persons in the United States engaged in gainful occupations was 17,392,093. Of these 7,670,493 were on farms, besides others in " personal service " (many of whom must have been upon farms), and in manufacturing there were employed but 2,738,895, and only a small portion of these in protected manufacturing. The American Econofnist, the organ of the protective tariff league, publishes the following as the increase in population and production since 1850: Population 175 per cent. Cattle 185 Cotton 201 Corn 257 Wheat 389 Oats 411 Average of farm crops 288 After a generation of protection and unparalleled growth ill manufacturing the number of people the farmers have r.o feed is less in proportion to production than it was in 1850. Or after protectionists have fooled him for thirty years in pretending to give him a home market, the farmer is to-day, under high protection, more dependent than ever upon foreign markets, and is forced to find sale abroad for a larger proportion of his crops than in 1850, under the free-trade tariff. THEORIES OF PROTECriON. 6i The following table, compiled by Mr. Philpott, shows the amount of wheat grown in the country for the years named, and the amount exported, and the per cent, ex- ported of the whole crop : YEARS. 1850 i860 1870 1880 PER GROWN. EXPORTED. CENT. 125 000,000 643. 745 \ 170 000,000 4 076,704 H 350,000,000 47 171 22q 14 448 000,000 180 304 181 40 Now the farmers of the country have a home market for only 60 per cent, of their wheat ; sixty bushels out of every hundred. The forty they are obliged to sell abroad in competition with the world. In " old free-trade times " the farmers sold pyf per cent, of their wheat at home — over ninety-seven bushels out of every hundred. It is easy to see by the above figures how much of a " home market " protection has given the farmers of the country. After thirty years of protection they are sending more than a third of their wheat abroad. Why should it not be so ? Here is the garden of the earth, with our abundant, fertile soil ; with our enterprise and energy. Why should we not feed all Europe and bless Asia with our abundance ? The Encyclopaedia Britannica closes its long article on the resources of Amer- ica with the assurance that if the agricultural resources of this country were fully developed it would afford sustenance to a number nearly " five times as great as the entire mass of human beings now existing upon the globe ! " Why fine ourselves 60 per cent, every time we sell our products abroad and bring home the payment ? We must always sell abroad. Shall we always pay the fine, and 62 THE FARMERS' TARIEF MANUAL. what is the effect on prices, or the result of thirty years* effort to better ourselves by buying a home market ? 1874-5 1S75-9 1880-4 1885-9 Averai^e price of corn ill local market 50.6 36.8 44.7 34.6cts. " "wheat " " fi.ii fi.oo 90 cts. 75 cts. A shrinkage in 14 years of 40 per cent, in the price of wheat, and the same loss in the value of the farm. " After all, is not the cause for our depression the com- petition from the great farms in the new West ? " If their condition was so favorable that they could easily under- sell us here and in Europe, and if they were getting rich by it, there would be force in the suggestion, but so long as they are even poorer than we, and are abandoning their farms even more rapidly than in New England, it cannot be their willing competition. " But the competition from Australia and India ? " I am told the India wheat raiser gets $30 per year. I do not think he gladly offers to undersell us, /. e., work for even less than now. ** But are we not ourselves producing altogether too much of agricultural products ? " By no means. Em- phatically no. Think of it — half the world to-day under- fed and eager for our products, and anxious to exchange and give us, without the tariff, 60 per cent, more in products than we now get. Politicians, idiots, demagogues, and legal thieves tell us we are poor because we have pro- duced too much of what every one wants. " But is it not very expensive and wasteful to ship our wheat so far and purchase at so great a distance ? " No. The freight across the ocean is less than it costs the farmer to cart his wheat to the nearest depot. Instead of being expensive, they are offering to lay the goods down THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 63 in New York and take our wheat there, and give us so good trades that our enemies (protected industries are our enemies) constantly speak of it as " dumping " their goods on us. Were you ever afraid of a merchant dumping too many goods in your cart in exchange for your butter, your cabbage, your chickens, or your eggs ? Are you afraid your manufacturer will dump too good a carriage or too many robes on to you for your load of wheat ? I have actually seen farmers within a year who were afraid the English would "dump" too large a pay- ment on to us for our wheat and meats. "Will this annihilate the American manufacturer?" Not at all. He now has the cheapest and best labor in the world.' Without the tariff he will have the cheapest material and machinery in the world. He is surely the shrewdest man in the world, and can undersell and cover the seas with our commerce. Forget this insane prejudice against imports and heap them home upon us. England is rolling in wealth by always keeping her imports vastly larger than her exports.'' ' See section on Relative Wages, pp. 78-83. ' "Encyclopaedia Britannica " gives the exports and imports for every third year as follows, in £ sterling : EXPORTS. IMPORTS. 1864 ;,^2i2,6i9,6i4 ;i^274,952,i72 1867 225,802,529 275,183,137 1870 244,080,577 303,257,493 1873 311,504,756 371,287,372 1876 256,776,602 375,154.703 " A balance against her," Mr. Blaine calls it, of over five billion dollars. England calls it a clean profit of over a thousand million pounds. 64 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. A TILT WITH THE "TRIBUNE."— " If the amount paid for foreign tin-plate had been paid for tin-plate made at home, this country would have saved over $23,000,000 last year, as we h° P^r ton on our annual consumption of 2,500,000 tons means an annual tax of 1175,000,000, and under the McKinley tariff it is possible for the steel men to combine and, if they choose, tax us just half that amount next year. Who reap the benefit of this enormous taxation ? It is said that Andrew Carnegie and a Senator from Michigan have each enjoyed an income of ^1,500 per day from this tariff alone, while it has reduced farm exports within eight years from $800,000,000 to $500,000,000, and re- duced the price of wheat and of farms 40 per cent. Who is to be blamed for this, Mr. Carnegie ? Nobody, so far as heard from, except, in the language of the lamented Shakespeare, "our fool selves." " But do not laborers in lighter goods need protection against the very cheap labor of continental Europe ? " It might seem so, as weavers in Switzerland get but 44 cents a day, in Germany 48 cents, in French mills 53 cents, working twelve hours ; in England 65 cents, and in the United States 80 to no cents, for ten hours. " Ah ha ! I told you so." Yes, but the same report of the United States Depart- ment of State, from which I learn these wages, gives the cost of w'eaving 100 yards in Switzerland as 60 cents, in England 55 cents, and in the United States 40 cents. How is this possible ? The same report explains that in Switzerland an expert weaver operates two looms, in Ger' THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 8 1 many and France two and seldom three, in England three or four, while in this country the average number is six and a quarter. Watches are among our chief exports, their value ex- ported being more than double the value of all our wool and woollens exported, but our wages paid in their manu- facturing are shown to be four times higher than are paid in Switzerland or Germany. What does history show ? David A. Wells, than whom there is no better authority, says : " The instance is not on record where a reduction in duties has ever been followed by a reduction of the wages of labor. Every advance in the tariff which has been sufficient to re- duce importations has been followed by a period of reduced vfzges. This was the case in 1824, in 1828, and in 1842. Wages were as low in 1845, after the high tariff of 1842 had attained its full effect, as they were in 1824. Under the low tariff of 1846 they advanced until i860. [United States census shows that wages advanced between 1850 and i860 60 per cent.] The records of civilization will be searched in vain to find an instance in which removal of restrictions on trade and commerce have failed to aug- ment the trade and industry of the country adopting it." What do statistics show ? That less than one twentieth of our laborers are in protected industries, and that even their wages are not increased by high tariffs ; that wages in England have advanced 40 per cent, since she adopted free trade,' while wages in continental Europe have de- clined. Labor report of Massachusetts shows her average wages have declined steadily in the past ten years. What say practical men ? Mr. J. B. Sargent, of New Haven, one of the largest hardware manufacturers in the 6 ' See p. 2o3. 82 THE I'\\RMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. workl, and the largest employer of labor in his State, says : " I have foiintl by personal investigation that although the workmen in Europe get much lower wages than ours when counted by the day or week, yet when counted by the piece their employers pay them higher wages than we pay in America. I have found also that labor in Asiatic countries is generally dearer than in America, although the laborer gets in those countries but ten to twenty cents a day. " My observation has taught me," he says, " that the greatest obstacle to American competition in foreign markets, in nearly every class of goods, is the high price of raw material. Take off the duty, and we will send our goods everywhere. Wages w'ould increase here under such a system rather than become lower." Mr. Sargent does export his finest locks and other goods involving the most and the highest priced labor ; but in articles in which the material is the chief element of cost, he finds protection has made it impossible for him to compete with Europe. A high tariff ever robs, but can never benefit labor. In short, " the result is that to-day the poverty, industrial depression, and popular discontent of the several Euro- pean states are in direct proportion to the extent and bur- den of their protective system." What can we say then to the following table of figures sent out by the American Protective Tariff League of New York ? Comparative Wages. In England. In United States. Bricklayers $8.00 |2i.OO Carpenters 7.50 15.00 Coopers 6.00 13-25 Farm hands 3,00 9.00 Laborers,, 4.10,., 8.00 THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 83 Comparative Wages. In England. In United States. Masons fS.oo $21.00 Painters 7.50 15.00 Plumbers 8.00 18.00 Railway engineers 10.00 21.00 In the first place, as no authority is given for them they may have had their origin in the fertile imagination of the man who made the figures. Every one conversant with American wages can judge for himself of the accuracy of the last column, and from it can judge of the first. I think his verdict will be, if the figures are true at all, they are made up of the lowest prices in England and the highest in America ; and finally, tione of than are protected industries. As wages in the protected industries are gen- erally not as high as in others, it is plain he could not make so good a showing for his side if he had taken pro- tected industries. Compare these figures with the statement of J. G. Blaine, Secretary of State, official report, pages 98 and 99 : " The wages of spinners and weavers in Lancashire and in Massachusetts were as follows : " England. America. " Spinners .$7.20 to .$8.40 $7.07 to $10. 30 Masters as high as 12.00 Weavers 3.84 to 8.64.... 4.82 to 8.73 Mill hands — men 8.00 .... 8.30 women.... 3.40 to 4.30.... 5.62 children... .... 3.10 to 3.18 "English wages subject to a reduction of lo per cent. " The hours of labor in the Lancashire mills are fifty- six, in Massachusetts sixty to sixty-nine per week. Un- doubtedly the inequalities of 7uages of English and American operatives are more than equalized by the greater efficiency of the latter^ and their longer hoiirs of labor." 84 THE FARMERS' T A TIFF MANUAL. A CHEAP MAN IN A DEAR COAT.— " The one fact that I do not need to stop to demonstrate by statistics is that the scale of American wages is higher than that of any other country in the world. It is because we have for years by our protective tariff discriminated in favor of American manufactures and American \workingmen." — I'res. Hakkison, Toledo spcccll. This is little better than deception. It is true the scale of wages in this country is high, but why ? Alexander Hamilton would not agree with our distinguished states- man-president. The same higher scale of wages pre- vailed before we had a tariff, and he wrote one hundred years ago : " As to the dearness of labor, this has relation principally to two circumstances — one, the scarcity of hands ; the other, the greatness of profits." William M. Evarts, certainly good Republican authority, said in his report of 1879 : " The average American workman per- forms from once and a half to twice as much work as the average European workman." The census of 1880 gives the value of each workingman, in both the metal and textile industries, in the United States, as $1,684 per annum, while in England it was only $780 a year. But while the value — the earning power — of the American laborer in these two branches of industry, which are the leading ones both in this country and England, is 116 per cent, greater than the English, the former does not, ac- cording to Senator Chase, of Rhode Island, receive more than 65 per cent, greater wages. But if Mr. Harrison is truthful in his statement that the tariff is the cause of our high wages, we ought, since we have a uniform tariff in the United States, to have something like uniform wages in the same protected in- dustries. But such is far from being the case. The THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 85 average annual rate in cotton manufactures was, in 1880, according to Carroll D. Wright, chief of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, $258 in Massachusetts, $216 in New York, $182 in Georgia, and $136 in North Carolina, while in England it was about $240. Why does not a uniform tariff, which Mr. Harrison declares is the cause of our high wages, bring up wages under it to something like an equahty ? Or, worse yet, why does it not bring the wages of New York, Georgia, and North Carolina — all blessed with a tariff — up to an equality with " the pauper labor " of England ? Again, if the tariff is the cause of high wages, will Mr. Harrison tell us why it is that in free-trade England wages are four times higher than they are in highly pro- tected France and Spain, or why in free-trade Belgium wages are higher than in protected Germany ? In Mexico the duties are higher than in the United States, but wages are very much lower. The whole theory of protection is based upon three propositions, each of which has been demonstrated over and over again to be an error, viz. : i. That if our im- ports exceed our exports there is a balance of trade against us, while the truth is the excess of imports is the measure of a portion of our profits in the trade. 2. That imported goods displace our labor, while the truth is they simply come here in exchange for our surplus, and so give employment to labor to produce another surplus, instead of permitting our mills to lie idle one third the time to limit the supply and to advance prices ; and 3. That protection increases wages, while the opposite is the truth. The most learned defender of protection in America is, perhaps. Professor Francis Bowen, of Harvard. He 86 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. argues that tlic amount of wages is in no way affected by the tariff. The iUustration he gives to demonstrate this is the following, and to my mind it seems to prove conclusively the truth regarding each of the above propo- sitions. The island of Barbadoes, he says, is so situated that they can produce wheat or flour more cheaply than we can. They can also produce sugar very much more chea{)ly than we. Take a given amount of flour and of sugar, each of which would require ten days' labor here in its produc- tion. They can produce the same flour in eight days, or the sugar in six days. He says they would find it profit- able to exchange the six days' product of sugar with us for its equivalent here in flour, and thus get eight days' product for six days* labor. Or, on a basis we would be more likely to accept, for the six days' product, which would have cost us ten to produce, we give them nine days' product in flour. We have thus saved one day in ten, and they have, for six days' product in sugar, ob- tained more flour than they could produce in seven days. If wages in one country were but a cent a day and in the other five dollars, this exchange could forever go on to the profit of both and never affect the relative wages in the two countries. The commonsense of mankind, un- influenced by politicians, would lead them to plow up wheat lands to raise sugar for this exchange, and we would gladly raise wheat to exchange for sugar. But now comes the hare-brained theorist who cannot think, or the thieving politician who knows better, and says to them : " You cannot afford to compete with their accu- mulated wealth. They are your natural enemies in trade. That flour has displaced your labor, and is the cause of your poverty." To us they say : " You cannot afford to THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 87 compete with their pauper labor. If your laborers buy this sugar for nine cents, which could only be produced here for ten, and for which the trust compels them to pay sixteen, why, high prices make good times. This pauper sugar has displaced American labor." How ? Was ever such arrant nonsense uttered by fools and believed by men ? Is not this one exchange typical of all international trade ? The principles, their applications, the objections, and the sophistries are all the time and everywhere the same, ENGLAND AND AMERICA.— •' If, then, English wages are so satisfactory, why do Eng- lish operatives come to America? Is not English agriculture as much depressed as our own, and what better than his own could we offer the Englishman, if protection had not devel- oped our country ? " The answers are simple. English operatives do not come to America. The time has gone by many years, since the better class of English mechanics and operatives, the home- seekers and the home-builders, have come here in great numbers, and many that have come have again returned. If we were not talking tariff but considering simply the natural advantages of the two countries, could we not sug- gest many reasons why the most enterprising of the tax- ridden toilers of that over-populated island should seek homes with us where the natural returns for labor are twice as great ? Every foot of their land is long since occupied and ex- acting exorbitant rents. What opportunity for the poor to secure a home ? Our fictitious tariff prices make it imperative that the laborer have larger wages to secure the necessaries of life, and finding his wages here will not clothe his family as well here as at home he returns. Can 8R TITF. FARMERS'" TARIFF MANUAL. any one doubt if our commerce were ecjually free that the best l">nglish toilers would come here by thousands? Is it not a shame to our fiscal system that with all our natural advantages we can offer the Englishman scarcely better chances than he has at home ? Agriculture depressed in England ? Why should it not be ? Protectionists excuse the abandonment of farms in New England, because, they say, they are worn out, and better ones can be had for the taking, at the West. Worn out in a century ! What, then, of English farms, culti- vated for many centuries ? But you say their fertility is kept up. If so, it is at great expense of labor and means. Finally, farmers, as we understand the term, are un- known in England. Farmers there are renters. The land is owned by the aristocracy. I have not heard that their income is not sufificient. The renters there are sufferers, and for causes independent of tariff or free trade. Contracts for rental are for long time, and are payable in money, gold or its equivalent. The annual product of gold has greatly fallen off in the last thirty years, and has not at all kept up with the demand for it as money and in the arts. The result is its relative price has greatly ad- vanced, and it requires one and one half times more of the products of the farm to pay the same nominal rent. The surplus of farmers can no longer come with profit to America, and the result is depression there as here. So far from protection having developed this country, those who have studied Prof. Bowen's demonstration in the last section understand it has simply retarded our de- velopment. To put a high tariff on cheap sugar and so prevent its coming here, to compel men to plow up profit- able wheat fields to get less sugar for the same labor than before, is in no sense developing the country. THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 89 Political cranks may proclaim, " Behold our indepen- dence ! producing both our bread and sugar." But if 2,000 days' labor before yielded $1,000 in wheat, and by exchange $1,000 in sugar, while it now produces but $1,000 in wheat and $Soo in sugar, none but a financial idiot would rejoice at the change. All wealth is produced by labor, not by legislation, and the country develops most rapidly where each man is allowed to do what is most profitable and remunerative. Every man knows his own business best, and a protective (?) tariff can only compel him to do something less profitable. To compel us all to pay more for sugar that the wheat men may be obliged to raise it, instead of those who offer it cheapest, is the height of financial foolishness. The only wonder is that sane men ever believed in protection. It is no wonder that the few sugar planters in Louisi- ana, competing with Barbadoes, should ask for protection on their product for otir benefit, and that the millionaire manufacturers should do the same. The wonder is that intelligent farmers have suffered themselves to be de- ceived by their way of expressing this extortionate demand. What, then, you ask, would we have this entirely a nation of farmers ? Certainly not. Neither indeed could it be. The great bulk of our manufacturing is necessarily done here.' It is safe to say that no industry was ever ' The census of 1880 gives the entire number in gainful occupa- tions as 17,392,099, classified as follows : Agriculture 7.670,493 Personal and professional service 4,074,238 Trade and transportation 1,810,256 Manufacture, mechanics, and mining 3,837,112 It is plain that none in the first three classes can be benefited by 90 rUK FARMERS' TARIFF MAAWAL. (.sLiblishcd lioro l)y i)iotccti()n which it is profitable for us to retain, that would not have been established without the protection. Practical men are the keenest creatures created. If an industry can be profitably transplanted, they do not need impractical men in Washington to find it out for them. The trouble has been, that these practical men have found it profitable to go to Washington before transplanting their industry, to secure a tax on all the rest of us for their lienefit, when they would establish the industry just as well without it. The present tin trick seems to be a case in point. Fifty million dollars of capital lobbied Congress for a year to get an increase of 37,000,000 per year in the tin tariff, and got it ; and before it went into effect they were making tin at a profit, and might have done so the year protection, and in the third class the numbers might he greatly in- creased by free trade. And in the last class not half of them are in protected industries, or could have their numbers diminished l^y free trade. Among them are the following (since hides have been on the free list American shoes, like American farm products, are cheaper than English ; so, since they cannot be protected, we include) : Boot and Shoemakers 194,079 Bakers 41.309 Carpenters 373, 143 Coopers 49.138 Fishermen 41,352 Masons 102,473 Painters 128,556 Plasterers 22,083 Printers 72,726 Blacksmiths 172,726 Barbers 44,851 Millers 53,44° Laundrymen 121,942 THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 9I before, but refused until they could get the bonus where they can reach it. Some seem to think they will not take it. We shall see. ' One of our aged and eminent philosophers says he watched with great interest the development of manu- factures in our Western States. It is the theory of Eu- rope that each little district must be protected against the rest in order to insure manufacturing within its borders. Trade, he says, is between individuals and not between nations. Here was a vast area, and, if their theories were correct, the factories once being established in New England, with her natural advantages she would ever hold them against the West, and all that region must be exclusively agricultural. But the years have shown that so soon as factories can be sustained at the West they go there without local protection, proof sufficient to a philosopher that protection was never necessary to estab- lish factories in any portion of our country. Those who fear that free trade now would close our shops, and leave England to supply all our manufactures, can gather a grain of wisdom from Secretary Windom's dying speech. In the last words he uttered, he said : " Our home markets in 1880 absorbed five times as much of our manufactured products as Great Britain exported of hers to all the markets of the world." So if Great Britain " dumps " the whole of her exports onto us it could displace but one fifth of our manufactories, and these could be kept busy supplying the markets England had abandoned. ' Tin-plate quoted at $4.40 per box before the enactment of the law is quoted in March, 1892, at $5.35 per box — an additional tax on American consumers of over $5,000,000 per year. 92 TITF. FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. FREE TRADE. l!y 1 );ivi.l A. Wells. E.\.ti lUts fii'iit /lis iirtiili- in 'Jo/iii.u>ii' s C\','/(>/>ui/iii. " If the doctrine of protection is as false and injurious as it is represented to be, how happens it that free trade does not at once meet with universal acceptance, and how is the adherence of many men with clear intellect and practical experience to the opposite doctrine to be accounted for ? " Protection is maintained mainly by a view of what the producer gains and a concealment of what the consumer loses. If the losses of the million were as patent and as palpable as the profits of the few, no nation would toler- ate the system for a single day. Protection accumulates upon a single point the good which it effects, while the evil which it inflicts is infused throughout the community as a whole, and requires investigation to become clearly perceptible. The doctrine of protection is also an inheritance of the past, and has all the support which custom, dogma, and prescription can give it. In the early ages the principle that commerce is mutually advantageous, and that after every fair trade both parties are richer than before, was not understood. The contrary theory was accepted, both among nations and individuals, that "what is one man's gain must be another man's loss." Every state in Chris- tendom exerted itself to impose the most harassing restrictions on commercial intercourse, not only as between different countries, but between districts of the same country, and even between man and man. With the progress of civilization the arbitrary restric- tions on trade have almost entirely disappeared, and men now wonder that any benefit could ever have been sup- posed to accrue from such absurd and monstrous regula- tions. The change, though constant, has been slow, and THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 93 the policy of " protection " still regards foreign trade as something different from any other trade, which it is for the interest of the state to interfere with and regulate. But under the same influences of a progressive civiliza- tion this system too, in like manner, is disappearing. The highest right of property is the right to exchange it for other property. In the absence of all freedom of exchange civilization would be impossible, and it stands to reason, that to the degree in which we obstruct the freedom of exchange we oppose the development of civilization. In other words, the practical working of the system of protection is to deprive the individual of a por- tion of the fruit of his labor, without making in return any direct compensation. Different individuals have different aptitudes, and different countries exhibit great diversities of soil, climate, products, and opportunity. It would seem clear there- fore, that, in order that there may be the greatest material abundance, each individual shall follow that line of production for which he is best fitted, and the greatest possible facility be afforded to producers for the exchange of their several products. Free trade, by rendering commodities cheap, tends to promote abundance. Protection tends to increase the cost to consumers and thereby promotes scarcity. A tax levied for the maintenance of any industry is in the nature of a forced charity and the petitioners for its enactment answer in every particular to the definition of the term " pauper " — namely, one who publicly confesses that he cannot earn a living by his own exertions and therefore asks the community to tax themselves for his support. The only true test of the increase of the national 94 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. wealth is the possession of an increased quantity of use- ful things. A tariff by its very nature cannot create any- thing : it only affects the distribution of what already exists. If the imposition of restrictions by means of taxes on imports enables a producer to employ a larger number of workmen and give to them better wages than before, it can only be accomplished at the expense of the domestic consumers, who pay increased prices. For a number of years the United States imposed such a duty on salt as to at least double the price of the article. The result was that the farmer desirous of buying salt was obliged to give two bushels of wheat for a barrel of salt, which without the tariff he would readily have ob- tained for one bushel. The extra bushel accrued wholly to the benefit of the salt-boiler and American industry was protected ; and yet it must be clear to every mind that if the farmer had not given the extra bushel of wheat to the salt-boiler, he would have had it to use for some- other purpose, — to give to the shoemaker, for example, for a pair of brogans. By so much, therefore, as the industry of the salt-boiler * was encouraged, that of the farmer and the shoemaker was discouraged. Under the so-called "protective system," we have a barrel of salt and two bushels of wheat passed to the credit of what is called " home industry," while under a free system we have a barrel of salt, two bushels of wheat, and a pair of shoes. Protection, therefore, seeks to promote industry at the expense of the products of industry. It conceals the fact that the price paid by the consumer would have been equally expended upon something and somebody, if the consumer had been allowed to buy the cheap article in- stead of the dear one. The loss to the consumer is ' For salt-boiler read tin-plate manufacturer. THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 95 balanced by no advantage in the aggregate to any one. When a highwayman takes a purse from a traveller, there is no loss in the aggregate, but the property goes to the wrong man ; but if the same money is taken from the traveller by forcing him to buy a dear article instead of a cheap one, there is a destructive process besides. Whenever anything is taken from one man and given to another under the pretence of protection to trade, there is an equal amount virtually thrown into the sea, in ad- dition to the robbery of the individual. Protection to a special industry cannot, therefore, re- sult in any benefit to the general industry of the country ; and, further, its beneficial influence on the special industry itself is not permanent but temporary. All taxes tend to diffuse themselves, and if levied permanently and with any degree of uniformity, to diffuse themselves almost with infallibility. If sufficient time is afforded and local exchanges are not unduly restricted, this effort of com- pensation is always successful. Hence no protective duty can be permanently effective. Protected manu- facturers in every country always proclaim and no doubt honestly feel, that the abandonment or abatement of pro- tection would be ruinous. If we buy metals, cloths, sugars, hemp, lumber, and wool abroad, protectionists claim that thereby oppor- tunities to our own people to labor would be greatly re- stricted, and wages of labor reduced. Specious as is this argument, there could not be a greater error of fact, or a worse sophism of reason. None of the commodities mentioned will be given by the producers resident in foreign countries for nothing. Product for product is the invariable law of exchange, and we cannot buy a single article in any market except with or by a product g6 THR FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. of our own, or by money whicli has been obtained by the exchange of some i)rodiict for it. Nothing, therefore, can or will be imported unless that in which it is paid can be produced at home with greater final advantage. Hence, the price paid for every foreign manufactured article, instead of so much being given for the encourage- ment of foreign labor to the prejudice of our own, is as truly the product of our own labor as though we had directly made it ourselves. Free trade, therefore, can by no possibility discourage home labor or diminish the real wages of laborers. If protection is to be recommended because it leads ultimately to cheapness, it were best to begin with cheap- ness. But not a single instance can be adduced to show that any reduction has ever taken place under a system of protection, which would not have taken place equally soon under a system of free trade. Reduction of prices through excessive domestic competition is effected at the expense of waste of capital, and is often one of the worse results that can happen to a community. A system of law imposing protective duties must, in order to be effective, be partial and discriminating, and therefore unequal and unjust. For the attempt to pro- tect everything would protect nothing. A duty on imports may injure foreigners by depriving them of an opportunity of exchanging their products for ours, but we cannot compel them to sell their products at a loss. It requires no argument to prove that free trade tends to make men friends rather than strangers, and a feeling of interdependence and mutuality of interest springs up, which, it may be safely assumed, does more to maintain amicable relations between them than all the ships of THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 97 war that ever were built, or all the armies that ever were organized. Of all agencies, it is the one most conducive to the maintenance of international peace and the pre- vention of wars. THEORIES OF EMINENT REPUBLICANS. " I believe in protection and shall vote for it, not because I understand it, for I don't, but because I believe the grand old party has always been on the right side of every leading question." We cannot better close the discussion than by quoting from some eminent men of the G. O. P., who in their time possessed some knowledge of theories. By Alexander Hamilton. " If the system of perfect liberty to industry and com- merce were the prevailing system of nations, it will not be affirmed that they might not be permitted, with few exceptions, to serve as a rule of national conduct. A free exchange, mutually beneficial, of the commodities which each was able to supply on the best terms, might be carried on between them, supporting in full vigor the industry of each. In a case in which opposite consider- ations are pretty nearly balanced, the option ought, per- haps, always to be in favor of leaving industry to its own direction. But the United States are to a certain extent in the situation of a country precluded from foreign commerce." Well aday ! The father of protection then, were he living to-day, would be a positive free trader. By J^ohn Quincy Adajns. " The duty constitutes a part of the price of the article in the market. It is substantially /a/i/ upon the article of domestic manufacture, as well as upon that oi foreign pro- 98 THK farmers' tariff MANUAL. duction. Upon one it is a bounty, upon the other a burtlen. And the repeal of the tax must act as an equiv- alent reduction of the price of the article, whether foreign or domestic. We say, so long as the im[)ortation con- tinues, the July must be paid by the purchaser of the article." By Hon. Henry Wilson. 1S57. — "If our manufactures are to increase, if we are to have the control of the markets of our own coun- try, if we are to meet with and compete with the manu- facturers of England and of other nations of western Europe in the market of the world, we must have our raw material free of duty, or at a mere nominal duty. " I think American labor will be best protected by tax- ing all the necessaries of life lightly, placing the raw materials which enter into our manufactures on the free list." By Hon. Oliver P. Morton. 1872. — "Now I wish to say to the Senate that I am strongly convinced that we should go further and reduce the tariff in material respects upon many other articles. The country expects a large reduction, the country knows that it can be made, the country has been promised this reduction, and the dominant party is responsible to the country for this reduction, and will be held responsible if it is not made." By Hon. Frank His cock. May 19, 1886. — "As to all fabrics, iron, steel, wood, and leather goods, largely made by machinery, and in which manual labor is comparatively a small element, we need no protection whatever." THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 99 By Hon. Geo. F. Edmunds. July 8, 1868. — "The true principle upon which tax- ation ought to be imposed — and the experience of other nations has demonstrated that it can be imposed upon that principle — is to put the highest rate upon articles of luxury." By Hon. Preston B. Plumb. 1883. — " The people want no higher taxes, but lower taxes, and in giving the protection for American industry they want to give a decent chance to a class of people who, by reason of their calling, cannot be protected at all, but who have got to take their chances in the markets of the world for their products — hard products to raise, expensive products to get to market, and in the produc- tion of which there is the smallest margin of profit. " When the manufacturer of iron comes to the Senate and says ' I can live, or I can make a profit if a certain duty is imposed,' he is simply saying ' If you give me a certain duty, you put it in my power to charge over that duty as an additional tax on the farmers of the United States.' " 1889. — " These manufacturers were not willing to en- large their production, and thereby meet the entire American demand, but preferred to manufacture a lim- ited supply at enormously increased profits, and to supply only that portion of it which they can supply at an enormous profit." By Hon. y^o/m A. Logan. April 18, 1870. — "When a gentleman stands upon this floor and tells me that this high, this extraordinary high, tariff is for the protection of the laboring man, I tell him 100 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. I do not understand lu)\v he can possibly substantiate such a theory." 18S3. — " Tlie idea of increasing the rate of duty for the purpose of encouraging anybody to commence a manufactory wlien he has n't commenced it is, I think, a new idea. 1 ho[)e the amendment will not be adopted." By yohn J. Ingalls. ** The ])eople are arraying themselves on one side or the other of a portentous contest. On one side is capital formidably intrenched in privilege, arrogant for continual triumph, conservative, tenacious of old theories, de- manding new concessions, enriched by domestic levy and foreign commerce, and struggling to adjust all values to its own standard. A system under which the rich are growing richer and the poor are growing poorer — a sys- tem which gives to a Vanderbilt the possession of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and condemns the poor to a poverty which has no refuge from starvation except the prison or the grave." By Hon. Wm. B. Allison. March 24, 1870. — "The tariff of 1846, although con- fessedly and professedly a tariff for revenue, was, so far as regards all the great interests of the country, as per- fect a tariff as any we have ever had. Both Thaddeus Stevens, Chairman, and Mr. Morrill, subsequently Chair- man of the Ways and Means Committee, declared that the act of June 30, 1864, was a temporary measure, a war measure, and was not intended as a measure which should remain upon the statute-book as a protective tariff in time of peace." March 14, 1889. — "No one will claim that the agri- cultural interest is directly protected. It is true there THEORIES OF PROTECTION. lOI is a small duty on wheat, barley, oats, etc., but it does not afford any protection. . . . The market price of wheat is fixed by the price which the surplus will bring abroad, or the price of wheat in London or Liverpool This high tariff excludes our highly taxed manufactures, made from highly taxed materials from the markets of the world, although we have natural advantages possessed by no other nation." By Hon. J^ohn F. Miller. 1862. — " High protective tariff means high prices for the products of manufacture, and low prices for the labor which produces them, the aggrandizement of capital and the debasement of labor, greater wealth to the wealthy and greater poverty to the poor." By Hon. Hugh McCulloch. Annual Report, 1 884. — i st. — " The existing duties upon raw materials, which are to be used in manufacturing, should be removed." 2d. — " The duties upon articles used or consumed by those who are the least able to bear the burden of taxa- tion should be reduced." By Hon. 'jFohn Sherman. June 9, 1868. — " Every advance towards a free ex- change of commodities is an advance in civilization. Every obstruction to a free exchange is born of the same narrow, despotic spirit which planted castles upon the Rhine to plunder peaceful commerce. Every obstruction to commerce is a tax upon consumption. Every facility to a free exchange cheapens commodities, increases trade and production, and promotes civilization. Nothing is I02 THE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. worse than sectionalism within a nation, and nothing is hotter for the ])eace of nations than unrestricted free- dom of commerce and intercourse with each other." 1867. — " If you converse with intelligent men engaged in manufacturing, they will tell you that they are willing to comjjete with England, France, Germany, and all the countries of Europe at the old rates of duty. If you reduce their products to a specie basis, and put them on the same footing they were on before the war, the present rates of duty would be too high." 1872. — " A few years' further experience will convince the whole body of our people that a system of national taxes which rests the whole burden of taxation on con- sumption, and not entirely on property or income, is intrinsically unjust. " It is wiser and better to do what is right and just, to make a reduction in this bill, rather than to invite a con- troversy in which I believe they will be in the wrong." 1882. — "I say the tax on tobacco does not reduce the price to the farmer who raises it. . . . And I say we are throwing off a tax which, by the judgment of all nations, is the best source of taxation." By Hon. Wm. M. Evarts. Secretary of State Report, May 17, 1879. — "The ave- rage American workman performs from one and a half to twice as much work in a given time as the average Euro- pean workman. This is so important a point in connec- tion with our ability to compete with the cheap-labor manufacturers of Europe, and it seems at first thought so strange, that I will trouble you with somewhat lengthy quotations from the reports in support thereof. . . . One workman in the United States, as will be seen from THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 103 the foregoing extracts, does as much work as two work- men in most of the countries of Europe. " The question which now peremptorily challenges all thinking minds is how to create a foreign demand for those manufactures which are left after supplying our home demands. To the laborer it appeals with tenfold force, for without work he cannot live, and unless we can extend the markets for our manufactures he cannot expect steady work, and unless our manufacturers can undersell foreign manufacturers we cannot enlarge our foreign market." By Hon. J^ames G. Blaine. June 10, 1868. — " During the most pressing exigencies of the terrible contest in which we were engaged, neither breadstuffs nor lumber ever became the subject of one penny of taxation. ... I again remind the House there has never been a tax upon lumber. I say that whenever the western frontiersman undertakes to make for himself a home, he needs lumber for his cabin, for his fence, for his cart, for his plow. He needs lumber for almost every purpose of his daily life.' Secretary of State Report, June 25, 1881. — " The hours of labor in the Lancashire mills are fifty-six, in the Massachusetts sixty per week. The hours of labor in the other northeastern States are usually sixty-six to sixty-nine per week. Undoubtedly the inequalities in the wages of English and American operatives are more than equalized by the greater efficiency of the latter and their longer hours of labor." By President U. S. Grant. Sixth Message, 1874. — " The introduction, free of duty, of such wools as we do not produce, would stimulate the 104 "^^f^^- f-'ARMF.RS TARIFF MANUAL. manufacture of goods requiring the use of those we do j)roduco, and therefore would be a benefit to home pro- duction. There are many articles entering into home manufactures which we do not produce ourselves, the tariff upon which increases the cost of producing the manufactured article. , , . " These duties not only come from the consumer at home, but act as a protection to foreign manufacturers of the same completed articles in our own and distant markets." By President y^atnes A. Garfield. April I, 1870. — "lam for protection which leads to ultimate free trade.'' May r8, 1872. — "We produced it, shipped it across, paying whatever portage, freights, and transportation were required, and then sold it to our Canadian neigh- bors at a dollar per barrel less than it was sold to people on our own shores. Certainly gentlemen will not want a duty continued that enables that thing to be done." By President C. A. Arthur. Second Message, 1882. — "I recommend a substantial reduction of the duties upon those articles, and upon sugar, molasses, silk, wool, and woollen goods." Fourth Message, 1884. — "The healthful enlargement of our trade with Europe, Asia, and Africa should be sought by reducing tariff burdens, and thus enabling our- selves to obtain in return a better market for our supplies of food, of raw matetials, and of the manufactures in which we excel." By President Benjamin Harrison. 188^. — " I believe the common concurrent consent and THEORIES OF PROTECTION. 105 commonsense of all the people agree that whiskey, beer, and tobacco should be the subjects of internal revenue. , . . Those three articles, by common consent should remain, at least till the indefinite future, upon our list of products upon which excise taxes are to be levied." (Contrast this with his more recent statement when courting monopolists, that he would sooner abandon all internal revenue taxes than to abate one iota of the pro- tection.) By the Republican Tariff Commission. 1882. — " Excessive duties, or those above such standard of equalization, are positively injurious to the interests which they are supposed to benefit. . . . The average reduction of rates at which the commission has aimed, is not less, on the average, than 20 per cent., and it is the opinion of the commission that the reduction will reach 25 per cent." The ''''New York Tribune" said of this report: " The report is a brave and honest effort to do just what the needs and interests of the country demand. Inasmuch as no party can succeed unless it does, or honestly tries to do this, the report is wise for the Repub- lican party, as well as wise for the country. ... It notes also the improvements in machinery and pro- cesses, and the great changes in prices, within the past twenty years, as reasons for the modification. It is a pleasure to be able to commend this valuable report so heartily. Reform of the tariff on that, line is possible at this session, and would be of incalculable benefit to the country." (We all remember but too well the result : By log- rolling by the manufacturers of iron, copper, salt, and loT) TTTE FARMERS' TARIFF MANUAL. lumber, all burclcnsonu> duties were increased instead of diminished. There was, however, a reduction at this time of 5 j)er cent, in the duty on 7vool.) By Senate Finanee Comtniltee. 1888. — "The highest rate of wages is not inconsistent with relatively low cost of production. . . . It is un- doubtedly true that American workmen and mechanics have greater intelligence, activity, and enterprise, and that these qualities more than offset the advantages which the operatives of Great Britain possess." By United States Supreme Court. 20 Wall, 657. — " To lay with one hand the power of the government upon the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals, to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is none the less a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation. . . . " We have established, we think, beyond cavil, that there can be no lawful tax which is not laid for a public purpose. " If it be said that a benefit results to the local public of a town by establishing manufactures, the same may be said of any other business. The merchant, mechanic, banker, or builder, are equally promoters of the public good and equally deserving the aid of the citizens by forced contributions. No line can be drawn in favor of the manufacturer which would not open the coffers of the public treasury to the importunities of two thirds of the business men of the city or town." PART III. HISTORY OF PROTECTION. HISTORICAL SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION. " Remember the invariable rule that protection means pros- perity, while free trade means adversity." — Am. Protective Tariff League Pamphlet No. ^7. To offset this, I present the following carefully sum- marized history of our tariffs by the eminent statistician, Hon. Thos. G. Shearman, It will be the object of the following chapters to trace this history more carefully, and to ascertain which really is truthful. 1789. — Abolition of all interstate tariffs and reduction of State tariffs on foreign goods, followed by rapid increase of prosperity. 1808. — Absolute prohibition of all importations, followed by uni- versal disaster. 1809. — Repeal of prohibition, followed by renewal of prosperity. 1812. — The tariff doubled and all importations stopped by the war. Result, hard times over the whole country ; general suspension of banks, and such suffering in New England that secession was threatened. 1816. — A protective tariff adopted — in some things higher than that of 1812, although in some things lower. This was the first tariff which was framed all through upon principles of protec- tion. The protectionists themselves always say that it was followed by great depression in trade. 107 loS nisroKY of j'kotkctton: iSiS. — This larilT made still more protective ; and the protectionists always refer to the year 1819 as one of great disaster. 1S24. — A liigher tariff, followed by great depression in the protected manufactures, and certainly without one cent of increase in wages. 1S2S. — .V very high protective tarilT, inunecliately followed hy hard times in 1S29, ami low wages so long as this tarilT existed. 1S32. — No " free trade" at all ; but a slight reduction of the tariff, followed by improvement in business. 1833. — A gradual reduction of the tariff, leaving it still so high that an enormous surplus accumulated in the Treasury, which was distributed among the States in 1837. This distribution was immediately followed by the famous panic of 1837, which was the direct result of wild land speculation all over the country, brought about largely by the surplus. 1842. — Protective tariff restored, followed by one year (1843) of the greatest stagnation of business ever known ; while during the whole existence of this tariff farm wages were cut down about one half from what they had been even after the panic of 1837, and wheat, corn, and cotton sold at prices disastrous to farmers and planters. Good times and fat profits for iron, cot- ton, and woollen mill owners ; bad times for every one else. 1846. — The tariff cut down by about one third to one half. Result, an immense increase in commerce and shipping, a rapid increase in manufactures, unprecedented prosperity in agriculture, and the most rapid advance in wages ever known in the history of the country, before or since. 1857. — Even under the low tariff of 1846 the revenue had become excessive and a surplus accumulated. In order to get rid of this surplus the tariff was reduced in July, but in September, before the new tariff could have the least effect, the short panic of 1857 occurred as the result of another wild land speculation, combined partially with the failure of crops. By 1858, however, almost the whole effect of the panic had passed away, and in 1859 and i860 agriculture, commerce, and manufactures were all more prosperous than ever before. 1861. — A protective tariff, constantly increasing until 1867. Ac- cording to protectionist logic the result was our terrible civil war, because this, as a matter of fact, immediately followed the HISTORICAL SUMMARY AND INTRODUCTION. I09 new tariff. For more than a year after the adoption of this pro- tective tariff, the business of the country was in a fearfully depressed condition. 1864. — Tariff raised fifty per cent. Manufacturers made fortunes for three years. Wages, in gold, lower than ever. 1867. — Great increase in tariff on wool. Result, immediate slaughter of 400,000 sheep, reduction of wool product, and ruin of many woollen factories. The years 1867, 1868, and 1869 were periods of great depression in business, and especially in manufactures. In 1868 the protectionists themselves declared that there were more unemployed workmen than had ever before been known. 1870. — Slight reduction in the tariff, and considerable reduction in taxation generally. As a result business improved considerably. But the tariff being still maintained in all its protective features, the great panic of 1873 ensued, which was far worse than the panic of 1857, and which lasted for more than five times as long a period. From September, 1873, to January, 1879, the busi- ness of the country was more depressed, and more laborers driven out of employment than in an other period of the coun- try's history. So far from their being " twenty-seven years of prosperity" under the last protective tariff, fully half of that time has been a period of extraordinary business depression, especially marked by falling wages, and the wholesale discharge of laborers from employment. This was especially the case in 1861, 1867, 1868, 1S69, 1873, 1S74, 1875, 1876, 1877, and 1878. 1883. — Pretended reduction, but real increase in tariff. Wages cut down everywhere in factories and mines. Great panic of May, 1884, leaving depression for two years. A few years ago I prepared for publication a newspaper article in which, for lack of space to prove the contrary, I admitted (as is not necessary) that times are apparently better, and wages apparently higher following the enact- ment of a high tariff law than after its repeal. This article is as follows : Having for several years had the acquaintance of a number of graduates from one of our Michigan colleges, no ///STO/C]- or rROTFXTION. I have been surprised at their unsettled notions of the tariff. They said all the theories and statistics given in their books teach the desirability of absolute freedom of trade, but they were "not certain " of its desirability. I have recently learned it is the custom of their learned teacher, the President of the college, to teach them elaborately all the theories of the text-books, and then deliver to them extended lectures upon the subject. In these he concedes that in theory the free-traders have all the arguments, but suggests that if facts do not agree with theory, there is then an "irrepressible conflict" be- tween them, and that " facts are stubborn things." He then gives them a history of each tariff law in this coun- try, and shows, to his satisfaction, that every rise in tariff has been followed by "good times" and every reduction by " hard times." AVithout questioning the accuracy of the data gathered by the learned President, I beg to offer a suggestion before accepting his conclusions. I do not understand that he has ever attempted to tell them " why this is thus," and from the nature of his argument I conceive it impossible that he should do so. He simply presents these as facts opposed to the whole theory and science of political economy. If we accept the axiomatic truth that all wealth is created by industry and that legislation cannot possibly add to our wealth, although it may and does prevent its production or interfere with its proper distribution, we are driven to the conclusion that if the tariff has caused the good times, it is by some other way than by adding to our wealth, as a whole, and this leads to the query, what do we mean by " good times " ? I suppose the best times possible are when the greatest number are most industriously employed and properly rewarded. HISTORICAL SUMMAR V AND INTRODUCTION. 1 1 1 They will then have means for making purchases, and trade will be lively. From this fact we are led into the error of estimating a people's prosperity by the amount of trade ; but this is by no means an infal- lible guide. If so, when men are rushing wildly into all manner of ventures and expenditures and piling up debts they never can pay, they would be causing the most prosperous times to themselves. Does not this, then, lead us to the kernel of the whole matter? A tariff is imposed. Prices at once advance. Seeing them advance the merchant stocks up heavily. Individuals buy largely, not to increase the consumption, but to avoid the higher prices. Drummers and the papers all report the times "booming." The era of buying is upon them. Farms are advancing in price ; they buy more land. Material is advancing ; they build. Their wives buy ; they furnish — they go in debt. Times are " good." But as yet nothing is added to our wealth, but debts increase. The tariff by advancing prices was the stimulant. It was more. It was the in- toxicant. Unless men can forever be getting drunk and never get sober, then this kind of prosperity can never continue. There comes a time when they can go no further this way. They are dead drunk. Obligations are due. Trade is stagnant. The government is blamed. The tariff is removed. Then comes a grand sobering up. Any fellow who has had a glorious drunk will tell you the " good time " was while getting drunk. The years of sobering up we remember as hard times. The learned President believes in individual temperance, and knows that alcohol can not add to our health or strength, but he loves to see the nation go on a grand financial drunk often. The painful swollen head of the 112 ///STOAT (>/■• /'A'OTECT/OJV. next day ho attributes to getting sober ; hence, getting sober is very bad policy. lie estimates national prosperity by commercial activ- ity. The only true estimate is by accumulated wealth. The era from 1846 to i860 was our period of free trade ; and Prof. Sumner, of Yale, an acknowledged authority, says : " The period from the Mexican to the Civil War is our golden era, if we have any, notwith- standing the States repeated the currency follies and the panic of 1857 resulted " ; but he adds : "It was only a stumble in a career of headlong prosperity." Even so unwilling a witness as James G. Blaine, in his Twenty Years in Congress testified that " the principles involved in the tariff of 1846 seemed for the time so entirely vindi- cated and approved that resistance to it ceased among the people, the protective economists and the manufac- turers. It was not surprising, therefore, that in 1857 the duties were placed lower than they had been since 18 12." The United States census shows that the increase of wealth per capita and per cent, was greater between '50 and '60 than in any other decade, and better still, this wealth remained with those who created it, instead of piling up in the hands of a few millionaires, while mort- gages consumed the homes of the humbler ones, as at present. Here, then, was a practical test of the effect of a simple revenue tariff, worth more than all the theo- ries that can be spun. Now, if we could all get drunk together and share the bills alike, we might have a jolly good time, it is true ; but they who dance have refused to pay the fiddler, or for the drinks. We have now been on a grand carousal for twenty-five years, and the poor farmer, a little drunker than the rest, has had a lock of wool i:>ulled HIS TO RICA L S UMMA RY A ND IN TROD UC TION. 1 1 3 over each eye and has been wheedled into footing the whole bill. Result : The fifth annual report of the Michigan Bureau of Statistics shows that "nearly half of the farms in Michigan are mortgaged for nearly half their value ; and the farmers are paying out yearly nearly $5,100,000 for interest on mortgages alone," to say nothing of the interest on unsecured indebtedness. According to the United States census, the average interest earned upon capital invested in manufactures between 1870 and 1880 was forty per cent., and their total annual profit after paying for labor $996,000,000. Assuming that twenty per cent, would be legitimate and abundant profit, we have paid them the other half, or $498,000,000 per annum as a bonus for the sweets (sweats) of protection, and the promise of a home market ; and we sold them our last crop of wheat for seventy cents. Assuming that the rate has averaged the same for the twenty-three years since the war closed, we (the consumers) have paid them more than four times the amount the national debt ever reached after, or above, paying them 20 per cent, profit. Millionaires have multiplied, and the misery of their employes has also multiplied, as they are in immediate competition with the " pauper labor " of Europe arriving by every steamer. What has free trade to offer in place of all this ? First, the hard times the President so much fears, a general sobering up and readjustment of values, a breaking up of all " trusts," which are only made pos- sible by the tariff and a general reduction in prices of all manufactures. This reduction we have reason to believe, would average 28 per cent. Goods could then be bought for $1, which now cost $1.40. What would be the effect on the farmer ? 8 114 J/i STORY OF protection: Prices of his produrts aro, and ever luive been, in the main fixed abroad, and would remain essentially un- changed, with ])ossibly a slight reduction in wool, possi- bly an advance in all prices, owing to increase of foreign commerce. Ikit with the dollar he now receives he could buy 40 per cent, more of needed goods. He would find a profit in farming which he has not had in so long he has ceased to expect it, and only hopes to sup- port his family by daily toil. A clear annual profit of 5 per cent, on his capital would really frighten a Michi- gan farmer. Still I think he might, like the maid when frightened, say : "Scare me again." Grant that the wages of the laborer might be reduced from $1.25 to ^i ; still with it he could buy what now cost $1.40. The margin of fifteen cents would more than double his little savings, after buying necessities, and in five years he would find his accumulations doubled. The manufacturer would get 40 per cent, no longer, but 20 per cent, instead. And buying raw material without duty and employing the cheapened labor, he could compete in the markets of the world. No longer piling up his wares and paying millions to opposition houses to lie idle, he would ship them to every part of the world, doubling his business and his income. European manufacturers, seeing our advan- tages, natural and acquired, would bring their factories here. The home market would come, and to stay. We could, and certainly should be, the greatest com- mercial nation on earth. England would be, as she is, a speck in the ocean, and her manufactories and her magnificent commerce would be transplanted to this side, where Nature designed they should be, and remain. EARLIER TARIFFS. II5 EARLIER TARIFFS. " The safety and interest of the people require that they should protect such manufactures as tend to render them in- dependent of others for essentials, particularly for military supplies." — George Washington's First Message. Beginning the history of legislative restrictions of com- merce in this country somewhat earlier than this, we learn that early in the eighteenth century England had imposed sufficient restrictions to have festooned our forests with gold if such were the effects of restriction. The colo- nies were not permitted to trade with any other country. We could not purchase silk from France nor tea from China, or cloth from Germany, but had to buy in Eng- land, although at higher prices. By statute of 1763 nothing was allowed to be imported into a British colony except in English-built ships, whereof the master and three fourths of the crew were English. We all remember that these restrictions of commerce were among the principal causes which led to our revo- lutionary war, and resulted in the loss of tlTe colonies to Great Britain. After this experience it might seem they would have learned wisdom, but restriction was the pol- icy of nations and levying a tariff was a function of gov- ernment, and the colonies in their jealousy of each other hastened to exercise this authority. Massachusetts had a navigation act and levied import duties, and the others followed her example. As to the disastrous effect of these restrictions all are agreed. They were among the leading causes compel- ling the abandonment of the confederation, the formation of the union, and the adoption of the constitution. After this experience it is incredible that the founders of our government should by tariff legislation seek to re- ii6 irr STORY or protfction: strict commerce. Ncillur did tlioy. The words of Washington at the head of this chapter are often c]iioted by protectionists to show that he favored restriction. Nothing is further from the irutli. They fail to note the words he emphasizes. He was a warrior and taught to jireparc for war in time of peace. He would encourage the domestic manufacturer of essential military supplies, but never for a moment would he restrict their importa- tion. The tariff at that time enacted was the mildest in our history, averaging but 5 per cent., and could scarcely in any sense be callrd protective. It was for the needed revenue to supply an empty treasury. What can we say of the consistency of the demagogue who glo- rifies this as a protective tariff, and anathematizes the 30 per cent, tariff of 1846, or the 43 per cent, tariff proposed by the Mills bill as " free trade," and in this year of grace finds that a tariff of 47 per cent, is not protective and adopts or indorses the may-skin-me tariff averaging 60 per cent, on all dutiable goods ? In all the discussions and arguments leading to the adoption of this tariff there is scarcely the suggestion of protection. Its object was to secure revenue for the new government whose successful working was the one end Avhich all the legislation of the first few years sought to bring about. It is significant that Madison's letters to Jefferson, then in Paris, about the debates on the tariff act of 1789, made no reference whatever to the protec- tive discussion. This tariff was at least founded upon a theory the exact opposite of that followed in the construction of the tar- iff of loi years later, for in this the highest duties were imposed upon luxuries reaching in a single instance to 15 per cent, on carriages, which at that time were only pur- DEVELOPING INFANT INDUSTRIES. WJ chased by the very wealthy. On a few articles supposed to be needed in time of war the duty was lo per cent. These duties were continued until the exigencies of the war of 1812 compelled the doubling of the rates, but so well were the people satisfied with this 5 per cent, tariff that the same laws that doubled the rates during the war enacted that upon the return of peace the old rates should be resumed, and so they were. This too was done for the purpose of securing the needed revenue, but as importations were almost entirely stopped it had but little effect in any way. That our country was wondrously prosperous under this 5 per cent, tariff until the embargo of 1808 is never disputed, but tariffs for protection belong to a later period in our history. We will trace them carefully. We cannot follow their history understandingly with- out looking to the theories which from time to time have led to their adoption, as well as to the results that followed them. That they were not a tax upon the laboring man or that they could in any way benefit him Avas not claimed for many years, but the favorite argumentfor their adop- tion during the first half of this century forms the sub- ject of the following chapter. DEVELOPING INFANT INDUSTRIES. *' No one, Mr. President, in the commencement of the pro- tective policy ever supposed that it was to be perpetual. We hoped and believed that temporary protection extended to our infant manufactures would bring them up and enable them to withstand competition with those of Europe." — Henry Clay in 1840. The argument for protection to infant industries briefly stated is this : In a new country agriculture is Il8 HISTOKY OF riWTECTION. naturally the first industry developed, followed by com- merce as soon as there is a surplus of anything produced. Manufactures reciuiring different skill, experience, and greater capital will be developed less readily. Many of these when once established can be carried on here as cheaply as anywhere. Such will eventually be developed with no other encouragement than the profit they will afford. But such is the inertia of the people, and such the force of habit, and such the hesitancy in attempt- ing things entirely new, that these manufactures will not be attempted as soon as would be most profitable for the whole people, since, so long as they are not in- troduced, the whole people must be to the expense of transporting from other lands. Other industries from natural obstacles can never be carried on here as profitably as elsewhere, after contrib- uting to them the cost of double transportation. Such industries should never be attempted. No one would think it wise to compel ourselves to pay $5 per pound for American tea when by producing other things and exchanging we can get it for one tenth that sum. It is equally unwise to compel ourselves to produce any- thing which we can permanently obtain more cheaply by exchange. But industries of the former kind, under the circum- stances named, can unquestionably be encouraged at the expense of the whole people to the ultimate profit of the whole. It is subject of demonstration and is the belief of those who have given the matter most study, that the most unfortunate way known for extending this protec- tion is by a protective tariff, but this is the method we adopted, and its history and results we will pursue. DEVELOPING INFANT INDUSTRIES. 1 19 There can be no question that in the early part of this century this country was in the condition when protection should be offered to manufacturing if ever it should be. Shipbuilding was carried on to some extent, iron was produced and shipped to England, still the fact remains that the all-prevailing industry was agriculture. This could not be carried on without local blacksmiths, car- penters, and other artisans. Wives and daughters made most of the clothing, cloth, and knit goods, but as a rule everything was imported that could be, and was paid for with the products of the farm and plantation. In 1 791, our gross exports were $19,000,000, and gross imports $29,200,000. In ten years these sums had grown to $94,000,000 and to $1 1 1,300,000 respectively. In 1807, we exported $108,300,000 and imported $138,500,000.' We were at the dawn of a revolution in methods of manufacturing. In England they were beginning the use of steam and machinery and manifold inventions. Our backwoodsmen were not in condition to compete with this production. They had neither the capital, the interest, the experience, nor the inclination to adopt these methods of manufacture. ' I cannot pass these statistics without again alluding to the balance of trade. In the twenty years following 1790 our gross exports were $1,227,800,000, and our gross imports $1,519,200,000; the excess of imports being nearly $300,000,000, and never a year in all that time when we did not import much more than we exported. This, according to protectionists, was a balance against us, and had to be paid in gold, while, as a matter of fact, we had not a dollar of gold or silver in all that time that was not brought here as a part of that self-same balance. We had no gold mines. The truth is, our farms produced $1,200,000,000 more than we could consume. Our sailors took it, and by their labor and skill in trade made it $1,500,000,000. Freight earnings then came to this country instead of to Great Britain. I20 H/STOKV OF PKOTECTfON. Tlu' tiiiK- was ripi- tor protection, l)iit it came not at first in the form ot" tarilf but in another way eciually effective with a prohibitory tariff of loo per cent., and having the same effect on the industries as such a tariff. In retaliation for wrongs done us by England and France, in December, iSo7,an embargo was declared by Congress, all vessels being prohibited from sailing for foreign ports. This policy was continued until March, 1809, the commercial interests of the country suffering meantime the deepest distress. The blow fell with especial severity on New England, where the exaspera- tion of the community was carried almost to the point of open resistance to the law. It could no longer be sus- tained against the force of public feeling. For the embargo prohibiting all foreign trade, were now substituted acts prohibiting trade with England and France, and known as " Non-Intercourse Laws," which continued in force until the war of 181 2, which by its added contingencies nearly put an end, for the time, to all trade. Our exports fell at once from $108,300,000 in 1807 to $22,400,000 in 1808, and to $6,900,000 in 1814. This left our farmers with $100,000,000 surplus of products on hand each year, for which there was no possible market unless they ceased to produce as much as in 1807. Our imports fell from $[38,500,000 in 1807 to $57,- 000,000 in 1S08, and to $13,000,000 in 1814. This com- pelled our people to do without $100,000,000 per annum of comforts in their homes which they were wont to buy, unless they could be produced in this country. Such a revolution necessarily led to the most extreme hardship and discontent, but was a potent stimulant to manufacture, DEVELOPING INFANT INDUSTRIES. 121 and was, " for the time being, equivalent to extreme pro- tection." Establishments for the manufacture of cotton goods, woollen cloths, iron, glass, pottery, and other articles sprang up with a mushroom growth. COTTON. Previous to the embargo, fifteen cotton mills had been constructed, showing that the industry would in time be established here without protection^ but in 1809 "the number shot up to sixty-two, while twenty-five more mills were in course of erection." In 1800, 500 bales of cotton had been used, in 1805, 1,000 bales, in 18 10 the number consumed rose to 10,000, and in 1815 it was 90,000. Woodburry s Report of i8j6 gives the number of spindles in use in factories as follows : In 1805 4, 500 spindles. "1807 8,000 " " 1809 31,000 " " 1810 87,000 " " 1815 130,000 " " 1820 220,000 " " 1825 800,000 " Toward the end of the war, a revolution in methods of textile manufacture was inaugurated by the substitu- tion of the power loom for the hand loom. First in England, but without any use of English models, Francis C.Lowell perfected his machine in 18 14; in the same year it was put in operation in a factory at Waltham, Mass. Thus, before protective tariffs were enacted, was this industry well under way in America. 122 IIISTOKY OF PROTECTION. WOOLLICNS. " Tlic first attempt at making woollens in large quanti- titics is said to have been made at Ipswich, Mass., in 1792, but no machinery seems to have been used. In 1794, the new machinery was for the first time applied to the manufacture of wool." "A Scotchman, Jas. Sanderson, also introduced carding-machines at New Ipswich, N. H., in iSoi." "As early as 18 10 the carding and spinning of wool by machinery was begun in some of the cotton mills in Rhode Island." The value of woollen goods made in factories is said to have risen from $4,000,000 in i8io, to $19,000,000 in 1815. Thus was this industry, too, established in advance of any protective tariff. IRON. In Schrievenor's History of the Iron Trade, p. 81, and also in Bishop, i., p. 629, we learn that in 1740 the total quantity of iron produced in England was about 17,000 tons. At that time from 2,000 to 3,000 tons annually were regularly imported from the American colonies. In 1783, came Cort's inventions for puddling and rol- ling iron. This is important to remember, as for many years we had a tariff aimed directly at the importation of rolled iron, which was produced vastly cheaper than our hammered and slit iron, to which the Yankees, with all their boasted ingenuity and enterprise, vainly sought to cling for half a century. From 1S08 to 181 5 manufactures of iron previously imported had to be obtained, if possible, at home. FIRST PROTECTIVE TARIFFS. 123 Manufactories multiplied enormously. When peace came, there were unusually heavy importations of iron from the long-pent-up producers in England. Prices fell rapidly, and protection by the government was demanded. This leads us to the consideration of the first protective tariff. FIRST PROTECTIVE TARIFFS, 1816, 1818, and 1824. " In 1816 we did what the gentleman from Texas now asks us to do — we * took down the bars,' and instantly a flood of foreign imports sv/ept in upon us, bringing devastation and ruin to all our industries and all the people. This condition of things continued until 1824 and 1828. Then the bars were put up again." — J. C. Burrows, May 8, 1890. Julius Cassar has evidently read Mr. Blaine's maga- zine article in reply to Gladstone. Now it happens that in that article, unwittingly or otherwise, Mr. Blaine made a serious mistake regarding our tariff history, which has been pointed out again and again. The truth is, we had the most intense financial depression in 1819 and 1820 ever known in this country. It is the practice of modern protection cranks — to use no harsher word — to attribute every financial panic to free trade, and to fit facts to their theory they call the tariff of 1816 a free-trade tariff. It becomes us then to inquire carefully what was this tariff, and what the cause of the panic. If free-traders were as dogmatic as protectionists, they would say it was protection, for certainly this was the first protection tariff. Mr. Blaine said : " The war duties were dropped from the tariff of 1816. The people were soon reduced to 124 Iff STORY OF PROT/'.CTION. great distress. Colonel Benton's vivid description of tlie period of depression following the reduction of duties, comprises in a few lines a whole chapter of the history of free trade in the United States." He then quotes Benton : " No price for property. No sales . . . No employment . . . No sound of the hammer . . . Distress was the universal cry of the people, relief the universal demand." Unfortunately for Mr. Blaine the "war duties," in- stead of being " dropped," were increased 50 per cent., and more unfortunately still if he had honestly quoted the whole of the one paragraph from Benton, of which he gives a few words, he could not have called it a "chapter of the history of free trade." The paragraph begins with these words : " The Bank of the United States was chartered in 1816, and before 1820 had performed one of its cycles of delusive and bubble prosperity, followed by actual and widespread calamity. The whole paper system of which it was the head and citadel, after a vast expansion, had suddenly collapsed, spreading desolation over the land, and carry- ing ruin to debtors. The years 1819, 1820, were a period of gloom and agony." So much for the panic. Now, as regards the tariff, Colonel Benton says : " The question of protection for the sake of protection was brought forward and carried in 1816. This reversed the old course of legislation, made protection the object instead of the incident, revenue the incident instead of the object." In 1824 Mr. Webster said: "The law of 1816 was passed avowedly for the benefit of manufacturers, and, with very few exceptions, imposed on imported articles very great additions of tax, in some instances, indeed, FIRST PROTECTIVE TARIFFS. 12$ amounting to prohibition." In the Senate in 1838 Mr. Clay made a similar declaration. So much for Mr. Blaine's " chapter of the history of free trade in the United States." If insincerity were statesmanship, there would be little dispute' as to "the greatest statesman of modern times." No one has examined the history of our tariffs more carefully and candidly than Professor Taussig of Har- vard University, and to him I am indebted for much of the history that follows. He speaks of " the general increase of duties under the act of 1816 " as due to " the feeling in favor of manufactures that had sprung up during the time of restriction." " Higher duties were therefore imposed on those articles in whose pro- duction most interest was felt. Textile fabrics, cotton and woollen goods were to pay 25 per cent, until 1819, and then 20 per cent., a duty considered sufficiently protective in those days." At the same time it was provided that all cloth costing less than 25 cents, was to be considered as costing 25 cents. This was the first minimum duty, and on cheaper cottons made the duty over -t^t^ per cent.; a similar mini- mum duty was imposed on cotton yarns. Congress was also asked to extend protection to iron. The tariff of i8i6 imposed a duty of 45 cents a hundred on hammered bar iron, and ^i-So P^^ hundred on rolled bar, with corresponding duties on sheet, hoop, and rod iron. Professor Taussig concludes : " When peace came in 1815, it found a large number of persons and a great amount of capital engaged in the cotton manufacture, and the new processes of manufacture introduced on an extensive scale. Under such circumstances the industry 126 IfFSTORV OF PKOTFCIVON. was (.(.Ttain lo l)c maintaiiuil, if it was for the economic interest of tlie country that il should 1)0 carried on. Tlie duties of the tariff of 1816, therefore, can hardly be said to have been necessary. Nevertheless, they may have been of service." 1S18. At this time it was enacted that the duty of 25 per cent, on cottons and woollens should remain in force till 1S26, instead of being reduced to 20 per cent, in 1 819. At the same time the duty on all forms of un- manufactured iron was considerably raised. The duty on pig-iron was 50 cents per hundred — the first specific duty imposed on pig-iron. Hammered bar was charged with 75 cents per hundred, and the duties on castings, anchors, nails, spikes, etc., were raised. The currency bubble was pricked in the latter part of 1818. Prices fell rapidly and heavily. Moreover, the harvests were again good in Europe in 181 8, and the English corn laws of 1S16 went into effect, prohibiting our farm products. A new scale of monetary exchange gradually went into operation. " During the period of transition there was, as there always is in such periods, much suffering and uneasiness." That the panic was of short duration, that wages were not advanced by these protective tariffs, and that manu- facturers ]irofited by them, are shown by Clay's speech in 1820 {JForl's, i., 419). "The abundance of capital indicated by the avidity with which loans are taken at 5 per cent., the reduction in the wages of labor, and the decline in the price of property of all kinds, all concur favorably for domestic manufacturers." FIRST PROTECTIVE TARIFFS. 12/ JVi/c-s' Jiegister, the protection organ of that period, said in 1821, xxi., 39 : "Four thousand looms in Phila- delphia have been put in operation within the last six months . . . and in all probability they will, within six months more, be increased to four times that number. In Paterson, N. J., where two years ago only three out of sixteen of its extensive factories were in operation . . . all are now in vigorous employment." 1824, During the debates upon this tariff Daniel Webster said : " Look to the history of our laws, look at the present state of our laws, consider that our whole revenue, with a trifling exception, is collected at the custom house, and always has been, and then say what propriety there is in calling on the government for protection, as if no protection had heretofore been afforded. On the general question, is not the doctrine of prohibition, as a general doctrine, preposterous ? Suppose all nations to act upon it, they would be prosperous then, according to this argument, precisely in the proportion in which they abolish intercourse with one another." Benton said : " The protection of domestic industry not being among the granted powers was looked for in the incidental, and denied by the strict constructionists." Mr. Blaine says : " Relief came at last with the en- actment of the protective tariff of 1824." The literature and history of the times speak otherwise. Professor Taussig says : " In 1820, while the first pres- sure of the economic revulsion bore hard on the people, a vigorous attempt was made to pass a high protective 128 HI STORY OF rROTF.CTTON. tariff, anil it barely failed of success by a, single vote in the Senate. In 1824, the protectionists succeeded in passing the tariff of tliat year, which increased all duties. . . . Before 1S24, the manufacture, as we have seen, was securely established. The further application of protection in that and in the following years was needless, and, so far as it had any effect, was harmful." Woollen manufacture was hampered instead of en- couraged, as the 30 per cent, duty on wools more than offset the 2)7i pcr cent, duty on woollen goods. Neverthe- less " the woollen manufacture steadily progressed after the crisis of 1819, and in 1828 was securely established." " During 1821 and 1822 large investments were made in factories for making woollen cloths, especially in New England." In 1828, thirteen woollen manufacturers testified be- fore the Committee of the House of Representatives that their combined capital invested was $1,105,000 (a large sum for those days). They testified that the mere cost of manufacturing was no greater here than in England; that they could produce at as low price as the English if they could obtain the wool as cheaply. Shepherd, of Northampton, said : " The difference in price of cloths would be the difference in the price of wool, as, in my opinion, we can manufacture as cheap as they can." Another said : " I know no reason why we cannot manufacture as well and as cheap as they can in Eng- land, except the difference in the price of labor, for which, in my opinion, we are fully compensated by other advantages. , . . The high prices we pay for labor are, in my opinion, beneficial to the American manufac- turer, as for these wages we get a much better selection of hands. . . . The American mauufacturer also FIRST PROTECTIVE TARIFFS. 1 29 uses a larger share of labor-saving machinery than the English." (Bear in mind all this was sixty-three years ago.) Professor Taussig says, in his admirable treatise on Protection to Infant Industries : '^ In 1828, when for the first time protection was given by a complicated system of minimum duties, and when the actual rates rose, in some instances, to over 100 per cent., this aid was no longer needed to sustain the woollen manufacture. The period oi youth had then been past." IRON. The duties imposed in 1818 were heavy, and with the steady fall in the price of iron, especially after the crisis of 1819, they grew proportionately heavier and heavier. In 1824 they were all increased ; the rate on hammered bar went up to ninety cents a hundred. In 1828 a further increase was made in the duties on all kinds of iron, although the continual fall in price was in itself steadily increasing the weight of the specific duties. The discriminating duty against rolled-bar iron was continued throughout, and in 1828 was considerably in- creased, our manufacturers clinging to the hand method and demanding tariff protection enough to make it profit- able. " The tax is a clear illustration of the tendency to fetter and impede the progress of improvement, which is inherent in protective legislation." "Notwithstanding the heavy duties, the proportion of imported to domestic iron from 1818 to 1840 remained about the same." Since importations continued regular and on a large scale, the price of iron made at home was clearly raised 9 130 JfJSTORV OF PROTF.CTION. over the jirice of the fi)reii;n by tlu- amount of tlic duty. The f;u-t tliat our nu-n faileil to supply the country with tlie iron it needed, is sufficient evidence that its protection as a young industry was not successful. It was not until tariffs had been reduced that the puddling process was introduced in America. "The great change which marks the turning-point in the his- tory of iron manufacture in the United States began when protection ceased." No change was made during the period of protec- tion which enabled the country to obtain the metal more cheaply than by importation, or even as cheaply. The tariff simply taxed the community. . . . We may therefore conclude that the duties on iron during the generation after 1815 formed a heavy tax on consumers, that they impeded, so far as they went, the industrial development of the country, and that no compensatory benefits were obtained to offset these disadvantages. During all these years the dominant argument for pro- tection was the " eventual cheapness " to be reached by manufacturing at home and saving ocean freights. That the argument was fallacious is abundantly shown by the fact that after nearly a hundred years of villainous pro- tection we are still unable or unwilling to manufacture as cheaply by 60 per cent, as free-trade countries are willing to lay down the goods at our doors. In all these years it was never suggested that the tariff could benefit labor. Instead of a protection argument the free-traders pointed to our higher wages as an in- superable obstacle to the establishment of manufactures, while protectionists felt called upon to explain away the differences in wages which have always existed since the landing of the Mayflower. " TARIFF OF ABOMINATIONS." 13I "TARIFF OF ABOMINATIONS," 1828. " Not the least curious part of the history of the Act of 1828 is the treatment it has received from the protectionist writers. At the time the protectionists were far from en- thusiastic about it. In later years, when the details of its history had been forgotten, it came to be regarded with favor. Henry C. Carey, on whose authority rest many of the accounts of our economic history, called it ' an admirable tariff.' He represented it as having had great effect on the prosperity of the country, and his statements have often been repeated by protectionists." — Taussig. In the eighteenth century we had but one millionaire in America, and he was a farmer. During 1805, 1806, and 1807, we had exported over ^100,000,000 of pro- ducts per annum (one fifth as much as our agricultural exports at the present time), and had exchanged them for over $388,000,000. Farmers were prosperous and happy. The embargo stopped all this. The non-inter- course laws were but little better. During the war com- merce was impossible. After its close protection pre- vented trade. The panic of 1819 brought despair. The farmers were in much the same plight, worse if possible, than in this year of grace, seventy years later, and from much the same causes. They were worse off than twelve years before ; not having made expenses in all that time. The F. M. B. A. of that time had not fixed the blame on middle-men, on railroads, nor yet on the kind of money which they received and paid (so little of it, perhaps, that they never dreamed it could be the cause of all their ills). But in 1820 the demagogue got their ears, and told them more protection was what was needed. That a " home market " should be built up 132 in STORY OF PROTECTION. that should take all their products. This was a new cry at the time, and the word was eagerly taken up and endorsed. We cannot wonder that our unlettered grandfathers were caught by this bait when we remember that now, after a century's demonstration that the effort is as futile as were an attempt to empty the ocean into a barn cellar, we still find great, gushing, gullible suckers eagerly grabbing for the same baited hook. A sentiment for protection set in in 1820, which never abated until it was drowned in its own mad excesses in the tariff of 1828. At this time they literally "run it into politics." It also became " a local question." New England wanted protection, the South wanted it not. The West, as the ninth President's grandson says, "did n't understand it," but they wanted to vote for protection. As we have already seen, manufactures began to revive rapidly immediately after the panic of 18 19, and in 1824 they were flourishing, even before the adoption of the high tariff of that year. By that tariff they were greatly stimulated at the expense of agriculture. Farmers were depressed, but, seeing manufacturing wealth multi- plying mightily, they began shouting lustily, " Me too," as in 1890. The Adams men controlled New England, the Jackson men dominated the South. The election was to be decided by the buck-skins west of the Alleghanies. The tariff bill of 1828 was a cunningly devised scheme for political effect. The Jackson men had the framing of the bill. They put a duty on farm products that were never imported. They then put such duties on imports that New England must have, that they thought the " TARIFF OF ABOMINATIONS." 1 33 Adams men could not support the bill, — $60 per ton duty on hemp to protect no one, but to distress New England ship-builders. They then banded together to resist all amendments ; it was this bill or none. If the Adams men voted for it, it would make protection odious, and result in the overthrow of the system. If they voted against it, they voted against the farmers' protection, and so defeated their own party, losing the Western vote. The duty on pig-iron was advanced to 62^ cents per hundred, and hammered bar to $1.12, and rolled bar to $37 per ton. No one had asked for these advances. They were to distress manufacturers using them. Wool was to pay four cents per pound and an additional duty of 50 per cent. Thus the coarse wools which we did not produce,' worth seven or eight cents, paid a duty of over 100 per cent, to punish New England. Sail duck was taxed from 40 to 50 per cent. " The whole scheme was a characteristic product of the politicians, who were then becoming prominent, men of a type very different from the statesmen of the pre- ceding generation. Clay informs us that it was one of the many devices that had their origin in the fertile brain of Van Buren." Clay wrote in February, before the discussion of the bill began : " The Jackson men are playing a game of brag on the subject of the tariff. They do not desire the success of their own measure, and it may happen in the sequel that what is desired by neither party will com- mand the votes of both." It was finally adopted by one hundred and five votes to ninety-four. Twenty-three New England members voted against it. If six more had done the same, the ' See pji. 185, 186, and 222. 134 n I STORY OF PROTECTION. "abomination" would have been defeated. Webster voted for it because of" other paramount considerations." The Adams men feared to reject it because of the approaching presidential campaign. John Randolph said : " The bill referred to manufac- tures of no sort or kind except the manufacture of a president of the United States." Browne, a Boston manufacturer, declared : " I could manufacture to better advantage under the tariff of 1816 than under that of 1828, for the duty on wools was then lower, and that on cloths a better protection." Pages of like testimony from its contemporaries, regarding its effects, might be multiplied ; but enough. It thus came about that a tariff passed without an advocate, executed for four years, and dying without a friend, came in later years, for partisan purposes, to be extolled as an "admirable tariff." It is true the country had now recovered from the war. The demand for our products abroad was excep- tionally good during the four years this tariff was in force. Our natural advantages and enterprise are such that we could not be permanently ground to the poverty that followed the war. These years were prosperous, and Carey, whose mission it has been to pervert the his- tory of our tariffs, attributed our prosperity to this " abomination." Prof. Taussig says : " It is very doubtful whether, with the defective information at our disposal, we can learn much of the effect on the prosperity of the country, even of the whole series of tariff acts. ... At all events, no one can trace the economic effects of the tariff of 1828. To ascribe to it the supposed prosperity of the years in which it was in force, as Henry C. Carey and LAST PROTECTIVE TARIFF, l8j2. I35 his followers have done, is only a part of that exaggera- tion of the effect of protective duties which is so common among their advocates or opponents." LAST PROTECTIVE TARIFF OF THE SERIES, 1832. " FREE TRADE AGAIN. " But in 1832 the enemies of protection rallied their forces again and secured control of Congress through a disgraceful compromise with Southern nullifiers. Protection was aban- doned. The protective tariff of 1824 and 1828 was repealed, and duties too low to afford any real protection to home industries were established by that Congress. '^Results of this Appeal. " Again financial depression followed ; assignments and bankruptcies resulted everywhere. Manufacturers suspended operations, and business grew worse and worse till the culmination was reached in the financial crash of 1837, one of the most disastrous financial revulsions ever known — severer than that which followed the repeal of the first tariff in 1816. Very few persons could save themselves. Property of every description was disposed of at most astounding sacrifices. In some parts of Pennsylvania bank-notes were divided into halves, and even into quarters, — money was so scarce. In Ohio it was hard to get money enough to pay taxes. So little money was there that at sheriffs' sales good horses sold for $2 each, cows at $1, and hogs at 6| cents apiece. In Missouri a large ox was sold for I2|^ cents, hogs at i^ cents each, and tobacco at 62I cents per hogshead." — D. G. Harriman's Protective Tariff League Pamphlet No. jy. Copyright, May, 1S88. "Again financial depression followed ; assignments and bankrupt- cies resulted everywhere ; manufacturers suspended operations, and business grew worse and worse till the culmination was reached in the financial crash of 1837, one of the most disastrous financial revulsions 136 HISTORY OF PROTECTION. ever kiKnvii — severer even tliaii lliat wliicli followed the repeal of the first tariff in 1816. Very few jicrsons tdiilil save themselves ; prop- erty of every description was disposed of at astounding sacrifices. In some parts of Pennsylvania bank-notes were divided into halves, and even into quarters, — money was so scarce. In Ohio it was hard to get money enough to pay taxes. So little money was there that at sheriffs' sales good horses sold for $2 each, cows at $1, and hogs at6| cents apiece. In Missouri a large ox was sold for 12^ cents, hogs at \\ cents each, and tobacco at 62^ cents per hogshead." — Hon. J. C, Burrows, House of Representatives, May 8, 1890. Ca-i-us Ju-li-us Cre-sar ! ! ! The Columbian orator has evidently learned a new piece. We trust he speaks it well. The interesting feature of all this is, as we have shown, that there was no reduction of tariff in 1816, but on the contrary the duties that year were more than doubled, and entirely in the interest of protection. And, as we shall show, the " enemies of protection " did not get control in 1832, but the protectionists passed the law of that year, which " put the protective system in a shape such as the advocates hoped it might retain perma- nently." It is amusing to hear the advocates of protection extol the tariff of 1824 as protection, and condemn that of 1832 as free trade, while the two were as nearly iden- tical as it was possible to make them. The "abomina- tions " of 1828 were merely lopped off as the protectionists wished. " Most of the protectionists, led by Adams, took a mod- erate course and consented to the removal of the abomina- tions of 1828. Even before 1832 some changes were made. In 1830 the molasses abomination was got rid of. In 1832 the protectionists themselves swept away the minimum system on woollens, and an ad-valorem duty of 50 per COMPROMISE TARIFF, l8jj. 1 37 cent, was put in its place. This was the most important change in the tariff. The duties on flax and hemp were both reduced. The duty on pig-iron was put back to the rates of 1824. The duty on wool alone remained substantially as it had been in 1828, but even here the special abomination was removed. Cheap wools costing less than eight cents was admitted free of duty. In fact, the protective system was put back in the main to where it had been in 1824. The result was to clear the tariff of the excrescences which had grown on it in 1828, and to put it in a form in which the protectionists could advocate its permanent retention." Professor Taussig says: "The tariff act of 1832, a distinctly protectionist measure, passed by the Whigs or national Republicans, put the protective system in a shape such as the advocates of protection hoped it might retain permanently. It put high duties on cotton and woollen goods, iron, and other articles to which protection was meant to be applied. . . . The average rate on dutiable articles was about 2)Z P^r cent." COMPROMISE TARIFF, 1833. " The theory of protection supposes too that after a certain time the protected arts will have acquired such strength and perfection as will enable them subsequently, unaided, to stand up against foreign competition. " If the protective policy were entirely to cease in 1842, it would have existed twenty-six years from 1816, or eighteen from 1824 — quite as long as, at either of those periods, its friends supposed might be necessary." — Henry Clay, 1840, In 1832, the protection robbery, promising to be per- manent, passed beyond the endurance of the Southern I 3 S If IS rOA' J ' OF PRO TECTTON. Slates wliosc statesmen understood then tlic real effects of protective (?) tariffs quite as well as do the protec- tionists of the present day. In this year South Carolina passed the famous Nullifi- cation Act, and it was not so much the threat of General Jackson that he would hang Calhoun higher than Haman, as the Clay Compromise Act, that subdued the rebellious spirit. The compromise provided for the retention of a considerable degree of protection for nine years, and thereafter for a rapid reduction to a uniform rate of 20 per cent. The nullifiers had said that a uniform rate of 15 or 20 per cent, was the least they were willing to accept. The compromise provided that all duties which in 1832 exceeded 20 per cent, were to have -^ of the excess over 20 per cent, taken off on January i, 1834, another tenth January, 1836, another in '38, and another in '40. That is, by 1840, -j*jj of the excess would be gone. The re- maining -^^ to be taken off during the first half of 1842, so that after July i, 1842, there was to be a uniform rate of 20 per cent. There is abundant evidence that the protectionists never expected it to be carried out for any length of time. It was to avert the danger of war. Clay assured the representatives of the protectionists that "no future Congress would be bound by the act." The fact that it was carried out to the letter and that future Congresses did not repeal or tamper with it for more that nine years is abundant evidence that this gradual reduction was not at the time believed to be the cause of any of the financial ills which modern protectionists attribute to it. COMPROMISE TARIFF, l8jj. 1 39 I shall show in the following chapter that much of the prosperity and the new industries which then prevailed really took their rise under this declining tariff. James G. Blaine in his famous reply to Gladstone says : " Before the sliding scale was ruinously advanced, there was a great stimulus to manufacturing and to trade." What does this most astute of statesmen mean ? Can he not see that if he speaks the truth he gives away the whole protection case in a sentence ? If this is true, let us by all means attach a "sliding scale " to the Mc- Kinley tariff, and if we give it a few more such endorse- ments as it met in November, 1890, there can be no doubt it will stimulate industry and trade. But another episode in our history requires our atten- tion. About 1830, the country entered again on a period of wild inflation of paper money. A large part of the business of our State Legislatures was passing bills in- corporating banks. Every village all over the South and West had to have its bank. These banks were authorized to issue notes. By 1836 there were 750 banks chartered. Probably 500 were of the class known at the time as "wild-cat," or "red-dog" banks. The country went mad over these banks. Their bills became as plenty as " autumnal leaves that strew the woods of Vallambrosa." Prices of property rose out of all reason. Speculation not only reached the point of danger, but it reached the point of frenzy. Now, the tariff, high or low, protective or free trade, had about as much to do with this as the murder of Julius Caesar. But every one thought he was getting rich. Extravagance was seen on every hand. Great schemes of public works were undertaken. Theparticu- 140 /flSTORY OF PROTECTION. lar form of spctuhition lhi"ouglu)ul the West tliat had most favor \v;is the purchase of wild kind. The land sales were running up to $5,000,000 per month. The funds of the United States Treasury were removed from the United States bank and deposited with " pet " State banks. This added the means and s[)irit of speculation. Many millions of Treasury surplus were distributed among the States. This money was largely squandered in the most extravagant ways. Everything added to the fierce fire. By the summer of 1836, the President became alarmed, and issued his celebrated specie circular, directing that only gold and silver sliould be received for public lands. This was the first check. Colonel Benton says that at the time the circular was issued $10,000,000 of the miser- able paper trash called money Avas on its way to the land offices to pay for land. The banks soon had to suspend, but the country was still flooded with their notes. " The United States Bank went down with a great crash. Its capital stock of $35,000,000 was worthless. Its creditors lost $20,000,000. Before long the country banks went down in squadrons. Their paper was as worthless as the rags of which it was made. About 1840-41, the country was in precisely the same condition as in 1819-20, and from precisely the same cause. The reduction of the tariff of 1833, had no more to do, probably not as much, with the distress of 1840 as the increase of the tariff in 1816 had to do with the distress of 1819." Certain of the exaggerations at the heading of the pre- vious chapter may bear some semblance to the truth of the condition at this time, but the tariff had no more to do with it than with the color of Carey's hair. PROTECTION AGAIN, 1 8^. I4I PROTECTION AGAIN, 1842. " In 1842 the people, completely exhausted by misrule and free trade, restored the Whigs to power, and they passed another highly protective tariff. No sooner •was this done than the financial gloom passed away. The sun of prosperity shone forth. Business revived everywhere. Factories and other industries sprung up on every hand throughout the North." — Harriman. " Plenty and prosperity followed the enactment of the pro- tective tariff as if by magic." — James G. Blaine. Those still living who remember the restoration of the Whigs to power at this time, remember that hard cider had vastly more to do with the restoration than had any discussion of the tariff needs of the country. The act of 1842 was passed "not so much in compliance with the wishes of the manufacturers, as because the politi- cians wanted an issue. The act was a hasty and imper- fect measure of which the details had received but little consideration. Attention was turned mainly to the political quarrel and to the political effect of the bill." The duties it levied were high — probably higher than they would have been except for the breach between Tyler and the Whigs. Though certainly protective, it had not such a strong popular feeling behind it as had prevailed in 1824, '28, or '32. The farmers' enthusiasm for the home-market idea had cooled perceptibly. It was never a popular measure. No one dreamed in its day that it was blessing the country in the manner since proclaimed by Carey and his disciples. COTTON. In 1835 (under the "free-trade" tariff) the Amos- keag Company began operations on a large scale in 142 I//STOKV OF rKOTECTION, New Hampshire. The Stark Mills were built in 1838, and the second Stark Mills in 1S39. Earl's History of Fall River, p. 35 : " From the panic of 1837 Fall River seems to have speedily recovered, and every mill in the place was enlarged." Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, xlv., p. 14, gives the number of spindles in Massachusetts as 340,000 in 1831, 665,000 in 1840, 817,500 in 1845. Batchclder gives the entire number in New England as 1,597,000 in 1840. Pages of statistics can be given to show that the grand advance in modern cotton manufacturing in America was not under the tariff of 1842 but under the con- demned tariff of 1833. WOOLLENS. The manufacturing of woollens has generally been hindered by high tariffs, as the duties on the imported wools which the manufacturers must use, offset any profits the tariff affords. Some important branches were started before 1840, and reaped what profit they could in the years following. Knitting was first done by machinery at Cohoes, N. Y., in 1832. Carpet manufacturing received a great impetus from the application of newly-invented machinery. The power loom for weaving ingrain carpets was invented in 1 82 1. The new machinery at once put the manufactur- ing of carpets on a firm basis, IRON. A patent for smelting iron with anthracite was taken out in 1833. The process was first used success- fully in 1836. The importance of the discovery was recognized at once. With this change the manufactur- ing of iron on a great scale properly begins. " The im- PROTECTION AGAIN, 1 842. I43 portance of the new method was immediately appreciated, and the predictions were made that henceforth there would no longer be occasion for importing iron even under the 20 per cent, duty of the compromise act." Puddling had been employed in England for a score of years, but the first puddling and rolling mill in New England was built in 1835. The discriminating duty against rolled-bar iron was continued until 1846, but it never hastened the adoption of its manufacturing. But in all these years it was an enormous tax on consumers only trying to compel us to buy hammered iron. It is true the first iron rails were made in this country while the tariff of 1842 was in effect, but the plant for their production was erected and equipped while they were admitted free from England with no hope or pros- pect that they would be protected.' How much of the prosperity following 1842 was due to the tariff of that year I leave the reader to judge. Calhoun ascribed the crisis of 1837 to the fact that the duties under the act of 1833 remained too high. On the other hand Clay took pains to deny that the act of 1833 had anything to do with the troubles of the years following its passage. Works, ii., p. 550. Prof. Taussig speaks of " the curious assertion that the crises of 1837 and 1839 were caused by the compro- mise act of 1833 or connected with it." He says : " This assertion had its origin in the writings of Henry C. Carey, who has been guilty of many curious versions of economic history, but of none more remarkable than this. From his works it has been transferred to the writings of his disciples, and to the arguments of protec- tion speakers in general. . . . His prejudices were ' Rolled iron for railroad tracks was for years exempt from duty. 144 H/STOKY OF PROTECTION. so strong as to prevent liini from taking a just view of economic history." Carey was a monomaniac on the subject of protection, like McKinley. Neither could ever utter or even perceive a truth if it conflicted with the pet theory of his life. But what shall we say of Mr. Blaine and of his asser- tion that "■ plenty and prosperity followed the enactment of the protective tariff as if by magic "? What kind of intellects does he think he is addressing, to claim that after such dire distress and i)overty as is depicted "plenty and prosperity " could at once be produced by the enact- ment of any kind of law, and least of all by one simply increasing the price of necessities that all the people must pay to a favored few ? The most intense protectionist living, if sane, will only claim that protection helps the mannfactureryf/-^/, after a time it leads others to compete with him and so reduces prices, and after a time to increase demand for laborers and advance prices, and after a time to furnish more mouths for the farmer to feed. No one would claim that any of these results beyond the first could have been brought about in the time this tariff was in force. After a depression labor and farm products are always the last things to rise in price. What then are the facts ? We recovered, as we always do, from a depression slowly and with great suffering. Official statistics, giving the prices of products since 1825 to the present time, show that at no time while this tariff was in force were the prices of wheat, corn, oats, barley, rye, cotton, pork, beef, butter, lard, hams, or tobacco within 80 per cent, of the average prices for the sixty years.' ' Bureau of Statistics for March, 1886. REVENUE TARIFF, 1 846. I45 Can Mr. Blaine explain how a people, almost purely agricultural, starting with enormous indebtedness, and selling their products 25 per cent, cheaper than for twenty- years before or for forty years after, can be restored to plenty and prosperity as by magic by a law that simply compels them to pay more for all they buy ? The truth is — not in his statement. REVENUE TARIFF, 1846. "The tariff of 1846, although confessedly and professedly a tariff for revenue, was, so far as regards all the great in- terests of the country, as perfect a tariff as any that we ever had." — Senator W. B. Allison. The then Secretary of Treasury, Mr. Walker, was a man of extraordinary force and ability. He laid down the following principles upon which his great economical act was to rest : " I. That no more money should be collected than is necessary for the wants of the government honestly ad- ministered. " 2. That no duty be imposed upon an article above the lowest rate which will yield the largest amount of revenue. " 3. That below such a rate discrimination be made descending in the scale of duties, or, for imperative rea- sons, the articles may be placed on the free list. " 4. That the maximum of revenue duties should be imposed on luxuries. " 5. That all minimum and all specific duties should be abolished and ad-valorem duties substituted in their place, care being taken against fraudulent invoicing and undervaluation, and to assess the duty upon the actual market value. 146 J/ISTOKV OF PROTECTION. " 6. Tliat tlie duty should bo so imposed as to act as equally as possible throughout the Union, discriminating neither for nor against any class or section." He said : " A protective tariff is a question regarding the enhancement of the i)rofits of capital, and not the augmentation of the wages of labor. It is a question of percentage, and is to decide whether money invested in our manufactures shall, by special legislation, yield a profit of 20 or 30 per cent., or whether it shall be satis- fied with a dividend equal to that accruing to the same capital invested in agriculture, commerce, or navigation. It seems strange that while the profits of agriculture vary from I to 8 per cent., that of manufacturing is more than double. . . . The tariff is a double benefit to the manufacturer and a double loss to the farmer." (What would Walker have said of the figures of the census of 1880, showing Av. Product. Materials. Cap. Wages. Hands. Wages. Profit. Mfgs. (millions) $5,370 $3,397 $2,790 $948 2| $348 36J H Farm (sold, con- 2,213 12,104 8 sumedoronhand). 450 is 5 of all hogs and sheep and j of all horses and cattle. Grand total $2,663 would not pay the farmers average wages by 121 million dollars, and leaves no profit whatever.) Prof. Sumner, of Yale College, a recognized authority, says : "The period from 1846 to i860 was our period of comparative free trade. For an industrial history of the United States no period presents a greater interest than this. It was a period of very great and very solid pros- perity. The tariff rates were low, and their effect limited. It was called a revenue tariff with incidental protection. The manufactures which it had been said would per- ' See r.lso p. 29. REVENUE TARIFF, 1 84.6. 1 47 ish, did not perish and did not gain sudden and exorbi- tant profits ; they made steady and genuine progress. The repeal of the English corn laws in 1846 opened a large market for American agricultural products. The effect on both countries was most happy. It seemed as if the old system had gone forever, and that these two great nations, with free industry and free trade, were to pour increased wealth upon each other. The fierce dog- matism of protection and its deeply rooted prejudices seemed to have received a fatal blow. Our shipping rapidly increased. Our cotton area grew larger and larger. The States, indeed, repeated our old currency follies, and the panic of 1857 resulted, but it was only a stumble in a career of headlong prosperity. We recov- ered from it in a twelvemonth. . . . The period from the Mexican war to the civil war is our golden era, if we have any." Mr. Blaine, in his Twenty Years in Congress, says : "The tariff of 1846 was yielding abundant revenue, and the business of the country was in a flourishing condi- tion. Money became very abundant after the year 1849. Large enterprises were undertaken, speculation was prevalent, and for a considerable period the prosperity of the country was general and apparently genuine. The principles involved in the tariff of 1846 seemed for the time to be so entirely vindicated and approved that resistance to it ceased, not only among the people but among the protective economists, and even among the manufacturers to a large extent. So general was this acquiescence that in 1856 a protective tariff was not suggested or even hinted at by any one of the three parties which presented presidential candidates. It was not surprising, therefore, that in 1857 the duties were 14S I//STOKY OF PROTECTION. placed lower than they had been since 181 2." Was greater tribute ever paid to any public policy by an opponent ? But in this Mr. Blaine is historian instead of politician. The simple revenue tariff of 1789, of 5 per cent, in general, with rates of even 10 and 15 per cent, on a few luxuries, was in force twenty-three years. No one ques- tions that the country flourished wonderfully under it until the embargo. So thoroughly satisfied were the people with this tariff that when, in 181 2, they doubled the duties to provide for war expenses, the same law enacted that the increase should only continue during the war, and at its close only the old rates should be collected. The following years were tortured with ever-chang- ing protection laws. A hungry horde infested Washing- ton, ever asking that some new or increased robbery should be sanctioned by law. When the tariff law of 1846 was enacted, the protectionists all predicted speedy disaster, as is their wont. Behold the result. After ten years' trial there was not an opponent of the tariff in the land, and the enemies of the system still have to point to this era as the most prosperous in our history. In Mr. Blaine's reply to Gladstone, his great effort is to explain away this prosperity. He even sneers at a tariff that could only bring prosperity through war, pes- tilence, and famine. He attributes our prosperity to the Mexican war, the Irish famine, the Crimean war, and to the discovery of gold in California. We do not question Mr. Blaine's knowledge, but his lack of sincerity was never more apparent. He claims that taking 150,000 men from the productive industries and sending them to REVENUE TARIFF, 1S4.6. l^c^ war with Mexico at vast expense, was a source of pros- perity that " reached all localities and effected all inter- ests." Of course he knows that this is utter folly. Every man knows that war, always and everywhere, retards the growth of wealth. That contributing a few millions to starving Ireland added to our immediate wealth, is equally absurd. He should have said truthfully, that this tariff contributed to the unequalled prosperity of this period despite of " war, pestilence, and famine." The Crimean war did unquestionably afford us an unusual market for farm products for a short time. So too would the more recent wars in Europe if we had not been forbidden by our own tariffs to trade with them. The discovery of gold in California was a glad acqui- sition, it is true, and in ten years amounted to $550,000,- 000. How great a figure does this cut when our agricultural products in the same time were $10,000,- 000,000 ? To this day it is claimed that more money has been expended in the search for gold in California than all that has been mined. The product of gold and silver in the " free-trade " decade was not 70 per cent, of the product in the past decade when it reached the enormous sum of $800,000,000. What was this bagatelle of gold compared with our other products ? Or how great is it compared to our present annual production of gold and silver, which for 1890 was $103,309,645 ? The real and solid prosperity of the era is best shown by the statistics of trade and production, and as this revenue policy was continued until the next tariff and until the census year of i860, statistics for the decade are given in the following chapter. 150 ///SIVA'V OF PROTECTION. FURTHER REDUCTION, 1857. " But in 1857 the Democrats, urged on by the South, and by their natural tendency to free trade, again reduced the duties, already too low, to the lowest rates we have ever had since the adoption of the Constitution; and again financial revolu- tion appalling in its widespread severity and distress, involved the nation, and for more than four years tortured and impov- erished our people, and exhausted our land." — J'rokctive Tariff Lra^iu- Campaign Tract No. ^j. When Ben. Franklin, the philosopher, was asked the reason why a tub of water with its contents weighed no more after a ten-pound fish was added, he first inquired after the facts in the case. Then the questioners learned by experiment that it did really weigh just ten pounds more. So, in answer to the above caption, we learn when we get the facts : ist, that the Democrats did n't do it, and, 2d, that it was not done. In regard to this second point, briefly : Gen. Garfield was regarded as one of the most able and careful students of economic questions and their history, among modern statesmen. In his speech in the House, in March, 1878, he said : " The fact is the decade of 1850 to i860 was one of peace and general prosperity in the United States. Wealth increased 126 per cent, while the population increased but 35 percent., yet, to suit a theory of finance, we are told that i860 was a year of great distress and depression of business. So far as anything can be established by statistics, the year i860 was a year of general prosperity in the United States." The author of the Morrill tariff himself said, in a speech in the House, January 24, 1867, that the year FURTHER REDUCTION, iS^y. 151 i860 was a year of " as much general prosperity as any, perhaps, in our history." The market reports, accepted and published by the Bureau of Statistics as correct, give the average New York prices for the three years immediately following the panic of 1857 as follows : Wheat, 9S.02 cents ; corn, 72.56 cents ; cotton, 11.3 cents ; oats, 44.9 cents ; tobacco, 9.4 cents ; lard, 11.4 cents ; fine wool, 53.3 cents ; and mess pork, $17.12. Compare these with the "home-market" prices which thirty years of protective robbery now offer to the farmers in the most prosperous era (Mr. Blaine would have us think it) we have ever known. Having shown that the caption is a falsehood, we will now look to the history of this tariff. Democrats ! eh ? Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson and nearly all New England, with the rest of the country, voted for the reduction. Wm. H. Seward said : " The vote of not a single senator will be governed by any partisan consideration whatever." Prof. Taussig says : " It was agreed on all hands that a reduction of the revenue was imperatively called for, and, except from Pennsylvania, there was no opposition to the duties made in it. The framework of the act of 1846 was retained, — the schedules and the ad-valorem duties." What a tribute was this to the excellence of the tariff of 1846. After eleven years' trial no fault could be found with it, even by the enemies of the system, except that it brought in too much revenue. By it the duty on nearly all those articles on which protection was asked had been 30 per cent., excepting cotton goods, on which the tariff was 25 per cent. These were all now reduced to 24 per cent. Not "the lowest 152 nrsTOKY of protection. rates we have ever had since the adoption of the Con- stitution," by any means, since from 17S9 to 18 16 we had a 5 per cent, tariff. A panic was feared, because large sums were leaving the hands of the people and accumulating in the over- flowing United States Treasury. The worst that can be said for the tariff of 1857 is that it was not passed soon enough to avert the panic. The country was flourishing as never before ; not a few favored industries, but all industries. Speculation and extravagance became common, as always when accumu- lations are rapid. My father built that year a better house than he ought. So did thousands of others. Bankers, like others, eager for the gains seen on every hand, were led into excessive issues of their notes. Suddenly, as thunder from a clear sky, the Ohio Life Insurance and Trust Company failed. It was one of the oldest banking institutions in the country. It had suc- cessfully passed the crises of 1837-41. The shock was profound. Men asked themselves, "If that bank could not be trusted, what one can ? " Then began a run on nearly all the banks of the country. Many of them were broken. For a short time all was confusion and embar- rassment. All due, we are told, to a tariff that had not yet gone into effect. Partly due, we confess, to the reduction not taking place soon enough. Like the young man who lost a million in California placer-mining, — " Not born soon enough to be there." After the panic (for that word describes it completely) there was retrenchment in our home, I well remember, and doubtless in every home. Importations fell off. Money returned gradually from the Treasury into the hands of the people. Treasury empty. This is the awful •• FURTHER REDUCTION, iSsj. 1 53 condition portrayed in every stump speech when, sud- denly, ten States seceded, and the government credit was sadly impaired. The impaired credit is attributed to this tariff — not fairly, unless secession, too, can be laid to its door. It is common to call the times " good," when the spirit of speculation, over-trading, and going in debt prevails, and to call them bad when men retrench and pay their debts. Real as well as comparative prosperity can only be measured by the accumulation of property. In i860 we had had fourteen years of comparative free trade, or, at least, a lower tariff than any large number of people ask for at the present time. The prevailing duties were little over 30 per cent. The dreaded Mills bill provided average rates of 42 per cent. Since that time we have had large and constantly increasing protec- tive duties. It is proper now to compare the substantial results. The United States census furnishes the means. Without claiming for it accuracy or reliability, since we have paid for it, and it is fit for no other purpose, we will use it. I would preface by saying the census shows that the percentage of increase in population has been remarkably uniform from first to last. In each decade the increase has been from 30 per cent, to 36 per cent., except the one just ended and the one of the civil war. If the fiscal system had been the same, there is no reason to suppose the increase in wealth would have been less constant and uniform, but it has not been so. The entire wealth of the country is given for 1850 as ^7,000,000,000, and in i860 -as ^16,000,000,000, an in- crease of 126 per cent., while, in the preceding decade, under high tariff a portion of the time, the increase was 154 inSTORY OF PROTF.CTTO^r. but 64 i)er cent. Between 1S70 and 1880, under the liighest tariff ever at tliat lime known, the weaUh in- creased from $30,000,000,000 to $43,000,000,000, or only 46 jier cent. Mr. Porter's estimate for the census of 1S90 is tliat our total wealth is now $62,610,000,000, an increase of but 43 per cent., and with every jiossible advantage, except freedom of ex- change, in favor of the last decade. The general use of steam, electricity, and manifold modern inventions and discoveries, the subdued forces of nature, oil, gas, minerals, etc., should have increased our wealth as never before. Capital in manufactures increased in the low-tariff decade 90 per cent., and in the last* but 32 per cent. Thus they were not all annihilated, as the gay "home- market " deceivers would have us suppose. Wages increased in the free-trade decade 60 per cent., and in the last but 32^ per cent., while from 1825 to 1845 they had not advanced, according to the best and accepted reports, one iota. Exports of manufactured articles increased in the low- tariff decade 171 per cent., and only 20 per cent, in the next twenty years. In fact exportation of manufactures is rendered as nearly impossible now as blundering laws can easily make it. The capacity of American ships engaged in the ocean trade in 1850 was 1,440,000 tons; in i860, 2,380,000; but under blighting protection it fell to 1,200,000. Professor Perry, in his Political Economy says : " The number of vessels plying between the United States ' 1870 to 1880. The corresponding figureB for 1890 are not yet published. FURTHER REDUCTION, l8^y. 155 and Europe in i88r was 5,200, of which 555 were steamships. Of the sailing vessels we had 19 per cent. Of the steamships 80 per cent, were British, while the United States had four, and no more. Four steamships out of 555, where we once had three fourths of the business." In 1821, of the $128,000,000 worth of exports and im- ports, over $113,000,000 was carried in American vessels. This proportion was kept up until i860, when, of $760,- 000,000 we carried $507,000,000, or nearly 70 per cent, of the whole. In 1883, only 16 per cent, was carried in American vessels. On page 673 of his history Mr. Blaine says : "The ex- tension of the postal facilities is, perhaps, the most sig- nificant measure of the intellectual activity of a people." In the appendix of his work we learn that in 1845 the extent of our postal routes was 143,940 miles. During fourteen years of free trade this was nearly doubled, or increased 116,112 miles ; but during twenty years of pro- tection Mr. Blaine shows that we had added but 56,098 miles. Protection then does not develop ** intellectual activity." Again, on 'page 674 he says : "The increased ratio in the construction of railroads gives some conception of the progress of wealth." In 1850 we had less than 10,000 miles in the country. In the free-trade decade we con- structed 22,983 miles ; in the next but 22,279, ^^d in the next protected decade, with the great West still to open up, but 33,583, But wealth has multiplied in our manu- facturing centres in a manner never dreamed of thirty years ago. A few of our exports are compared as follows : 156 JIl STORY OF PROTECTION. i36o. 1880. Cotton goods $10,934,796 $9,981,418 'rohacco 19,285,957 18,442,273 I'uniitiire 10,047,956 16,237,376 Naval stores 1,969,742 2,452,908 Metals, not iron or steel 2,121,683 1,928,030 Thus while we had grown from a " feeble folk " in the wilderness to " tlie greatest nation the sun e'er shone upon," the ever blighting effect of protection is shown by the little we were able to accomplish in a progressive way, having voted our substance into the hands of a few mo- nopolists who had no desire to reach out and supply the world so long as we made it possible for them to restrict the production and charge us double prices, and then lie idle a large part of the year. England exported to American countries south of us in 1880, $51,285,000, while our exports to the same coun- tries were $3,899,400, and the labor cost of these goods, as Mr. Blaine has shown, is less here than in England. Let the humblest workman reflect what the condition of his class would be if these figures were reversed. Sup- pose we were given as free a scope to all our individual faculties and energies as the Britisher has ; suppose the restrictive bars across the boundary lines were removed, and free elbow-room given to our enterprising merchants ; suppose our American drummer, with his characteristic dash and persistency, be given the whole world as a field of operations, how long before we would be selling $800,000,000 of manufactures instead of $24,000,000 ? How long before our manufacturing plants would have to be increased ; also the number of laborers, and the price of labor advanced ? But the farmers are the ones most keenly interested in FURTHER REDUCTION, iS^y. 1 5/ this tariff question, if they but knew it. How have they been affected ? 1S50. 1S60. 1870. 1880.' Value of farms (in millions). $3, 272. .$6,600. .$9,300. .$10,000 Increase loi 5?. . .41 ^. . . .9 $* Gold value of live stock. . . 540.. 1,100.. 1,317.. 1,500 Increase 104 t....\2%.. ..23 % Value of farm machinery . . 152.. 246.. 345.- 406 Increase bo% 40 ^. . ..17 ^ There is no reason to suppose that this steady increase in the prosperity of the farmer would not have continued had the low-tariff policy not been changed to one of pro- tection. If so, the agricultural wealth in 1880 would have been $32,000,000,000 instead of $12,000,000,000, or nearly three times as much. Of the total wealth of the country in 1850 the farmers owned nearly $4,000,000,000, or more than one half. In i860 the farmer's share was $8,000,000,000, or still one half. In 1880 his share was $12,000,000,000, or a little more than one fourth, while half of the population was still upon farms. ^ That is, the agricultural half of our pop- ulation increased their wealth $4,000,000,000, while the other half increased theirs $23,600,000,000. If this had gone into the hands of our poor toiling cousins we would rejoice with them ; but instead, it is in the hands of a few bloated millionaires, while our cousins ' Result of the census of 1890 not yet published, August i, 1892. * The census of 1880 gives the number of people in gainful occu- pations as 17,392,099, and the number of farmers as 7,670,493. It also classifies 4,074,238 as in personal and professional service. Of course a large but unknown number of these are in personal service on farms. I have elsewhere alluded to the farm workers as eight millions. It is safe to believe the entire number was more than eight and a half millions. 158 IIISTOKV OF PROTECTION. who once toiled in New England factories are turned idle away, while their places are filled with the cheapest " pauper " labor that can be brought from Europe. The United States Census also shows the wealth per caj)ita in agricultural and in protected States to have been as follows : IS50 i860 1880 1890 Illinois $183 I509 $1,005 I929' Increase 178 ;« 97% i\%' Penn. 313 487 1.259 1,939* Increase 56)^ 158;^ 54^ Mass. 577 662 1.568 2,132' Increase 15^ m% 36^ Thus, it appears that while the wealth of each inhabi- tant of the State of Illinois had trebled during the ten years of low tariff, it had only doubled in the next twenty years under protection, and has suffered an actual loss of 7.5 per cent, in the last decade. Massachusetts, on the other hand, had increased her wealth per capita only 15 per cent, during the ten years of low tariff, and had increased 137 percent, under twenty years' protection, and has increased 36 per cent, in the last decade. Pennsylvania, also protected, made admi- rable gains under the low tariff, but during the next twenty years robbed the rest of America to an extent never before dreamed of in the history of civilization. In the thirty years her gain per capita has been over 298 per cent. ' Total wealth is not yet computed for 1890, but the aj^^^j^i/ valua- tion is given and shows the gain or loss as here stated. If the per- centage proves to be the same for the total wealth, the above figures are correct. * Decrease. FURTHER REDUCTION, iS^y. 1 59 Whence have come these enormous gains to these protected States ? The farmers of the West and all consumers are now to answer. Who has this wealth which figures in reports as $1,200, $1,500 and $2,100 per capita ? Not the toilers in the mines or factories, as we shall show in another part of this work. Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Blaine can answer. The United States Census also shows : 1850 i860 1880 Average value of farms . $2,258 $3,251 $2,569 " " per inhabitant 142 211 203 " " " acre . 12.70 12.90 10.70 Farmers of America, who owns the wealth which you have earned and which the God of nature gave you in this magnificent continent? In Europe, if one man occupies and works a farm while another takes the profit, they call the latter the owner. If you own but the shadow of your farms, while others take the substance, whose fault is it but your own ? It is only by your votes that this systematic, persistent, and enormous robbery is made possible. l6o inSTOKY OF PROTECTION. MORRILL TARIFFS OF 1861, 1862, and 1864. " Have any of the manufacturers come here to complain or to ask for new duties ? Is it not notorious that if we were to leave it to the manufacturers of New England themselves, to the manufacturers of hardware, textile fabrics, etc., there would be a large majority against any change ? Do ■we not know that the woollen manufacture dates its revival from the tariff of 1857, which altered the duties on wool? — Senator IIUNriiK 1)11 reiuling Tariff of iSCu, Congressional Globe, 1859-60, p. 3010. Mr. Rice said in i860: "The manufacturer asks no additional protection. He has learned, among other things, that the greatest evil, next to a ruinous competi- tion from foreign sources, is an excessive i)rotection which stimulates an irresponsible competition at home." — Congressional Globe, p. 1867. Mr. Sherman said : " The manufacturers have asked over and over to be let alone. The tariff of 1S57 is the manufacturers' bill." — Congressional Globe, -p. 2053. In later years Mr. Morrill himself said that the tariff or 1861 "was not asked for, and but coldly welcomed, by the manufacturers, who always and justly fear insta- bility." — Congressional Glohe, i2>6g-']o, p. 3295. How then came this bill to pass the house in i860 and become a law in 186 1 ? Mr. Blaine in his history, vol. i., p. 204, tells us all about it, and we have much more respect for his histori- cal statements than for his political quibbles. He says : "It was this condition of public opinion in Pennsylvania which made the recognition of the protective system so essential in the Chicago platform of i860. It was to that recognition that Mr. Lincoln, in the end, owed his elec- tion. . . . Had the Republicans failed to carry the MORRILL TARIFFS OF lS6l, 1862, AND 1864. 161 State election, there can be no doubt that Mr. Lincoln would have been defeated. An adverse result in Penn- sylvania in October would certainly have involved the loss of Indiana in November, beside California and Ore- gon, and the four votes in New Jersey, In reviewing the agencies, therefore, which precipitated the political revo- lution in i860, large consideration must be given to the influence of the movement for protection." An honest confession is balm to the soul. The con- spiracy of the friends of his party to undermine and break up a fiscal system, which for fifteen years had given " general and genuine prosperity to the whole country," could not possibly be exposed more forcibly or more frankly.- Protection in the national platform and a protective bill already passed by the House were the bids that then won the vote of Pennsylvania from the opposition where she had so long given her allegiance. Protection, then, which every State in the Union but one opposed, defeated Douglas and precipitated the civil war. Mr. Morrill and the other supporters of the act of 1861 declared that their intention was to simply restore the rates of 1846. They, however, substituted specific for aJ-valorem duties. There is no necessary connection between specific duties and protection, but protection- ists always advocate this system for the reason that, as prices decline from ever improving methods of produc- tion, the rate of duty is ever advancing. To illustrate : A duty of 5 cents a yard on calico was only a 20 per cent, duty when calico cost 25 cents a yard. But it becomes a 125 per cent, duty when calico is offered us at 4 cents 1 62 HISTORY OF PROTECTION: They also advanced tlic rales on iron and on wool for the simple purpose of holding Tcnnsylvania and the Western States. In the next session of December, 1861, a still further increase of duties was made to provide revenue for war expenses. From that time to 1865 scarcely a month of any session passed in which some increase in duties was not made. The great changes in 1862 and 1864 are typical of the whole course of the war measures. 1862. On the 1st of July, 1862, internal-revenue taxes were imposed on the manufactures of iron, steel, leather, paper, and many other articles. On July 14th duties were also increased. Messrs. Morrill and Stevens had charge of the bill in the House. They said the object was to increase duties only to such an extent as might be necessary to offset the internal taxes. Mr. Stevens said: "We intended to impose an additional duty on imports equal to the tax which had been put on the domestic articles. It was done by way of compensation to domestic mamifacturers against foreign importers." Its average rate was 37 per cent., a rate which, it is useless to add, would not have been suggested or for a moment tolerated at that time, except as a war necessity and an offset to internal taxation. 1864. The three acts of June 30, 1864, are practically one measure, and " probably the greatest measure of taxation which the world has seen." The first provided for an enormous extension of the excise system, the second a corresponding increase of MORRILL TARIFFS OF 1 86 1, 1 862, AND 1 864. 1 63 duties, and the third called for a loan of $400,000,000. Everything produced was to be taxed, whether produced here or imported. " Wherever you find a commodity, tax it." Mr. Morrill, who was chairman of the committee, said, as he did in 1862, that the passage of the tariff act was rendered necessary in order to " put domestic pro- ducers in the same situation, so far as foreign competition was concerned, as if the internal taxes had not been raised." Although this was their claim, it transpired that the duties imposed were enormously protective, and were added to from time to time as any delegation of patriotic manufacturers might ask, and their requests at this time were neither few nor modest. Professor Taussig says : " Their method of treating the revenue problems resulted in a most unexpected and ex- travagant application of protection. . . . Every domestic producer who came before Congress got what he wanted in the way of duties. Protection ran riot, and this not merely for the time being. The whole tone of the public mind toward the question of import duties became dis- torted. The habit of putting on as high rates as any one asked became so strong that it could hardly be shaken off, and even after the war almost any increase of duties demanded by domestic producers was readily made. . . . The effect of all war legislation affecting moneyed interests was demoralizing. The line between public duties and private interests was often lost sight of by legislators." The average duties imposed by the act of 1864 was 47 per cent., and the act " contained flagrant abuses, in the shape of duties whose chief effect was to bring money into the pockets of private individuals," always 164 HISTORY OF PROTECTIOr^. taking; it, of course, from others to whom, by right, it l)cloni;o(l. This tariff act of 1864 was considered in the House but two days, and in the Senate but one, — a haste " un- exampled in the history of nations." Yet this crude bill has been for twenty-eight years the foundation of the economic policy of a people deeming themselves progressive. DUTIES INCREASED AFTER THE WAR, 1867, 1870. " I -will say with regard to the duty on v7ool and woollens, that I regard it, not as an intentional fraud, but as operating as though it were a fraud, upon the great body of the people of the United States. The effect of the wool tariff has been to materially injure the sheep-husbandry of this country. In a single county in the State of Iowa, between 1867 and 1869, the number of sheep was reduced from 22,000 to 18,000 in two years; and what was true of that county is true to a greater or less extent of other counties in Iowa. And during this period the price of wool has been constantly depreciated." — Hon. W.m. B. Allison, March 24, 1870. The internal-revenue taxes, to offset which the heavy import duties were levied, were repealed in 1S66, 1867, 1868, 1870, and in 1872. Had the question been directly put to almost any public man, whether the tariff system of the war was to be continued, the answer would cer- tainly have been in the negative, — that in due time the import duties were to be lowered. This, however, Con- gress hesitated to undertake. Professor Taussig says : " The extreme protective sys- tem, which had been at first a temporary expedient for aiding in the struggle for the Union, adopted hastily and without any thought or deliberation, gradually became DUTIES INCREASED AFTER THE WAR. 165 accepted as a permanent institution. From this it was a short step, in order to explain and justify the existing state of things, to set up high protection as a theory and a dogma. The restraint of trade with foreign countries, by means of import duties of 40, 50, 60, even 100 per cent., came to be advocated as a good thing in itself by many who, under normal circumstances, would have thought such a policy preposterous." In 1867 two tariff bills were before Congress. One, a bill passed by the House in a previous session, proposed a general increase in duties. The other, prepared by David A. Wells, then Special Commissioner of the Revenue, and heartily approved by Secretary McCulloch, providing for a general but careful reduction. The latter bill met with favor. It was passed by the Senate by a large majority (27 to 10). The House voted 106 for it and 64 against it. But a two-thirds majority was necessary in order to suspend the rules and pass the measure. The result was that no general tariff law was passed at this session, and the cause of tariff reform received a regrettable set-back. Had Mr. Wells' proposals been enacted, it is not unlikely that the events of the next few years would have been very different from what in fact they were, A beginning would have been made in look- ing at the tariff from a sober point of view, and in re- ducing duties that were clearly pernicious. A detailed and intricate schedule of wool and woollens duties, which had been a part of the unsuccessful bill of 1866-67, was next taken up and passed without particular objection or, it would seem, any particular attention. Harris, who has always been recognized by the govern- ment as authority on all matters pertaining to wool, says : " This tariff was devised by carpet and blanket makers, 1 66 HISTOKY OF PROTECTION. who pretended to be ' The National Woollen Manu- facturers' Association,' combined with a few who acted in the name of * The National Wool Growers' Association.' A greater farce was never witnessed." Moreover, this action gave such offence to many who had belonged to the Manufacturers' Association that they withdrew. The duties were mixed, ad valorem and specific, called compensating, and otherwise were certainly complicated and intricate. On their face the duties seemed but little higher, while they were really double. The in- crease was concealed by a change in classification.' Probably not one Congressman knew what he was voting for, but it had been asked for by these associa- tions, — that was sufficient. It resulted in great gain to the carpet men, but in disaster to all others con- cerned. The duty on wool was 55 per cent., and on some products over 100 per cent. As we have never under any tariff produced but little more than half the wool worn in this country, this im- posed an enormous burden on the wools we must import. The result was that hundreds of factories were obliged to shut down, and thus injured the market for our own wool. The price dropped in a single year 20 cents per pound. Statistics show that nearly half the sheep in Michigan and Ohio were killed within two years after the passage of the act.' ' A similar, or directly opposite, change in classification is found in the McKinley tariff. While apparently increasing the duty on wool there is a skilful change in the classification, so that the duty is really diminished on the only kinds of wool which the American farmer raises. He is interested in the other kinds, for it is he who pays the increased tariff. * See further, page 226. DUTIES INCREASED AFTER THE WAR. 167 The most remarkable thing about this tariff is that, notwithstanding all the loss it entailed, it was allowed to stand unaltered until 1883, and then the change in it was not sufficient to be perceptible. 1869. By this time public conscience was completely seared — if, indeed, we concede there was any conscience. Many legislators saw no harm in imposing a tariff for the ad- vancement of their individual fortunes. Millionaires purchased seats in the United States Senate that they might do this. Others were quite willing to impose tariffs for the private gains of their friends. The interests of the public were ignored or forgotten. At this time the duty on copper was enormously in- creased, simply because a handful of millionaire miners asked it. The result was disaster to the smelters at the seaboard, and a tax of many millions on the people, of which the government gets none. This will be discussed fully in another part of this work.* 1870. By this time there came an earnest demand from the West that duties be reduced. The tariff was reformed — " by its friends." Purely revenue duties were in some instances reduced, while at the same time protective duties were increased. STEEL RAILS. The duty on these had been 45 per cent. ; it was at this time changed to a specific duty of $28 per ton. As the ' Page 259. 1 68 II IS TORY OF PROTECTION. price of rails in l''.nt;Iaii(l for a few years following this was on the average $(jo per ton, the increase in duty at the time was not great, but watch the result. The Besse- mer process of making steel had hardly begun to be used in 1870. But after 1S77 the process had become general and the price of rails in England has averaged $28 to $31 per ton. Importations have continued nearly every year, paying the duty, at times over 100 per cent. Of course the same has been added by our manufacturers, and prices here have averaged $61 to $67 per ton, and the most remarkable thing about it is that this tariff figures in every protection speech as a marked instance of the suc- cess of their system. Of course they say nothing of the Bessemer process, or of the decline in price in Europe, but point to the declining price in this country and at- tribute it to the tariff of 1S70. For many years we were compelled by this tariff to pay twice as much for rails as was paid in England.' In- creased cost of railroad building tends to increase the cost of transportation. A tax of this kind eventually comes out of the pockets of the people in the shape of higher charges for freight and passengers. Thus, to this tariff we owe, in part, the Granger and Alliance move- ments. Will they remove the cause, or only battle with those who, like themselves, are distressed by this tariff ? MARBLE. The mixed duty on marble in 1864 amounted to 80 per cent, and more. Mr. Morrill simply explained to the House that it had been fixed by the " gentlemen then in ' See table of prices, p. 180. DUTIES INCREASED AFTER THE WAR. l6g Washington in the marble-quarry interest." (Consumers' interests were never, in those days, considered.) The new rates of 1870 have been equivalent to 100 and 150 per cent. The result has been most happy — for the own- ers of marble quarries, as they have taken the full benefit. It has " put very handsome profits into the pockets of their owners — profits which represent practically so much money which Congress has ordered those who use marble to pay over to the quarry-owners." NICKEL. The duty on this was suddenly doubled in 1870. Why ? Nickel, like marble, is produced in only one locality in the United States. Mr. Jos. Wharton is the owner of the nickel mine. He is also the founder of the Wharton School of Finance in Philadelphia. When giving the money for founding the school he stipulated that the pro- fessors should teach " how, by suitable tariff legislation, a nation may keep its productive industry alive, cheapen the cost of commodities, and oblige foreigners to sell at low prices, while contributing largely toward the expense of its government." The quotation is from the letter of gift. Enough, enough ! Much more might be written of the duties imposed at this time. " No explanation can be given that does not reflect in some degree on the good name and the good faith of the national legislature. Congressmen thought it not im- proper to favor legislation that put money into their own pockets, and many thought it quite proper to support legislation that put money into the pockets of influential constituents." 170 I/fSTOKY OF PROTECTION. TARIFFS OF 1872-1875. " The grand result is a tariff bill reducing duties fifty-three millions of dollars, and yet leaving the great industries almost intact. A reduction of fifty-three millions of dollars, and yet taking only a shaving off from protection duties. The present tariff was made by our friends in the interest of protection." — J. L. Hayes, author of 'J'/w Tariff of iS-j3, speaking of that measure. Agriculture was already greatly depressed, and the West was almost unanimous in demanding tariff re- duction regardless of party affiliations. Two bills were again before the House. The one intended, in the language of its sponsor, " to divest some industries of the superabundant protection which smells of monopoly, and which it was never intended they should enjoy after the war." The other, endorsed by the protectionists, was prepared by the woollen manufacturers, endorsed by the Ways and Means Chairman, Dawes, and passed by the powerful aid of the brilliant Speaker, James G. Blaine. The times were ripe for reduction. Under the existing tariff the revenues were $100,000,000 per year in excess of all needs of the government. The people demanded revision. The robbery was " revised by its friends." Duties were removed entirely from many materials en- tering into manufactures, which increased the jDrotection, and with great flourish of trumpets over giving the poor man "a free breakfast table," the duties were entirely removed from tea, coffee, cocoa, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, etc., until there was not a duty which was not protective remaining. Like the scheme more recently worked, non- protective duties were removed that the protective ones might be increased. If the poor man must be taxed, he would certainly pay it as readily on these as on any arti- TARIFFS OF iSyj-iSy^. 171 cles that can be named. They are the most legitimate articles for tariff taxation, next to luxuries, which were also at that time exempted. For more than a score of years now the tendency of our legislation has been to reduce the revenue that we pay the government, purposely that the amount we pay millionaires may be increased. Protection invariably impoverishes the con- sumer, but it does not always enrich the producer. It may only overcome a natural disadvantage. In that case it represents a dead loss to the community. A duty of $5 per pound might enable us to produce tea at that price, but without profit. It would be at tremendous loss to con- sumers. A distinguished writer says in this connection : " A commodity is made at home which can be more cheaply bought abroad, and nobody is benefited by the tax imposed on the consumer. All this is clear and familiar to every one who has grasped the fundamental principles of political economy, but so great a mass of untrue and sophistical writing is constantly put forth on protective controversy that the sound elementary princi- ples cannot be too often repeated." So by this tariff the government was robbed of its revenue and the people were robbed of their substance, while the " wicked waxed fat," or if they did not, it was not because the tariff was not designed to aid them. " Only a shaving off from the protective duties." A few demanded genuine reform, and it became necessary that they be silenced. The " shaving " granted was a hori- zontal reduction of protective duties of 10 per cent. This was loudly lauded by Dawes and Blaine as the acme of generous and wise statesmanship. Reformers were silenced for the time, and soon as the public interest was looking elsewhere the 10 per cent, reduction was very 1/2 HISTOKY 0J-' rKOTECTION. (luit'tly repealed. Says Taussig: " The repeal attracted comparatively little attention, and was carried without great opi)osition." 1875- It is noteworthy, that when increased revenues were needed in 1875 to meet the increased appropriations, President Grant and the Secretary of the Treasury recommended, and Senators Sherman and Schurz sup- ported, a re-imposition of the duties on tea and coffee as the best means of increasing the revenue. A statesman would have said, reduce your prohibitory tariffs, allow your surplus products to go abroad, where " economical exchanges " (that is Mr. Blaine's term) can be made and the profit be returned home, and thus increase your reve- nue, as was done in 1846. But other counsel prevailed, and the robber system was fixed more firmly than ever. In these years occurred, and continued for five years, the great panic, or depression, of 1873. No panic like it had occurred in our previous history. In all previous panics a chief element of loss had been in the money. Banks had failed ; people had wakened in the morning to find all their money worthless, or had rushed wildly to the banks for its redemption, and found it all too late. At this time nothing of the kind occurred. There was not a dollar in circulation that was not current all the time and everywhere. If you destroy all the money in my pocket any day in the year, the loss is but a small part of my wealth, and speedy recovery is possible. But when you depreciate all my property from 25 per cent, to 50 per cent., as has been done in the past twenty years, the result is most disastrous. TARIFFS OF l8'J2-l8'J^. 1/3 The conditions following 1873 '^^'ere much the same as at the present time, and it is proper here to discuss them. In fact, I doubt, when we take in consideration our facil- ities, privileges, opportunities, and advantages, if there was ever greater financial depression known in the history of civilization than at this present moment. Wars, famine, pestilence, panics may have caused worse times, but I say again, considering our opportunities, no depres- sion known in history exceeds the present. In ancient times men were engaged in wars the greater part of the time. Nations became completely exhausted, but historians record, again and again, that after five years of peace they were completely recuperated and equipped larger armies than ever. Here we have had twenty-seven years of the most profound peace ; and a more active, enterprising, and industrious people than ever before was known. We have equipped and tilled our farms at great expense, and now have them in choicest condition of fertility. We are provided with more valuable animals than the world had seen a generation ago. We are pro- vided with machinery to produce wealth as never before. We have covered the land with a network of railroads and telegraphs to minister to our profit. We have equipped our factories with appliances to produce every kind of comforts at an expense of one-tenth or one-hundreth part of the cost but a few years ago. All these things have been provided at great expense that we might now revel in the wealth of comfort and luxury which they might so easily provide. And what is the result ? Farmers plowing less and less area each year because, forsooth, it does not pay to plow. Merchants sitting idly in their doors and complaining bit- terly of the times. Manufacturers lying idle or closing 174 jnSTOKY OF PROTF.CTION. their doors. Not a j)apcr can l)c read any day of the month, but we learn of some new lock-out, some reduction of wages, or of another strike. The causes that led to the panic of 1873 w^ere doubtless numerous. No two economists have ever yet agreed as to all of them. But, so far as it was in any way caused or affected by tariff legislation, it was a case of simple con- gestion. Half the people at the time said it was due to " over-production." But over-production as a cause of calamity, with unrestricted facilities for exchange, is absurd and impossible. Over-production of comforts ! Think of it. Where is the home that is yet provided with all that the owner wishes ? Where is the lady yet attired in all the elegance she desires ? Where the man who would not expend more for comfort and luxury if he could ? Over-production is impossible until we reach the limit of human desire, which is — not in this world. But the farmers of this country can easily produce $1,000,000,000 worth of provisions more than can be eaten in this country. Half of the world is yet under-fed, and eager for this supply, and bidding for it 59 per cent, more than farmers now realize. The exchange is only pre- vented by a fine of 60 per cent., which our law-makers impose. And, in spite of this, we last year exchanged $500,000,000 worth. Our manufacturers, in shops built of protected (which means high-priced) material, using protected machinery, protected tools, protected materials, — everything, in short, protected but the labor, — cannot, or will not, compete in outside markets with the products of Europe. Hence they lie idle a great part of the year, to diminish the product and increase. the price to the domes- tic consumer. If Secretaries Blaine and Evarts were right in their official investigations and reports, that American IVOR IT OF TARIFF COMMISSION. 1 75 labor, while higher by the day, is cheaper by the piece than any other, there is no reason why American products should not cover the earth, except for our tariff restrictions. Had the tariff bill prepared by Mr. Wells been passed in 1867, and been followed by similar reductions in 1870, the panic of 1873 would probably never have occurred, and the thousands of millions belonging to the farmers and laborers of this country might now be in their possession, WORK OF TARIFF COMMISSION, 1883, AND LATER ATTEMPTS AT REVISION, '84, '86, '88. "A tariff commission composed of extreme partisans each looking mainly to the advancement of some special interest, could hardly be expected to frame a just or wise bill, and the abortion produced by the commission failed as a matter of course, to meet the expectations of the country. Two of the commissioners represented the woollen interests, one the iron and steel interests, one, Mr. Kenner, ultra-pro- tectionist and high-tariff man generally. . . . Mr. Robert P. Porter was proxy for pig-iron Kelley on the commission. He was doing the work for which he received his appoint- ment." — Chicago Tribune. " The average reduction of rates, including that from the enlargement of the free list, at which the commission has aimed, is not less on the average than 20 per cent. ; and it is the opinion of the commission that the reduction will reach 25 per cent." — Report of tlie Commission. " Reduction in itself was by no means desirable to us. It was a concession to public sentiment ; a bending of the top and branches to the wind of public opinion to save the trunk of the protective system. In a word, the object was protec- tion through reduction." — J. L. Hayes, President of the Commis- sion. — Bulletin IVool Mamtfactu)-e)-s, xiii., 94. After this introduction I hardly need write the chapter. It tells the whole bitter tale. The surplus revenue of the 176 inSTOKY OF PROTECTION. government, after paying all expenses and interest on the public debt, was as follows: in iSSi, ^100,069,000; in 1SS2, $145,543,000 ; in 1883, 132,879,000 ; in 1884, $104,- 393,000 (under the new tariff). The times were ripe for reform. The people demanded reduction of their burdens. They asked for bread ; they were given a stone. No reason is known for the appoint- ment of the commission except to keep the discussion from before the people. The bill was framed by these " wise men from the east " with the evident purpose to deceive the people. Duties were retained on farm pro- ducts that we ever export and never import, for the simple purpose of fooling the farmers and pleasing the West. The duty on wool was, however, reduced. " Business " for the manufacturers of woollens. On many grades of woollen and cotton goods the war duties were prohibitory, and a less duty would be equally so. These were reduced ; for example, on the cheapest unprinted cotton cloth there was a duty of 5 cents. Of course none was imported. The duty was reduced to 2\ cents, and is equally prohibitory. Many others were in the same category. The reductions look well on paper but have no other possible effect. On woollens that were still imported the duties were however increased. During the whole war the manufacturers had never asked a net protection of more then 25 per cent. They were ever asking for compensating duties. The specific part of the mixed duties was understood to be for this purpose. These were, however, never repealed, and at this time the ad-valo?'em portion of the duties on many woollen goods was raised from 35 per cent, to 40 per cent. Their motto seems to have been like the Irishman at the fair. If you see anything coming in, "hit it." It IVORJir OF TARIFF COMMISSION. 1 77 it does not come, and will not come, reduce the duty. It shows on paper. The duty on steel rails was also reduced at this time from $28 per ton to %\ 7. Why ? Because, as prices then ranged, the latter duty was prohibitory, and just as effec- tive as $28. A table is appended at the end of this chapter showing transactions in iron for seventeen years. It tells the whole story. Could this reduction have taken place be- fore 1880 it would have saved consumers over $30,000,- Goo in two years, as we see by study of the table, but it came too late to be of any benefit. In short, while the commission promised a reduction, and said the best interests of the country demanded it, of 20 per cent, or 25 per cent., there was an actual increase. Official reports show that in each year 1882 and 1883 duties averaged between 42 and 43 per cent, on all dutiable goods. In 1885 the duties were over 47 per cent., and continued to increase under this law. Or, if we take in consideration all imports on the free list, the duties pre- vious to this tariff were 30.05 per cent., and in 1885 30.7 per cent. Such the abortive reduction of 1883, — a most vexatious farce. 1884. The people, learning how they had been tricked, clam- ored loudly for reform. In 1 884, the Democrats elected a president for the first time since the war, and this too on the plain issue of tariff reform. Mr. Morrison intro- duced a tariff bill making other slight changes, but in the main it called for a horizontal reduction of 20 per cent, in the duties. As the Republicans had only the year before revised the tariff with the assistance of an expensive com- 178 JIISTOKV OF PROTECTION. mission, and with miuh wise talk of eliminating all inequal- ities and excrescences, and as the commissioners had decided and reported that a reduction of 20 per cent, or 25 per cent, was desirable, it would seem that the Morrison bill, at this time, might have had unanimous Republican support. It was certainly the greatest possible compliment for him to pay to the tariff law of 1883 to concede that it had no inequalities which he wished to change. What is our surprise then to learn the measure was laughed to scorn by the Republicans as unscientific and imprac- ticable ? It was ill considered and immature. It was so ridiculed by the opposition that his own party apologized and gave it less than half-hearted support. It was con- demned for its absurdity by the very men who had passed the horizontal reduction bill of a most inequitable tariff in 1872. This, however, had been advocated and con- summated by the eminent statesmen, Dawes and Blaine. The paternity of a child makes a vast difference in his respectability, though the child himself may be the same, or worse. The people's demand was finally denied, lost by 156 to 151. 1886. ' Again Mr. Morrison introduced a bill, more " care- fully considered," and making considerably more changes. It was never even discussed in the House. The motion to proceed to its consideration was lost by 157 to 140. This year the famous Mills bill passed the House by the united Democratic vote, but was defeated in the Re- WORK OF TARIFF COMMISSION. 1 79 publican Senate. It was passed during the Presidential campaign and became the dominant issue. The utmost net protection the manufacturers had ever asked during the war was 25 per cent. This bill gave them 40 per cent, (its average duties being over 42 per cent.), and yet it was scouted as " free trade." Its free wool clause made it unpopular with the farmers, and caused the election of Harrison, although the bill, if passed, would have saved the farmers untold millions. The wisdom and probable effect of the wool clause will be discussed in another part of this work. Hon. Scott Wike, in a very able speech in the House, May 9, 1890, scored the following points on this tariff. We imported, in 1888, woollen goods worth $52,681,482 on which we paid duties $35,373,627. We manufactured at the same time these goods estimated at $450,000,000. Accepting John Sherman's statement that " the manufac- turers have an advantage equal to the duty," we paid them at the same time a bounty of $180,000,000. Of cotton goods we imported in the year $27,105,509, and paid on them in duties $10,841,969. "The same duty robbed the consumers of $111,000,000, and paid it as a bounty to the cotton manufacturers." On iron and steel he shows that while we paid the government less than $17,000,000 in duties in the year, we paid to protected manufacturers over $158,000,000. Thus on these three items the bounties collected from the people and paid to manufacturers amounted to $8 per capita for the whole United States. This on each agricultural county of 30,000 population, is a tax for protection of $240,000 per year, sufficient to build each year three superb court-houses. I So HISTORY OF PROTECTION. rRODUCTlON, IMPORTS, AND FOREION AND DOMESTIC PRICKS OF HESSEMER STEEI, RAILS. 0) 1> r. c c -.^ Tl V c _ ^ lA •- — fl> ^^ to W) few 4) (J D UC H > 1-1 i2 .n to u a. eu, B > c Q — 3 f— H < <-5 Q 187I 38,300 not given $91.70 $57.70 $34-00 $28 2 94,000 150,000 99. 70 67.30 32.40 3 129,000 160,000 95 qo 74-40 21.50 4 i45,ouo 101,000 84.70 5750 27.20 5 291,000 18,000 59 70 44 10 15.60 6 412,000 none 53.10 37-70 15.40 7 432,000 " 43-50 31.90 11.60 8 550,000 " 41.70 27.20 14.50 9 684,000 25,000 48.20 24.70 23.50 1880 954,000 158,000 67.50 36 00 31.50 I 1,330,000 249,000 61.10 31.20 29.90 2 1,438,000 182,000 48.50 30.00 18.50 3 1,286,000 38,200 37-75 25-40 12.35 17 4 1,119.000 3,000 30-75 22.90 7.85 5 1,079,000 2,400 28.50 23-65 4.85 6 1,769,000 46,500 34,50 20.65 13.85 7 2,295,000 154,000 37-IO 20.65 16.45 The figures of production and importation are from the Reports of the American Iron and Steel Association, as are also the prices in this country. The prices in Eng- land have been compiled from the files of the London Ecofiomist, checked by occasional tables in the Iron and Steel Association Reports. Prices by yearly average necessarily only indicate the general fluctuations, but for purpose of general comparison the above are trust- worthy. ' In net tons of 2,000 lbs. ' Price per gross ton of 2,240 lbs. THE MCKINLEY TARIFF, l8gO. l8l Cost of transportation varies from two to four dollars per ton, so the total protection during the first thirteen years was over $30 per ton, in the later years $17 plus the freight. Cut this out and paste it in your hat, and when next you are told that protection reduced the price of rails nearly 60 per cent, in these seventeen years, ask your in- formant what reduced it over 64 per cent, in England in the same time, and ask him why through nearly all this time we paid from $15 to $30 more for rails than the best customers the farmers have on earth were asking for them. THE MCKINLEY TARIFF, 1890. '• If the proposed rate of duty on any articles on the dutia- ble list is in excess of what is required to give fair and ade- quate protection to the competing domestic industry, none will be more ready than the majority of your committee to reduce the rate to the level of such requirement." — Hon. J. C. Burrows, Member of Committee. " If any one thing was settled by the election of 1888 it was that the protective policy, as promulgated in the Repub- lican platform and heretofore inaugurated and maintained by the Republican party, should be secured in any fiscal legisla- tion to be had by the Congress chosen in that great contest and upon that mastering issue. . . . The bill which the Committee have presented is the answer and interpretation of that victory and in accordance with its spirit and letter and purpose." — Hon. Wm. McKinley, Jr., May 7, 1890. First, to " render unto Caesar " the answer that is due, it is sufficient to remind Mr. Burrows that by United States official statistics it is shown that the entire labor cost of the manufactures of this country is but 18 per 1 82 HISTORY OF PROTECTION. cent, of the manufacturers' price.' As the argument for protection is to ecpialize wages of this country and Eu- rope, we see that if the k\bor in luirope costs absolutely twlhing,^ 16 per cent, duty would be "adequate," as our manufacturers still have the natural protection of double freight across the ocean. If labor in Europe costs but half as much as here, an 8 per cent, duty is sufficient. If Secretaries Blaine and Evarts were right in stating that the labor cost here is really less than in Europe, then a tariff of 00 per cent, is " fair and ade- quate protection." In McKinlcy's own words : " The people have spoken. They want their will registered and their decree embodied in public legislation." Six weeks after the McKinley bill became the law of the land, one hundred members of Congress who had voted for the iniquity had their political heads judicially and judiciously severed from their fanatical bodies by the overwhelming disapproval of the people. In reply to Mr. McKinley's claim (which was oft re- peated at this time), a little history is necessary. When the census of 1880 was taken, the Republican party w^as in power in the doubtful or close States. The new ap- portionments were made by them, and the States were gerrymandered so that a minority of voters might, and did, elect a majority of Congressmen. In the election of 1888, 5,440,551 votes were cast for the party of protection, but with the understanding that they were " to reduce the revenue and equalize duties on imports." These words form a part of the title of the McKinley bill. The opposition cast at this election 5,946,081 votes, over a half million majority against pro- ' See statistics, p. 29. THE McKmLEY TARIFF, l8gO. 1 83 tection. Mr. Cleveland received 97,883 more votes than Mr. Harrison, but by our peculiar electoral system and by Republican gerrymandering in the close States the latter secured the Presidency. What then was the McKinley bill ? It became the new tariff law of 1890. Printed in full, it would occupy a large part of this volume. It is divided into 55 sec- tions. Section i, the dutiable list, is arranged in 14 schedules lettered from A to N, and divided into 472 numbered paragraphs, enumerating some 4,000 articles. I attempted to summarize it for this work. I found that 211 of these paragraphs authorize an increase in duties. It makes important changes in the duties on tin and sugar, which are discussed in another part of this work. It puts upon the free list " gems, statues, statuary, and specimens of sculpture," " saeurkrout," "snails," "leeches," "«7(J^-2/6';«zV^," ''''arsenic,'' "manna," and "joss- stick or joss-light," and some other articles of like nature not requiring " adequate protection." It is not a new tariff, but is a revision of the old tariff of 1883, revised in the same manner and for the same purpose as that was revised from the old law of 1864. Revenue duties and others already in a state of " innocu- ous desuetude " are repealed, that protective duties may be increased. Duties are named on farm products that can have no possible effect. Much is claimed by its friends for its " drawback " provision, by which duties paid on raw material are to be refunded to the manufacturer if he exports the finished product. This, it is claimed, gives him the same chance to compete with Europe in outside market as would free trade. 1 84 HISTORY OF PROTECTION, Relating to this matter, I clip the following from the Cleveland Plain Dealer of March 24, 1891 : "The drawback of which so much is made turns out to be 'a mockery, a delusion, and a snare.' Section 25 stipulates the condi- tions under which the duties may be refumled. The ' imported arti- cles must so appear in the completed articles that the quality or measure thereof may be ascertained.' The exact articles on which duty was paid on importations ' must be identified,' the ' quantity and amount of duties ascertained ' and the ' facts of manufacture or pro- duct in the United States and exportation determined.' A Cleveland manufacturer buys some imported materials to work up with domestic materials, and part of the finished product is exported. To get the drawback he must have the imported material ' appear ' in the ' com- pleted article ' that it may be ' identified ' by the Treasury officials, and its exact quantity and amount of duties ascertained. In the great majority of cases this is impracticable, and the drawback pro- vision is an absurdity." I have found it impossible to summarize the entire tariff in any way to present here an intelligent view of it. I have thought it better to present one entire schedule, tabulated, and showing all the duties it pro- vides, and a comparison with the rates which preceded them. It is proper here to say that for this entire schedule the Mills bill provided free raw material, and on all manufactures a net protective duty of 40 per cent., with these exceptions : ready-made clothing was to pay 45 per cent. ; a few specified laces and fringes were to pay 50 per cent.; and the woollen belts (the last item in the list) were to pay 30 per cent, instead of 117 per cent, as under the new law. In all our tariff history there is no method by which THE McKINLEY TARIFF, l8gO. 1 8$ the people have been so often deceived and defrauded as by some trick in classification not readily seen. The present tariff is no exception. Looking at the first item in the list the duty is increased from lo to ii cents per pound on wool. In the next the rate is decreased from 12 to II. Farther below, another is seen increased from lo to 12 cents. All this looks favorable, and the farmer passes on unless it occurs to him to learn the classification, and then the true " inwardness " be- gins to appear. The " first class " includes all " wools of merino blood, immediate or remote, Down clothing wools, and wools of like character." Is this your class, brother farmer ? watch it — changed from 12 to 11 cents. The second class includes " Leicester, Cotswold, Lincolnshire, Down combing wools, Canada long wools, etc. Under the old law all wools in either class paid 10 cents if worth less than 30 cents, and 12 cents if worth more than 30 cents. Under the McKinley law all Merino, even remote, and all clothing wools which before paid 12 cents now pay n.' It is seen at once this hits nearly all the wool on which farmers ask protection. Well, how do we like it ? Explanation of the table. All matter in parentheses is common to both laws. Ordinary type and figures indi- cate the tariff of 1 883, afid italic type and figures the McKinley tariff. No im. means no importations, indicating the tariff is prohibitory. n. s. e. or p., means not specially enumerated or provided. ' See further, pp. 222 and 290. 1 86 J/JSTOA'Y OF PROTECTION, SCIIKDULE K. wool, AND WOOLLENS. All (wools) a>id hiiir (of the first class), the value whereof at the last port or jilace whence exported to the U. S., excluding charges in such port shall be 30 cts. per lb (lb.) Valued at above 30 cts. per lb. (lb.). (Washed,) valued at 30 cts. or less per lb (lb-) Valued above 30 cts. per lb. (lb.). . . (Scoured,) valued at 30 cts. or less per lb. (lb.) Valued above 30 cts. per lb. (lb.). . . All (hair of the) camel (goat, alpaca, and other like animals), the value whereof at tlie last port or place wlience exported to the U. S., excluding charges in such ports, shall be 30 cts. or less per lb. (lb.) Valued above 30 cts. per lb. (lb.) (Scoured,) valued at 30 cts. or less per lb. (lb.) Valued above 30 cts. per lb. (lb.). . . All (wools) or hair (of the 2d class), the value whereof at the last port or place whence exported to the U. S., excluding charges in such ports shall be 30 cts. or less per lb. (lb.) Valued above 30 cts. per lb. (lb.).. . (Scoured,) valued at 30 cts. or less per lb. (lb.) Valued above 30 cts. per lb. (lb.).. . CameVs hair of the 2d class, washed or tin- washed, lb Scoured, lb (Wools of the 3d class, the value whereof) at the last port or place whence exported to the U. S., excluding, ///^/Wi/rf (charges) in such jwrt, (shall h&) 12 cts. I J cts. (or less perlb.,)lb (Valued above) 12 cts., jj cts. per lb.,) lb (Scoured valued at) 12 cts., i^ cts. (or less per lb.,) lb Tariff of 1883. Specific. $ cts. IOC 12c 20c 24c 30c 36c IOC I2C 30c 36c IOC I2C 30c 36c free free 2|C 7ic AJ. Val. 49 60 52 81 112 43 26 41 120- 43 26 41 120- 25 30 44 McKinley Tariff. Specific. $ cts. 22c 22C 33<: 33<: 36c 3^c I2C I2C j6c j6c J2C j6c THE McKTNLEY TARIFF, l8go. 187 SCHEDULE K. WOOL AND WOOLLENS. Wools of the jd class — Continued. (Valued above) 12 cts., /j cts. (per lb.,) lb Camel 's hair of the jd class, valued at jj cts. or less per lb. , including charges Valued above ij cts. per lb., including charges Wools on the skin the same rates as other wools, the quantity and value to be deter- mined under such rules as the Secretary of the Treasury may prescribe.) Woollen rags, mungo, and flocks, lb.) Shoddy) and top (waste), stubbing waste, rov- ing waste, ring luaste, yarn zuaste, garnetted waste, noils, and all other wastes composed wholly or in part of wool (lb. ) Wools and hair of the camel, goat, alpaca, or other like animals, in the form of roping, roving, or tops and all wool, and hair, which have been advanced in any nianner or by any process of manufacture beyond the washed or scoured condition, n. s. p. shall be subject to the satne duties as are it?t- posed upon manufacturers of wool n. s. p. [Woollen) and or (worsted cloths, shawls, and all manufactures of every description, made wholly or in part of wool, worsted, the hair of the) camel (goat, alpaca, or other animals), n. s. e. or p. n. s. p.^ (Cloths.) Valued at not above jo cts. per lb. (lb.) Valued above jo cts. and not above 40 cts. per lb. (lb.) (Valued) above 40 cts. and not above 80 cts. (per lb., lb.) Valued above 80 cts. per lb. (lb.) (Shawls.) Valued at not above jo cts. per lb. (lb.) Valued above jo cts. and not above 40 cts. per lb. (lb.) Tariff of 18 Specific. 15c free free 35c&35^ 35C&35.'? 35c&35!i 35c&40^ 35c&35^ 35c&35^ Ad. Val. 25 25 151 + 120 + 95 69 151 + 120 + McKinley Tariff. Specific. $ cts. IOC 2S Ad. Val. 50 50 JOC 33c^4oi 38\cci^4o% 44C&'jo% 44c&'^o% jjc&'40% j8\c&'40% 75 /50 + 136 + 86 /JO + 136 + * Up to M«.y 27, 1889, worsteds pai.l the same rates as blankets, hats of wool, etc. 1 88 iriSTORY OF PROTECTION. TarilT of 18 scin:i>iM.i: k. wool and WOOLLENS. U'iS'/.'rH iint/ 'dvrsUd cloths, etc, — Continued. (Valued) tilnn'c 40 cts, and not above 80 cts. (per 11)., 111.) Valiieil above 80 cts. per lb. (lb.) (.\11 niamifaLtiires,) n. .s. e. or p. n. s. /. Valued at not aho-,r /2J + 90 + 73 'OS 192 HISTORY OF PROTECTION. SCHEDULE K. WOOL AND WOOLLENS (Women's and children's dress goods, coat linings, Italian cloths, and goods of) like, sintilar (description) or character (composed wholly) or in part of (wool, worsted, the hair of the camel (goat, alpaca, or other animals), or of a mixture of them, n. s. p. (weighing 4 ozs. or less per sq. yd., sq. yd.) Weighing over 4 ozs. per sq. yd., lb.) But all dress goods with selvedges made wholly or in part of other materials or with threads of other materials intro- duced for the purpose of changing the classification. Weighing 4 ozs. or less per sq. yd. (sq. yd.) Weighing over 4 ozs. per sq. yd. (lb.). . (Clothing ready made and) articles of (wear- ing apparel of every description), n. s. e. or p., and balmoral skirts, and skirting. and goods of similar description, or used for like purposes, except knit goods (all of the) above, foregoing (composed wholly or in part of wool, worsted, the hair of the) camel, (goat, alpaca, or other animals, made up or manufactured wholly or in part) by the tailor, seamstress, or manufacturer, n. s.p. (lb.) Felts not -woven and n. s. p., composed wkollv or in part of wool, worsted, the hair of the camel, goat, alpaca, or other animals. Valued at not above 80 cts. per lb. (lb.) Valued above 80 cts. per lb. (lb.) Flushes and other pile fabrics, composed wholly or in part of wool, worsted, the hair of the camel, goat, alpaca, or other animals. Valued at not above 80 cts. per lb. (lb.) Valued above 80 cts. per lb. (lb.) Tariff of 1883. Specific. $ cts. 9c&40^ 35c&4o;^ 9c&40^ 35c&4o;2 40c&35^ 35c&35$? 35c&40^ 35c&35^ 79 + 35c&40^ 84— Ad. Val. 85 73 55 79 + McKinley Tariff. Specific. S cts. I2C^SO% 44c^So% See ab 4g\cb'bo% 4g^c&'6o% 122 + 4g\c&'bo% 122— Ad. Val. 1 10 9' s.p. ove. 85 I22-\- 122 — THE Mckinley tariff, i8go. 193 SCHEDULE K. WOOL AND WOOLLENS. (Cloaks, dolmans, Jackets, talmas, ulsters, or other outside garments for ladies' and children's apparel and goods of similar description, or used for like purposes) ex- cept knit goods (composed wholly or in part of wool, worsted, the hair of the) camel, (goat, alpaca, or other animals, made up or manufactured wholly or in part) by the tailor, seamstress, or manu- facturer (lb.) (Webbings, gorings, suspenders, braces, belt- ings, bindings, braids, galloons, fringes, gimps, cords, cords and tassels, dress trim- mings, head nets, buttons, or barrel but- tons, or buttons of other forms, for tassels or ornaments, wrought by hand or braided by machinery,) any of the foregoing which are elastic or «wi-^/(2j/?V(m.adeof wool, worsted, the hair of the) carnel, (goat, alpaca, or other animals, or of which wool, worsted, the hair of the) ca?nel, (goat, alpaca, or other animals, is a component material, lb.) ...•: :- Laces and embroideries, elastic or non-elastic, made of wool, worsted, the hair of the camel, goat, alpaca, or other animal, or of which tvool, worsted, the hair of the camel, goat, alpaca, or other animals, is a compo- nent fnaterial. Not for dress trimmings, and not ready- made clothing or wearing apparel. Valued at not above 80 cts. per lb. (lb.) ^ Valued above 80 cts. per lb. (lb.) .... For dress trimmings (lb.) As ready-made clothing or wearing ap- parel (lb.) (Aubusson, Axminster,) Moquette (and Che- nille carpets,) figured or plain, (carpets ■ woven whole for rooms,) and all carpets or carpeting of like character or description (sq.yd.) 13 Tariff of 1883. Specific. I ^^^ 45c&40^ 30c&5o^ 35c&35^ 35c&40jg 30c&50^ 40c&35^ 45c&30^ 60 65 79 + 84- McKinley Tariff. Specific. 4q\c&}'6o'f 6oc&'6o% 6oc6t'6o% bocK.'y'bo'fo 6oc&'6o% 6ocb'6o% Ad. Val. 8i go '35- 49 6oc<^40'^ 6^ 194 HISTORY OF PROTECTION, Tariff of iS SCHEDULE K. WOOL AND WOOLLENS. (Saxony, Wilton, and Tournay velvet carpets,) figured or flain, and all carpets or carpcli)ig of like charaeter or description (sq. yd.). . . (Brussels carpets,) figured or plain, and all carpets or carpeting of like character or description (sq. yd.) Patent (velvet and tapestry velvet carpets,) figured or plain (printed on the warp or otherwise), a>id all carpets or carpeting of like character or description (sq. yd.) (Tapestry Brussels carpets,) figured or plain, and all carpets or carpeting of like character or description (printed on the warp or other wise, sq. yd.) (Treble ingrain, three-ply, and) worsted, all (chain Venetian carpets, sq. yd.) Yarn Venetian carpets, sq. yd Wool Dutch carpets, st/. yd (Two-ply ingrain carpets, sq. yd.) (Druggets and bockings,) printed, colored, or otherwise, printed, colored, or otherzuise (sq.yd) •. Felt carpeting, figured or plain sq, yd. . (Carpets or carpeting of wool, flax, cotton,) or parts of either or other material, or com- posed in part of either n. o. h.. %., n. s, p. . And mats, rugs, screens, covers, hassocks, bedsides, and other portions of carpets or carpeting shall be subjected to the rate of duty herein imposed on carpets or carpet- ing of like character or description, mats, rugs, screens, covers, hassocks, bedsides, art squares, and other portions of carpets or carpeting made wholly or in part of wool, n. s. p., shall be subjected to the rate of duty herein imposed on carpets or carpe tings of like character or description. All mats not exclusively of vegetable mate- rial, screens, hassocks, and rugs Oriental, Berlin, and other similar rugs, sq.yd. landless belts or felts for paper or printing machines, (lb.) Specific. 45C.V 30c&3o;^ 25C& 20C&3O$^ I2Ci 8ccS:3o^ 8c&30$g X5C& Ad. Val. 54 59 56 60 46 44 40 44 59 40 40 20c&3or^ 40 40 53 McKinley Tariff. Specific. $ cts. 60c is' 40% 44c&'4o% 40C&r'40% 2Sc&'40% iqcb'40% I4c&'40% i4c&r'40% 22C&'40% iic&'40% Same as car 6oc&'40% \4g\c&'6o% THE Mckinley tariff, i8go. 195 "To reduce the revenue and equalize duties on im- ports." Well, what do you consumers of woollens think of it ? Young men, what do you think of assuming an obligation that may require you to purchase balmorals with the duties more than doubled, and now being more than 150 per cent., to say nothing of the future possibilities that may require you to purchase knit goods and flannels with duties increased to 166 per cent. ? A fatherly gentleman in high official seat and wearing a very large hat, says : " Wait, boys, and give the new tariff a chance ; wait and see how it works." Just as if, after trying this sort of thing for the past thirty years, we did n't already know exactly " how the old thing works." An innocent man was once caught by a vigilance com- mittee, and accused of horse-stealing. He was hung to the limb of a tree to make him confess. He was lowered and the knot drawn tighter, and again strung up until he was black in the face ; lowered and hoisted again with a tighter knot. This was repeated seven times, till the vic- tim, long since insensible, seemed in his very last struggle, when some respectable gentlemen from a neighboring town chanced to arrive, and assured the committee that their victim was one of their best known and highly re- spected citizens, and they chanced to know where he had been at the time of the theft, and that he was certainly innocent, and that there was certainly no excuse for the hanging. The leader of the mob, a dignified gentleman, wearing a very old hat, replied : " You are undoubtedly correct, gentlemen, undoubtedly correct ; but we never hung him before with quite so tight a knot. This is a simple busi- 196 irrsTOKV OF protection. ncss matter ; ])lcasc give the experiment a fair trial, that \vc may sec ht)\v the system works." Voiing men of America, this is the history of protection in this eoiintry, past and present. The future history is in your keeping, of your own making. EXPERIENCE OF AUSTRALIA. 197 EXPERIENCE OF AUSTRALIA. " Ah, but they say : * Is n't free trade a good thing ? ' It is if you are finished and completed if you have stopped grow- ing. . . . We can have free trade perhaps when other nations bring their labor up to our high standard, for we will never descend to theirs." — Maj. McKinley, Bid for Presidential Nomination, Worcester, Mass., March 23, 1891. " Wages in Australia are only three and a half cents on the dollar lower than they are in the United States. England controls the markets of Australia. Why have not the cheap goods of Free-Trade England made the wages in Australia lower and reduced the laborer there to a pauper ? " Perhaps the best opportunity ever afforded for the study of the practical workings of the two fiscal systems, side by side, is afforded by Australia. Here the two colonies of Victoria and New South Wales, lying side by side, with similar soil, climate, and resources, and inhabited by the same race, and in other respects much alike, but pursu- ing opposite fiscal systems for twenty-five years, afford an opportunity to learn of the practical results of protection as compared with practical free-trade as we can nowhere else do. In 1866 Victoria entered upon a career of protection, promising increase of employment, increased wages, and all the advantages and advances claimed by the prophets of this school. For the following facts and statistics I am indebted to Edward Pulsford, as published in the Nineteenth Century, and quoted from official statistics, the Victorian Statis- tician, the New South Wales Statistician, the Statistical Register, etc. Twenty-five years ago Victoria was much in advance of the sister colony, but present results show most conclu- sively that protection has not advanced her interests. 19S nTSTORY OF PROTECTION. Tlu- population of Victoria was 636,982 in 1866, and in 1S.S6 it was 1,033,052, an increase of 62 per cent. New South Wales in 1S66 had a population of 431,412, and in twenty years had increased to 1,030,762, an increase of 139 i)er cent. At the present time she is clear ahead of Victoria. But in her most desirable population, those between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five, the differ- ence is much more marked. Victoria had in 1871 135,- 413, and but 99,497 in iSSt. On the contrary, New South Wales in the same decade increased her numbers from 83,275 to 115,291, a gain of 32,716, while Victoria lost 35,916, a change against her in relative position of 68,632, The official figures just quoted show that silently, and almost as regularly as the fall of the sand in the glass of time there has been a flow of labor from pro- tected Victoria to free-trade New South Wales. In point of wealth Victoria had immense advantage at the beginning of this period, but definite statistics are not available. In t88i the rated property of Victoria was jQ\ 16,283,570, and in New South Wales ;^i97, 028,429. Mulhall, in his Dictionary of Statistics, estimates the average wealth per head in 1882 at ;£2^i for New South Wales, and at ;^i98 for Victoria. The present accumu- lation of wealth is much greater in the free-trade colony. The only uncertainty is as to the amount of the excess. REVENUE, IMPORTS AND EXPORTS, AND SHIPPING. The revenue of Victoria in 1866 was ;!^3, 079,160, and in 1885 it was ^^6,290, 361, an increase of 105 per cent. For New South Wales the corresponding figures are ;^2,oi2,o79, and ;^7,584,593, and 275 per cent. Thus the revenue in New South Wales has grown nearly three times as rapidly as in Victoria. EXPERIENCE OF A USTRALIA. 199 The average yearly imports and exports in 1869 '70, and '71 were for Victoria ^'26,399,644, and for the years 1883, '84 '85 the average was /34,33o,390- In fourteen years the yearly average had increased ;^7, 930,746, The corresponding figures for New South Wales are ;i^ 18,309,- 351, ;^4o,6io,535, and ;^22,3oi,i85. The percentage of growth in the latter colony was therefore more than four times greater than in Victoria. The shipping statistics are given as follows : in 1886 Victoria 1,325,720 tons ; in 1885 3,260,158 tons. For New South Wales 1,514,735 tons, and 4,133,077 tons. Excess in favor of New South Wales 826,919 tons. These figures show the great wealth of New South Wales, but as the object of protection is to diminish shipping and foreign trade, they do not necessarily show poverty on the part of Victoria, if she can show a corresponding gain in internal trade, manufacture, and production. This leads us then to the consideration of the relative impor- tance of their MANUFACTURES. The following table shows the condition in 1886 : HANDS EMPLOYED. No. of Horse- m'f'gs. Males. Females. Total. Value of plant, power. Victoria 2,813 41,542 7,755 49,297^4,643,89320,160 New South Wales. 3,612 42,289 3,494 45,783 ;^5, 801, 757 25,192 In one thing Victoria is clearly in advance — in number of female laborers. The reader may draw his own con- clusions. " In New South Wales there are eight masters to every hundred employees, whereas the number is only six in Victoria; in other words, the prospect of a man becoming 200 II I STORY OF PROTECTION. his own master are one third, or 2,Z per cent., greater in the free-trade than in the protectionist colony. The reason of this seems to be obvious, it results from the greater cheapness of plant and machinery, and also from tile greater cheapness of materials for manufacturing. Free - traders always claim that protection promotes monopoly. Will any one assert that in a colony where a man has to pay 25 per cent, more for machinery than it is worth, it is as easy for him to start a factory as in a colony where free trade allows every beginner to buy his ma- chinery and plant at the lowest price at which they are attainable ? The statistics given clearly prove that pro- tection in Victoria is tending to monopoly." AGRICULTURE. In agriculture proper Victoria is still ahead, but in the pastoral industry New South Wales is far ahead. The number of sheep in the latter colony has increased since 1875 12,000,000, while in Victoria there has been a decrease of 1,000,000 in the same time. In 1885 Victoria had 2,405,000 acres under cultivation, and the sister colony had but 868,000, and the grain raised was 16,500,000 and 7,500,000 bushels respec- tively. " Agriculture is, however, progressing at present more rapidly in the latter, the returns of the present season showing an increase in the area exceeding 100,000 acres, against only 12,000 in Victoria." LETTERS, ETC. Mr. Blaine says : " The extension of postal facilities is perhaps the most significant measure of the intellectual activity of a people." In 1885 the number of newspapers EXPERIENCE OF AUSTRALIA. 20I and packets was reported as 22,766,726 in Victoria and 29,014,200 in New South Wales. The following table is very significant : LETTERS RECEIVED AND DESPATCHED. TELEGRAMS. 1866. 1885. Increase. 1866. 1883. Increase. Victoria 8,631,133 36,061,880 318^277,788 1,634,666 489,-^ N. S. Wales. 6,678,371 39,351,200 491^ 143,523 2,625,992 1,720;^ " The letters number thirty-six per head in Victoria against forty per head in New South Wales." WAGES. Victoria professes to "protect" labor by increasing work, but " every year, or nearly every year, since Victoria has pursued her present fiscal policy some thousands of men have left Victoria for New South Wales." Victorian protectionists try to show that wages are the same, and in some skilled trades, owing to the unions, they are so, but it is in the large mass of unskilled labor that the great difference exists. " Wages for unskilled labor in New South Wales average seven shillings a day, but ' the Victorian Railway Department can at any time obtain thousands of men at five shillings per day.' " In Novem- ber, 1886, the Victorian Railway employees addressed a petition to the Legislative Assembly, from which the following is an extract : " It is simply impossible, under the present rates of pay, for any man, with a family to support, to eke out more than a bare existence." The Trades' Hall Council of Victoria has recently issued a most earnest warning to the other Australian colonies for all workmen to keep clear of Victoria. "It seems certain that New South Wales will soon be once more able to absorb the surplus labor of Victoria as rapidly as heretofore." 202 ITISTORY OF rROTECTION, CONSUMPTION. Why do tlic people of the free-trade colony consume more tea, sugar, currants, spirits, beer, and tobacco, if it is not for the simple reason that they are better able to afford them ? The following table shows the facts : CONSUMPTION PER CAPITA. Tea. Coffee. Sugar. Currants. Spirits. Beer. Tobacco, oz. oz. lbs. oz. gills, gals. oz. Victoria no i6 92.5 98 18.3 16 35.5 New South Wales. 117 n 102 in 20.6 16.5 46 The spending power seems clearly in favor of the free-trade colony, and we have already seen her power of accumulation is vastly greater and has already placed this colony far in advance, and except for freedom in exchange for what REASONS. The colonial protectionists assign the following four to explain the greater progress of New South Wales : (i) The early settlement of the colony. (2) The large area, (3) Great receipts from sales of land and public loans. (4) Rapid railway development. I. New South Wales was settled in 1788 and Victoria not till 1836. But length of time alone is not an element of wealth without considering the number of men pro- ducing the wealth. One man in a thousand years would produce but little compared with the work of a hundred men in fifty years. Hayters Year-Book shows the aggre- gate population of Victoria, year by year, from its first settlement up to and including 1885, to be 22,972,234, and the corresponding number for the other colony from 1788 to 1885, 20,943,089, showing conclusively that Vic- EXPERIENCE OF AUSTRALIA. 203 toria and not New South Wales has the advantage in this regard. 2. Greater area alone is not an element of strength in an unsettled country, but of weakness. The only argu- ment in the large area is that it furnishes immense sheep pasturage, which is the chief wealth of New South Wales. But, on the other hand, gold mining is the chief element of wealth in Victoria and it requires but small area. It is fair to offset the one against the other. The following table shows the total production of both in the two colonies for the twenty years, 1 866-1 885 : G81d. Wool. Aggregate. Victoria 85,819,216 67,891,880 ;^i53,7ri,096 New South Wales ... 15.763.365 110,536,781 ;,^i26,3oo,i46 Thus Victoria is shown to possess the advantage in natural resources and not New South Wales. 3. Money raised by loans and land sales. The fol- lowing table shows the amount in use in each colony in three separate years, and also the average for the whole period : 1866, 1875. ■ 1885. Average. Victoria 21,211,074 31,411,294 51,078,473 ;if33.986.364 New South Wales.. 11,199,683 21,763,451 59,478,631 ^^27,764,829 It is certain that the colony that thus obtained the lead in the construction of its public works had an immense advantage. When Victoria entered upon her career of protection she had received ^^21,000,000 from the sources named, against only;^i 1,000,000 in New South Wales. For the whole twenty years we find that Victoria has had the use of capital equivalent to ^34,000,000 for the whole period, against only ^28,000,000 for New South Wales. 204 J/ISTOMY OF J'A'OTECTION. Again slio has the iinnicnse advantage, and not the free- trade colony. 4. Protectionists claim that the reason for the large emi- gration from Victoria to the free-trade colony is the rapid ileveh)pment of railways in the latter colony, "And yet, hetwcen 1871 and 1881, Victoria opened 923 miles of new lines against only 499 in New South Wales. . . . Taking the whole twenty years, 1 866-1885, Victoria had on the average 104 miles more of railway open than New South Wales. The advantage therefore again lies with Victoria." INSOLVENCIES. In one respect Victoria is unquestionably in the lead. The insolvencies for eighteen years, from 1868 to 1885, figure as follows : In Victoria the number is 13,001 and the deficiencies ;^5,266,890, and for New South Wales the corresponding numbers are 11.522 and ;^4,486,658. The figures need no comment. TARIFF TAXATION. The amount of tariff taxation in Victoria is estimated at jQ^ 2>s. 2d. per capita, while in New South Wales it is but ;£2 12s. 4rocliucr. MtMi point to failures among manufacturers to prove their profits are not enormous. The proof is not suffi- cient. No business can be made so profitable that some who undertake it will not fail. If nails were $4 per pound, wealthy dudes would attempt their manufacture, and by inattention, extravagance, speculation, and riotous living, would lose the fortunes their fathers had earned, and would fail. Turn it in every possible light, the practical result of protection may be a loss to both parties concerned. It may result in gain to either at the expense of the other, but the gain can never be et^ual to the loss. There is a certain " loss in friction " in changing occupations at best, and the sum of results is inevitably loss to the nation as a whole. EFFECTS OF PROTECTION (?) ON WOOL. " In 1867, the price of wool was 51 cents ; in 1870, 46 cents ; in 1888, which was an abnormal year, 40 cents per pound. This was the RESLILT of the policy of protecting the wool grower, as it is in all industries, to gradually REDUCE the price. Under the operation of the existing law, the tariff of 1867, the price of wool has gradually gone down." — Sena- tor John Sherman, 1883. The effect of the tariff on wool is perhaps more diffi- cult to understand than almost any other. As I have already shown (p. 33), it falls in a class with very few other commodities, and is subject to a different law, as our im- portations are mainly needed to combine, and not to com- pete, with our native product. Protectionists argue both ways, according to their au- EFFECTS OF PROTECTION (?) ON WOOL. 223 die \ce — to farmers they say it makes wool dearer ; to cor sumers they say it reduces the price. To learn more ceriainly the actual effect, I visited the leading woollen manufactory in Michigan. I found the superintendent was a "protectionist from principle." While the tariff was a burden to them as cloth makers, he believed that if any class merited and needed protection at the present time it is the farmers, and he would gladly see the tariff increased for their benefit. " Do you use imported wool ? " I asked. " Certainly," he replied ; and he showed me wool from Australia costing them, scoured, but 27 cents, while American wool cost them 45 cents. He said its importation was a swindle on the government, as it was imported as carpet wool, and paid but 2\ cents duty, while it was fit for cloth and under the law should pay 10 cents. and he would like to see it increased to benefit the farmer. I said : " At these prices you must use this wool exclu- sively." " Oh, no," he said ; " we can only use 15 per cent, to 20 per cent, without detriment to our cloth." I asked : " Suppose it were free ? " He replied : " We could use no more." I said : "If it paid 12 cents duty ?' He answered : " It would cost us 37 cents; we should use it the same." I looked at him thirty seconds and said : " Did I un- derstand you that you would like to see the duty increased on this wool to benefit the farmer ? " " Yes, sir," he an- swered. I said : " Suppose this wool was//w, you get it 2\ cents less, use the same amount, and get the same price for your cloth ; could n't you pay the farmer more for the part that you get of him to mix with it ? " " Oh, it would be a mere trifle," he said. " A mere trifle, perhaps," I said, "but wouldn't it be something?" "Well, so it seems," he answered. 2 2.[ PKACTicAr. Rr.sirr/rs or pkotrctton. I said : " If vou ]iay Iwi-lve cents more for this wool ami soil your prtiduct at the same price, would n't you have to pay the farmer very much less for his wool?" Said he: "I never saw it before. I have been a pro- tectionist for years, and always thought the tariff on wool benefited the farmer." Here was "a practical man." He understood cloth-making to perfection, was a prominent man in his city, — just such a man as often represents us at Washington. When he attempted to consider an economic, philosophic question, he was simply a "practi- cal ass." And of such is the kingdom of Congress. McKinley says the tariff will never be revised by the philosophy of the schoolmen. If not, God pity us. On this same Australian wool the McKinley tariff increases the duty 66 per cent., and on the only kinds that could be protected it reduces the duty nearly 20 per cent. yohnsorHs Cydopadia — revised edition of 1 890 — article, " Wool," while stating the facts without any reference to tariffs, says : " Our importations consist of three kinds of wool, neither of which we produce to any great extent, viz., the fine wools of Saxony for broadcloths, the comb- ing wools of high lustre for worsted goods, and the coarse, long, staple wools of South America for carpets, etc." This being the case, we should expect wool-growing to flourish under free trade rather than under high tariff on wool. Three eighths of the woollens consumed in this country are now imported. The tariff is, of course, added to their cost, and makes woollens very dear. But if our wools are of different qualities and used in combination, but not in competition, with these, the price of our wools may be lower instead of higrher for the tariff. EFFECTS OF PROTECTION (?) ON WOOL. 225 George M. Bond, recognized as the highest authority on wool in this country, has been relied upon by the Treasury to fix the price and grades of wool for the customs service, and has always had the confidence of the pro- tectionists. He says : " Our fine wools have always been higher, other things being equal, when we were able to freely import wools of other countries at a low duty or no duty at all. He furnishes the following prices, which I have connected with the duties for the corresponding years. For the years when currency was inflated the prices are reduced to a gold basis : Duty, Price, Year, per cent. cents. 1859 Free 59 1861 5@i5 44 1863 5@i5 52 1864 25@30 45 1866 25@30 47 1867 50@6o 46 1868 50@6o 42 1872 45@55 60 1882 45@55 40 1883 40@50 43 1884 40@50 37 1887 40@50 34 l888 40@50 32 In 1859 all Canadian wool was free, and all wools cost- ing abroad not over 20 cents were free, and the price of wool that year (59 cents) has never been reached except once since. In 1861 duty was imposed, and the price fell to 44 cents. The progress of the war advanced prices to 52 cents in 1863, but when, in 1864, the tariff was increased the price again dropped to 45 cents. But the demand and activity of the times were such that, in spite of this tariff, prices advanced to 47 cents in 1866. But in 1867 the most iniquitous and unholy tariff ever 15 226 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. known in history was imposed, when the price at once fell, and in the next year dropped to 42 cents. I well remember the winter of 1S68-9. I was teaching the union school in Mason, and fed upon mutton the whole winter. Farmers were killing their sheep and selling fat carcases for 25 cents, and throwing away the i)oor ones. Agricultural reports show that the number of sheep in Michigan was reduced under this tariff from over 4,000,000 in 1867 to half that number in 1877, and to this day we have never had but half as many sheep in Michigan as at the time the high tariff of 1867 was imposed. Ohio had over 7,000,000 at that time, and the number was reduced to less than 4,000,000. "The sheep went west," says the demagogue, "where they are kept more cheaply." But the agricultural report shows that the entire number in the United States was reduced in the ten years following 1867 from 39,285,386 to 35,804,200. After twenty-two years of most burdensome tax on all we wear of wool or woollens, the number of sheep in the country is but 42,000,000. And the price of wool to farmers is 32 ' cents, and we import, under enormous tariff, three eighths of all the wool con- sumed. The tariff has certainly not hQQn protective, and has in no way encouraged the wool grower. In 1872 there was a slight reduction in the tariff, and for this and other causes there was an immense advance in price, but the tariff on the necessary imports has remained so high that the manufacturers — who must have both kinds of wool — have been ruined or compelled to pay us less, and the price has constantly declined since that date. In 1883 there was a slight reduction of tariff, but with- out perceptible effect on prices. But as prices are still ' This chapter was written before tlie present tariff was adopted. How are prices of wool under the may-skin-me tariff ? EFFECTS OF PROTECTION (?) ON WOOL. 22/ Steadily declining under an outrageously high tariff, pro- tection demagogues, when talking to farmers, point to this reduction as the cause of the decline. They never trace the wool tariff before 1883, and how much of reason there is in their claim is easily seen by study of the above table ; and how much of sincerity we can credit them with, we learn by comparing their claims with those of the most distinguished men of their party when talking to other men than farmers. I would not claim that the decline of the price of wool from 59 cents under free trade before the war is due entirely to the unrighteous tariff, but Senator John Sher- man does claim this. He says : " Under the operation of the tariff of 1867 the price of wool has gradually gone down. This was the result of the policy of protecting (?) the wool grower, to gradually reduce the price." Senator Frye, of Maine, another dyed-in-the-wool pro- tectionist, said : " Domestic wools have come down in price from the time the tariff of 1867 was enacted until to-day." In 1883 the National Wool Growers' Association said: ** The price of wool from 1854 to i860, to the grower, was 46I cents, while to-day, under the tariff of 1867, it is less than 30 cents." Dr. E. P. Miller, author of a protective tariff book, says : " After the tariff of March, 1867, the price of wool declined 'vs\%\.^zA of advancing, for it sold in January, 1866, at 70 cents ; in January, 1867, at 68 cents ; in April, at 60 cents ; in July, at 55 cents ; in October, at 48 cents, and in January, 1868, at 48 cents — a decline in one year of 20 cents per pound." The table previously given, quoting prices but once a year, does not show this enormous decline, which was the sole cause of killing half the sheep in Michigan and Ohio. 228 rRACriCAI. RESULTS OF PROTECTION. Prices of wool quoted from different sources will not exactly agree, but they all agree in showing the enormous decline under the high tariff as compared with free-trade prices. Mr. F. A. Dewey, of Cambridge, Lenawee County, has kept a careful record of the prices he has received each year for fifty years. For eleven years from 1850 to 1S60 the average price was 40^ cents ; for eleven years from 1S78 to 1888 the average was less than 30 cents. John Sherman and his ilk understand perfectly well that the tariff on imported wools, and especially on manu- factured wools, is an enormous burden on the consumer, with no corresponding benefit to anybody ; that it affords no protection to the farmer, but it is kept there for the simple purpose of hoodtvinking the farmer, that their orators and subsidized or ignorant press may keep the farmers in line to vote all their hard earnings into the pockets of the millionaire monopolists who in turn furnish the fat for the campaign to re-elect those who vote mil- lions from the toilers' earnings. Two hundred and twenty million dollars are collected annually on imports by a government that can find no legitimate use for the money. Let the farmer's oldest daughter take her pencil, take the population of the United States and the population of your own county, and by the rule of three find how much of this $220,000,000 may fall to your county. As much more is paid to mer- chants in percentages before the consumer gets the goods, so double the figures obtained. How much now for your county ? At least /(?z^r times this sum is paid to protected American manufacturers on articles in classes i and 2 in the first table ' heretofore given, showing examples of the effect of the tariff. Put these items together and you find ' Page 33. WOOLLENS. 229 a tax of $600,000 per annum on the average county in Southern Michigan. Is not here an all-sufficient cause and explanation for the yearly increase of the mortgage on the farm ? The tariff on wool is the keystone in the arch of the whole iniquity. Let the farmers once understand how worthless and how weighty upon them is this one stone, and the whole iniquitous system will crumble at their touch. The farmers of this country can control the tariff legis- lation if they will. They can cast more votes than the millionaire manufacturer can buy. The farmers do not realize the enormous burden the tariff imposes on them, or they would abolish the whole system as soon as their representatives could reach Washington. WOOLLENS. " The introduction free of duty of such wools as we do not produce would stimulate the manufacturing of goods requir- ing the use of those we do produce, and therefore would be a benefit to home production. "These duties (on raw material) not only come from the consumers at home, but act as a protection to foreign manu- facturers of the same completed articles in our own and dis- tant markets." — President U. S. Grant. " We have recommended no duty above the point of differ- ence between the normal cost of production here, including labor, and the cost of like production in the countries which seek our markets. — McKinley, in Majority Report Introducing his Bill. And yet the McKinley tariff fixes the duty on cheap flannels at 130 per cent., cheapest balmorals at 150 per cent., knit fabrics 166 per cent., woollen and worsted yarns 132 per cent,, children's dress goods 123 per cent., 230 PRACTICAT. RESULTS OF PROTECTION. felts \i2 per cent., laces and embroideries 135 per cent., and endless belts or felts i 1 7 per cent. What shall we understand, then, from his statement quoted above ? Of all countries in the world the United States uses the greatest amount of fine woollen goods. Our capital- ists are the most enterprising, our machinists the most skilful, our labor the most intelligent and, considering its efficiency, the cheapest ; and yet of all the world this is the one country that does not, and can not, manufacture fine woollen goods, and is the one country which is the largest customer for the French, German, and English manufactures. Every manufacturing nation of modern times, except the United States, has recognized that the best protection it could give, alike to its wool growers and manufacturers, would be to give the latter the largest opportunity for securing such wools as best serve their purpose. England, France, and Germany are the only countries of the world that export manufactures of wool in ex- cess of their imports of raw wool. In other words, these countries, by admitting wools free, have created a demand for their home wools in excess of the total amount of all wools required to clothe their people. Thus, after giving their laborers additional employment, they export more wool than they have imported. We, on the other hand, by putting a high tariff on wool, have destroyed our ex- port trade, and so throttled our manufacturers as to ruin the market for domestic wool, and so deprive our farmers of their market, and give to English, French and Ger- man operatives the employment that naturally belongs to our own people. Consul Schoenhof made a most minute examination of the accounts of Massachusetts and English mills, with WOOLLEN'S. 231 results showing that the entire expense of making a pound of cloth, aside from the price paid for wool, but includ- ing amount for carding, spinning, weaving, dressing, burling, supplies, dyeing, finishing, and all other charges, amounts in Massachusetts to 32.31 cents, while in Eng- land the cost is 37.9 cents. But since both use imported wool the cost for wool is much greater here than there. The highest woollen tariff we have ever endured was in force during the years following 1867. The following table shows the number of cards used in the manufacture of woollen goods in several States in the years 1870. 1880. Illinois, 250 106 Indiana, 346 160 Iowa, 199 56 Kansas, 24 9 Michigan 1 16 51 Ohio, 334 182 The price of American wools depends upon the de- mand for them, and when we ruin the purchasers the price goes down. With all our boasted protection of wool the price has never been advanced, so that foreigners have not come here and bought such raw wools as they had use for to mix with others which they obtain elsewhere. The samples provided at our custom-houses show 130 different kinds and qualities of wool imported. Very few of these are or ever can be produced in this country. Foreign wools ever have been and ever will be imported. If we compel our manufacturers to pay enormous prices for these, they can neither export their product, nor sell at reasonable prices at home ; neither can they pay re- munerative prices for domestic wool. Protection is certainly not increasing our production of wool. 2T,2 rKACTlCif. RESULTS OF PROTECTION. 1m 1SS4, our product was, in round numbers, 100 mil- lion dollars ; in 1SS5, it was but 98 millions ; in '86, 92 millions : in '87, it was 87. 4 ; and in '2>2>, but 84.5. While in the same years our importations of raw and manufac- tured wool were, in million dollars, as follows : Begin- ning in 1S84, 53.5, 44.6, 58, 62.5, and 63. 6 million dollars in 1 888. Thus we now import three fourths as much as we produce, or three sevenths of all we consume. Of course, a high tariff on imported wool compels the manufacturer to resort, if possible, to cheaper substitutes. Thus the tariff is the parent of the shoddy industry, the dirtiest child, perhaps, of this disreputable parentage. The statistics of the census of 1880 show that we con- sumed in the production of woollen goods, 52,163,926 pounds of shoddy, and 48,000,857 pounds of cotton, and 7,078,000 pounds of hair, or to every 1 18 pounds of pure wool io8 pounds of hair, cotton, and shoddy. Dobsons, of Philadelphia, estimate that in their manu- facture of carpets, to 10 million pounds of clean wool 20 million pounds of shoddy and 25 million pounds of other mixtures are added. By the census returns the shoddy mills alone used 19,372,000 pounds of shoddy in 1870, and 52,137,000 in 1880. J. G. Fleming & Co., of New York, shut down their shoddy manufactory in 1 888, saying that the passage of the Mills bill in the lower House of Congress, admitting wool free of duty, deterred them from continuing their industry, and seventeen shoddy dealers signed a circular, used as a campaign document that year, saying that the election of Harrison " we consider to be indispensable to the maintenance of our business." Charles M. Beach, of Hartford, Ct., is an extensive breeder of sheep, and the owner of five great woollen WOOLLENS. 233 mills. He says : " Free wool would be a great advan- tage to us, because we could then compete with foreign manufacturers who get their wool free. You cannot make fine goods without both foreign and domestic wools. The finest of Australian wools are imported for making the best grades of goods for both men and women. We do raise wool in Ohio and Pennsylvania which is, in some respects, superior in texture to the Australian, but it has not the softness and fineness. The best wearing and the best goods that can be made are those of half Australian and half the best American wool. " To run our mills on Ohio wools, to secure the quan- tity required five or ten times as much must be bought as can be used, and after making the selection the great bulk must be resold. You can see what an expense and trouble this would be. European manufacturers can buy just such qualities and in the quantities they require. . . . Free wool could not injure this State or any other State. It would greatly increase the demand for wool, and that is what makes the price." An English manufacturing agent travelling here was asked what he would do if the duty were taken off wool, and promptly replied : " I 'd bring all my machinery over here." Jesse Metcalf, of Waushuck Mills, R. I., said in Octo- ber, 1888: "With free wool we have not half enough machinery in this country to supply the demand for goods, and certainly we could not expect lower wages with such an increased demand for labor as would result. In the event of the passage of the Mills bill, I have prom- ised to erect a new mill, and I can conceive of no more profitable investment for our stockholders." In 1880, sixteen States, having a total capital of $77,- 605,839, invested in the manufacture of men's and boy's 234 PA'.IC7VC\IL RESULTS OF PKOTECTTON. clothing, employed 154,389 hands, and i)aid in wages $44,- 158,23s. They consuined material coslini^^ $112,049,595, and jiroduced clothing worth at wholesale $193,488,696, making a profit on the investment of 46 per cent, per annum. With this enormous profit, why have they not exported and competed with others in the markets of the world ? Because others, getting material free of duty, can under- sell them. If other nations get material cheaper and can undersell them, why do not their goods come here and compete with them ? Because of a prohibitory duty of from 66 per cent, to 166 per cent. Iniquity of iniquities ! and how long will a people who imagine themselves free and intelligent tolerate this thing ? The tariff on wool helps no one except the politicians. In 1824 England, which had hitherto protected wool, made it free, greatly to the alarm of wool growers, but straightway English wools rose in price, as did wool all over the world, and the number of sheep raised in that country was speedily doubled. There can be no doubt but that, if the United States should take a similar step, similar results would follow. LUMBER. " The standing pine tree in the forest is the raw mate- rial, and for that ' a round sum is paid,' and the con- version of the raw material into lumber is done by the sturdy stroke of the axe and solid days' work by this army of men, and the estimated cost of producing lumber is $13.50 per thousand feet. The average price received is $14.57, leaving $1.07 profit." — President J. A. Whittier, Saginaw Board of Trade before Tariff Commission, 1882. Stumpage is the privilege of cutting timber from the owner's land, and is the worm in the meal-tub. It is the " watered stock " of the lumber operators. LUMBER. 235 A prominent Chicago lumber merchant, before the same tariff commission, said : " The power of this associa- tion is getting to be a little dangerous, as it appears to me, and as it would appear by the rapid advance in stumpage. I remember some fifteen years ago the stump- age was generally estimated at 50 cents per thousand. His land cost him $r.25 to $2.50 an acre. He has a good profit at 50 cents. But if the stumpage of the Northwest is gradually gathered into a few hands, they have the power to form combinations that have the effect to bull up the price of lumber. ... I took occasion last evening to gather from my books some statistics of the cost of lumber for the last ten or fifteen years, and I have it accurately extended. I have been a lumber buyer in this market, and have probably bought during that time not less than 10,000,000, and from that to 25,000,000 feet. . , . Chicago does a business of exceeding 2,000,000,- 000 feet per year, making it by far the largest market on the globe for the sale of lumber. ... I notice that for the year prior to the fire, up to October 9, 187 r, lumber cost us $14.46 per M. I notice in the estimate of the Saginaw gentleman that they figure the absolute cost of lumber at $13.50 to the manufacturer. As the transpor- tation from Saginaw is $2 or $3 per M. — I have paid as high as $4, — you will see that they have been doing business at a tremendous loss, and that is the reason they are so wealthy now, I presume. " You will remember that when the world was weeping at Chicago's impoverished condition. Congress passed a law giving the rebuilders of the city a rebate upon glass, iron, and everything else in the way of construction material. The lumber interests, however, would not submit to a rebate, and this was the effect : lumber for 1872, follow- 23^ PRACTICAf. RESULTS OF PROTECTION. ing the fire, cost the jieojjlc $16.80 per M. That was the average cost the whole year. So it will be seen they were benefited to the extent of about $3.50 a thousand in con- sequence of the C'hicago fire. If the duty had been off, or the rebate had been allowed, the lumber dealers would not have been benefited to the same extent. But as it was, they made a great deal of money out of the Chicago fire. "For the year 1873, two years after the fire, the average cost of lumber was $12.72, a falling off of over $4 per M, Things were beginning to regulate themselves. " In 1875 it was $1 1.6S, a falling off of another dollar a thousand. " Now we strike the proper medium of trade, I presume, without the disturbing element of the Chicago fire. In 1876 it was $9.67, Saginaw losing a tremendous sight of money you see. I don't know how they can exist at all, " In 1877 it was $9.73. In 187S it was $9.66. " These figures I can verify by oath to any extent. But this, gentlemen, is what I wanted to call your attention to especially. In 1880 a little boom started, and the stump- age, being in fewer hands, could be easily handled, and an advance was made to $1 1.63 on the average. "In 1 88 1 it was still growing, and reached $13.92. In 1882 it cost between $14 and $15 a thousand. " This is the direction it has taken in consequence of the manipulation of the stumpage. I can see no earthly rea- son why the American interest should have any protec- tion. Only in one thing do I see that it applies. I believe that we can produce corn, pork, and beans in Illinois, and those are the things that enter into the lum- ber business. I do not see why a Canadian should work for $10 a month when by passing over an imaginary line into the United States he can get $20. I believe the LUMBER. 237 Canadian is paid equal to our labor here, and I see no sense in anything else, and I object to the proposition that he is not paid so well, unless it may be that provisions cost less in Canada, and, as I have before remarked, pork, corn, and beans is the power that runs the lumber business. "The Canadian has to pay anywhere from $1 up more for taking his lumber to market than the American does. The freight from Georgian Bay to Buffalo at present is $3 a thousand, while from Saginaw it is but $2 to our section here. There must be a margin against them of $2 per M. in the delivery of lumber. " The manufacturer of lumber in Michigan has other advantages. He utilizes his sawdust and sells his slabs for firewood. Having then the advantage of his offal and the advantage of $1 to $3 in the delivery of his lumber, I cannot for the life of me see why he should be further protected by the advantage of ^2 duty. "He admits that after paying a stumpage of $4.50, he still has a profit of $r.o7. Now let us throw off this %2 duty and give him a stumpage of $2.50. From Luding- ton east to the Saginaw valley there is an average oi 5,000 feet on each acre of ground. Giving him a stumpage tax of $2.50 would still pay him $12.50 an acre for every acre of that ground, even the barrens, by receiving $2.50 for each thousand of stumpage." Thus we see the $4.50 for stumpage is simply the " round sum " credited to themselves in figuring out the cost of lumber, and is thus swelled merely for the purpose of deceiving the public in regard to the actual amount of their profits, which with the liberal sum of $2.50 for stumpage are $3.07 per thousand instead of $1.07. But since 1882, owing to the rapid increase in the price of stumpage, the price of lumber has advanced rapidly. 238 PKACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. In 18S7 it was quoted from $16.50 to $20, and the stump- age at $10 per thousand. ** For the protection of American labor," they tell us, but it is notorious that the bulk of labor in our pine forest is by Canadians, who return home with their earn- ings each spring. Alex. G. Burman, of Manistee, at the head of the Knights of Labor for Michigan, transmitted to the press of the State the resolutions unanimously adopted asking the abolition of the tariff on lumber and stating the fol- lowing facts : ** Average prices five years ago : Wages to men in logging camps and board, $30 ; wages in and about saw-mills, without board, $40. Custom-mills received for manufacturing from $3.50 to $4.50 a thou sand ; pine stumpage, from $6 to $7 per thousand. At present wages in logging camps, per month, witi; board, $18 ; in and about saw-mills, without board, ^jc. Custom-mills to-day receive $1.50 to $2.75 per thousand, and stumpage figures at not less than $10." Ten dollars for stumpage and $18 for wages in the name of protection to American industry ! How has this robbery been made possible ? The theft, or the donation on the lumber which passes through Chicago alone, amounts to over $4,000,000 per year. Have any of you farmers and consumers, who have been contributing to this sum which has made the twelve barons who own the Michigan forests many times millionaires, been voting for protec- tion in recent years ? If so, how many kinds of cat's- paws do you think you have been, poking all of your own chestnuts into the fire to roast for another to eat ? That our millionaires have reaped the benefit of this tariff for many years is evidenced by the fact that they spend thousands to purchase seats in the United States SALT. 239 Senate for the very purpose of continuing the system, but the time comes when they wish a change to further advance their own fortunes. The McKinley tariff reduces the duty on lumber. On what conditions and for what purpose ? The lumber lords who own Michigan forests have nearly finished their cut, and have purchased enormous areas in Canada, which country has an export duty on logs, bolts, staves, etc. The McKinley tariff provides that if there shall be no export duty on any of these things, then the duty on some grades of lumber shall be reduced. But if there is an export duty on any of these things, then the old duties shall remain in force. Furthermore, the highest duties on finished lumber are unchanged in any event. The Billion-Dollar Congress, ever true to the interests of monopoly, have manipulated this tariff entirely in the interest of the millionaires. If it shall transpire that under this tariff the barons shall rob us somewhat less, it is only because the tariff is fixed so they may rob our Canadian cousins vastly more, by first depreciating their lands by tariff legislation, then gobbling them up at a small part of their value, and then transporting their logs here for manufacture, SALT. '* It is an attempt against the laws of Providence to force the people to pay more for what they need than the laws of Providence w^ould otherwise require, , , , The title of the bill should be changed to read : ' A bill to prevent the blessings of Divine Providence from being enjoyed by the people of the United States.' " — John A. Kasson, in Congress, 1866, Our annual product of salt is now over 7,000,000 bar- rels, of which nearly the half is produced in Michigan 240 rRACTICAI. RESULTS OF PROTECTION. from beds of salt rock underlying much of the State, underlying Lake Huron, and extending far under Canada. The sujiply is inexhaustible. Its manufacture by use of refuse of our lumber mills, which refuse would otherwise be an expensive burden to consume, is practically cost- less. This product nets the manufacturers about $5,000,- 000, and we are constantly told protection has made salt cheap. Grant it. It has never made it so cheap that the manufacturers have not been vociferous for the retention of the tariff to exclude British salt which free trade has made very much cheaper. With the United States Treasury groaning under a sur- plus we knew not how to spend, we collected last year duty on imported salt $706,324.34, a duty imposed for no purpose but to enable our manufacturers to impose a like addition of 44 per cent, to 85 per cent, on the legiti- mate price of their own product. If they were successful in this, of the $5,000,000 they received for salt last year at least $2,000,000 was the bonus we voted out of our pockets into theirs. That they were successful we are assured by their own claim, that if it were not for this tariff Canadian salt would undersell them. As the work in our own salt blocks is principally by Canadian labor- ers, it is difficult to see the force of the catastrophe, even if our manufacturers were forced to sell to us for $3,000,- 000 instead of $5,000,000. Salt is cheap. A barrel of salt is 280 pounds. An English ton is just eight times as much. Our manufac- turers seldom realize less than 65 cents to $r a barrel, Mr. J, J. Belden, of Syracuse, said in Congress that the price of salt in Liverpool was $1.87^ per ton, and the freight to New York was also $i.87|- per ton, without reference to duty. During the season of 1888 Syracuse SALT. 241 salt manufacturers contracted to deliver in New York salt at $3.15 per ton, or 60 cents less than actual cost of foreign salt in New York, duty free. Then certainly no duty is needed upon salt. Why are the manufacturers so urgently anxious to retain the duty, and what is the meaning of these constantly repeated attempts to organize a salt trust to embrace all America, except to take advantage of this duty and crowd the price to the highest point possible. Salt is cheap. I lately visited a salt plant, said to be the largest in the world. The output is 100 barrels an hour ; 2,000 barrels per day. Working 200 days in the year, they make 400,000 barrels. From the engineer who constructed the plant I obtained the following figures. He said he could duplicate the entire plant for ^100,000, calling interest at 6 per cent. The first item of cost is interest $6,000 Regular repairs he said could not exceed 2,000 Entire number of men employed, coopers, carriers, makers, and packers is 76. Average wages could not exceed $1.62; for 200 days 24,700 Barrels are made from mill refuse, by these 76 men ; only outlay is for hoops and nails, 4 cents on 400,000 is. . . . 16,000 Total cost of 400,000 barrels delivered on the dock is $48,700 Total cost of each barrel filled with salt is then i2j'V cents. 24 men make the salt, i r others pack it and 41 others includes the coopers and others who make the barrels, handle, deliver them, etc. Four hundred thousand barrels at the low price of 65 cents are worth $260,000. Deducting the cost, $48,700, leaves an annual profit of $2 1 1,300. On an investment of $100,000 this is a profit of over 211 per cent., besides the 6 per cent interest given at the start. 16 24- PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PKOTECTTON. After the farmer has been at twenty years' expense to raise an orchard, it costs him more to pick and barrel his apples than it costs to produce a barrel of salt, and more- over it often costs him more to cart them to the nearest town than it costs to ship the salt i,ooo miles. Can some farmer please tell me just why he continues to vote to pay a tariff on salt ? Mr. Whiting, of Michigan, in his speech in Congress said that he was himself a salt manufacturer, and that he was not afraid of foreign competition. He confirmed all that had been said concerning the necessity of having foreign salt for dairy purposes, on account of its peculiar chemical properties. A great many people are buying English salt at $2.50 a sack although American salt can be had at %\ a barrel. Mr. Whiting said he thought the farmers ought to have the duty taken off from foreign salt, and he was not afraid to compete on even terms with the world. Whether the duty is added to the price of the American product or not it is certainly added to the imported salt as every purchaser knows, and it becomes an enormous tax on dairymen, and the discrimination against them in giving the wealthy packing-houses a rebate of the duty on imported salt cannot be characterized without profanity. Said Eugene Hale, of Maine, in Congress in 1871, I be- lieve there is no question about which the reflection of millions of people day by day is so decided as it is in declaring that there should be no tax on this article of salt. I believe this article should go on the free list. James A. Garfield, at the same time said : " I know, moreover, that for two years the wholesale price of Ameri- can salt in Toronto, Canada, was a dollar lower a barrel than the same salt was selling for on the New York side COAL. 243 of the lake. That is, we produced it, shipped it across, paying whatever of taxes, freights, and transportation were required, and then sold it to our Canadian neighbors at a dollar less per barrel than it was sold to people on our shores." I would not claim that the whole tariff is at all times added to the price of American salt. Perhaps at times nothing is added. If so the tariff is of none effect. Why retain it ? It certainly has robbed us of millions of dollars in the past and is a constant menace for the future. So long as the duty remains there is a constant tempta- tion to salt men to combine and force the price up to that of foreign salt with freight and duty added. It was asked and retained only that they might be enabled to do so. Salt is cheap, but for my own part I prefer to send five bushels of wheat to England and exchange for salt at half the price here and get a good hat besides, rather than be compelled to sell my wheat here for sixty cents a bushel, deprive my cattle of salt, and pay the whole $3 for an American protected hat the like of which is sold in England for six shillings. COAL. " If there was no duty on coal between Canada and the United States, I think the Nova Scotia region would supply Canadian territory east of Montreal and most of the State of Maine, and perhaps some in Boston ; and Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana would supply all the territory west of Mon- treal to the Rocky Mountains. We would supply ten miles of territory to their one." — Galusha A. Grow, January, 1S90. The world's production of coal is estimated at 462,- 061,000 tons ; of this the United States produces 26 per cent. We exported in 1889, 841,798 tons and imported 244 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PKOTECTJON. 1,130,4^1 tons. More than half our export was to Quebec and Ontario Nearly 300,000 tons went to Cuba and West Indies, and 17,844 tons of our coal went to England. 889,819 tons of our import was from Australia and British Columbia to supply our Pacific Coast States which are practically destitute of coal. The average value of our export was $2.93 per ton and the average value of the imported was $3.46, showing plainly that our imports were to regions not accessible to our own coal-fields. The additional burden of seventy- five cents, duty on each imported ton was of course a great tax to the consumer of imported coal. Why do we impose this tax on coal ? Simply because if there were no tariff New England would buy coal in Nova Scotia. The tariff compels her to buy of Pennsylvania, and the wicked wax fat. New England is practically destitute of coal, but con- sumes in round numbers 5,000,000 tons. Nature planted this for her in Nova Scotia, but Congress compels her to buy of Pennsylvania at a loss of $3,750,000 a year. There is not a man, woman, or child in America who uses New England products who is not interested in her having cheap coal. The coal veins in Nova Scotia vary in thickness from four feet to fifteen. The fields are owned by the govern- ment but not operated by it. She grants mining licenses for a term of years at the uniform rate of nine and seven- tenths cents per ton. Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania, testified before Congress that Pennsylvania and Ohio mine coal cheaper than it is done in Nova Scotia. It is not then a question of protecting labor. Coal-mining is done by contract in both places. In Nova Scotia miners are paid forty-five to fifty-five cents a gross ton. In the United COAL. 245 States the price varies from fifty-one to fifty-six cents. The difference in cost is in the bonus the owners take. Nova Scotia asks less than ten cents. Pennsylvania owners would take as many dollars, if we gave them tariff high enough. The cost for freight from Pennsylvania to New Eng- land is $2.60 per ton. From Nova Scotia, if imported largely, it need be but 80 cents. Why compel ourselves to pay this enormous dead loss } If coal were free, freight charges would prevent Nova Scotia coal coming this side of New England, but it would meet our coal there and affect the price of both bituminous and anthra- cite (which is on the free list) to every consumer in the land. If coal were free all Canada east of the Rockies to within 100 miles would be supplied by the United States, and all New England would be supplied by Nova Scotia cheaper than it is possible the United States can ever supply her. Why should there be a tariff at all since both would gain by the reciprocal concession ? Several years ago a company of enterprising young Bostonians organized to develop coal production in Nova Scotia. They succeeded so well that they reduced the price in the city one dollar, and were prospering when the tariff was enacted, and they were forced into bank- ruptcy, and many of them lost their entire fortune. Such is paternalism. Why is the tariff imposed ? Simply to benefit a few millionaires. The effect on their laborers will be con- sidered in another chapter. The effect on consumers we well understand. " A great mistake was committed by our fathers in allowing coal, mineral, and salt lands to pass into indi- vidual ownership, instead of reserving it to the 2.\0 rRACTICAI. RESULTS OF PROTECTION. govcrnnicnt, the latter cliarging a nominal royalty for dovclopmcnt. But for the government to confer upon the fortunate owners of coal lands the additional pre- rogative for exclusively supplying the country with coal, by excluding the foreign article, is more than a mistake, it is a crime. It is the surrender of a portion of the people's earnings into the hands of greedy speculators. The amount of the tax on foreign coal does not as materially affect its introduction as does the fact that this prescriptive system of production is the settled policy of our government." Almost every acre of available coal lands has passed from private parties into the hands of a powerful and un- scrupulous syndicate. A few wealthy gentlemen assemble annually at Saratoga or Delmonico's to discuss the situa- tion of the coal market. " They are not there for the purpose of ascertaining how an abundance of fuel at a reasonable price can be secured to the country. The very thought of plenty and cheapness is repugnant to them. It is through scarcity and high prices that they expect to reap a bounteous harvest. The only question with these gentlemen is, ' What is the total sum we can safely extort from the people the coming year. How much of this sort of robbery will the patient people stand ? ' The fact that the bread of the families of 100,000 miners is dependent upon their decision, that hundreds of thousands of families all through the country will suffer for the want of fuel during a prolonged winter, does not enter into their computations for an instant. At their adjournment the ukase is sent forth that so many tons of coal, and no more, shall be mined the coming season." " A generation since, the most important coal lands were covered with the prettiest farms and the wildest mountain forests in the United States. . . . They were worth 50 cents to $50 an acre. They were bought IRON. 247 up by speculators who sold them to the companies at ten to twenty times the cost. . . . Railroad schemes were taken in hand by the same companies. Roads were built and were then saddled with additional stock capital, making the stock capital three or four times the real cost. . . The swollen total at which the capitalization of the coal companies now stands was obtained by adding the drop- sical mining stock to the dropsical railroad stock, . . . One of the sights which this coal side of our civilization has shown is the presence of herds of little children of all ages, from six upwards, at work in the coal breakers, toiling in dirt, the air thick with carbon dust, from dawn to dark of every day of th^ week except Sunday. These coal breakers are the only schools they know. . . . There are no schools in the world where more evil is learned or more innocence destroyed than in the breakers." — Henry D. Lloyd, North American Review. In the name of Protection to American industry, and American consumers still voting for this iniquity ! Well, well! Let us never say well. It is wrong, wrong! Have we not been the suffering dupes of this system long enough ? IRON. ** Who pay these taxes? When the manufacturer of iron comes to the Senate and says, ' I can live, or I can make a profit, if a certain duty is imposed,' what is he saying? He is simply saying, ' If you give me a certain duty, you put it in ray power to charge over that duty as an additional tax on the farmers of the United States.' . . . These manufacturers were not willing to enlarge their production, and thereby meet the entire American demand, but preferred to manufac- ture a limited supply at enormously increased profits." — Senator Plumb, January, i8go. The effect of tariffs on iron has been pretty carefully traced in the historical portion of this work. It will be 2.4S rKACT/CAl. KF.sr/.TS OF PROTECTION. nnu'inl)t.icHl that early in tlie past century we were ex- porting iron to England, never dreaming that the higher wages prevailing in this country made it impossible for us to do so. It remains to look carefully after the effect of the present tariff. In 1S89 we used in this country 14,960,846 tons of ore. Of this we produced over fourteen millions, and we imported 853,573 tons. The Northwest or Superior region produced 7,492,754 tons, but as that region is destitute of coal nearly all of this was shipped to Cleveland and other manufacturing centres to be smelted. The South produced less than two million tons, and as they mine iron near the surface, and find both coal and iron just at hand, they can make iron cheaper than any other locality in this country or out of it. The Southern ores are, however, non-Bessemer, and consequently less valuable. A Bessemer ore is one con- taining less than one tenth of one per cent, phosphorus, and may be used in making Bessemer steel. When No. I non-Bessemer is quoted at $3.75 per ton. No. i Besse- mer is worth $5.50. The relative production of Bessemer iron is rapidly on the increase, but we are not at all able to keep up with the relative increase in demand for it. We produced in 1889, 7,603,846 tons of pig-iron, and 3,151,412 tons were Bessemer, and to reach this produc- tion we imported nearly a million tons of Bessemer ores. Most of our Bessemer ore is from the Superior district. The labor cost of mining and delivering on cars varies from less than fifty cents to something over a dollar. It is officially reported as .978 per ton, while the entire cost including lumber, oil, etc., etc., is $1,284. The Cleve- land Iron Company, by no means the richest of them, declared net dividends in ten years following 1877, of IRON. 249 $2,590,000, amounting to $1.35 per ton for every ton mined, to say nothing of the improvements or the water they may have added in the meantime. It is customary to pay a royalty of fifty cents per ton to the owners of the land, which is, of course, excessive, and makes the owners of the land, as well as the operators, many times millionaires. Escanaba is the largest iron-ore shipping point in the world. Freights from there to Cleveland are 85 cents a ton, and from Marquette %\.\o. Geo. H. Ely testified before the Ways and Means Committee that the average prices of ore delivered at Cleveland were $3.75 for No. i non-Bessemer, and for No. i Bessemer $5.50. The cost of producing a ton of non-Bessemer pig is reported as follows : At Cleveland $11.92 In Alabama 10.79 At Salem, Virginia Q-SS- The cost of producing a ton of Bessemer pig is as follows: In Susquehanna region from Superior ores M7.29 Schuylkill " " imported " . . 14.65 At seaboard " mixed " . . 13.75 " Cleveland " Superior " . . 13.58 In England 18.03 " " before the rise in the cost of ore and coke 11.76. The explanation of the cheapness of producing Besse- mer pig at the seaboard is this : Lake Superior ore con- tains enough phosphorus to barely fall within the Bessemer limit. Vast quantities of ores barely fall outside. Cuban ores are practically free from phosphorus, and by mixing with our ores the product is Bessemer iron. Here is another case where the rule laid down regard- ing imported wool applies. These ores are needed to combine and not to compete with ours. If they were 2t;o ruAcrrcAi. Kr.sri.rs or protection. admitted free it would advance the price of our cheap ores that we mix with them. It would cheapen the cost of iron at the seaboard so that we could compete with all the world. It is seen by the prices given that iron from this mixture of ores could not interfere with the price of our non-Bessemer product, and freights would prevent their shipment to the interior or west of the Alleghanies, but it would give a wonderful impetus to the manufactures, enterprise, and commerce of our sea- board cities. Free ore would then result in untold profit without possible injury to any one. Why, then, is the duty retained ? Simply that the millionaires who operate the Lake Superior mines, and do not and cannot supply suffi- cient Bessemer ore for our needs, by constant shortage may crowd the price up to the highest extortion possible. How different would be the result were our ship-build- ers given the same chance for raw material as those of England. We have given to Great Britain the iron ship- building of the world, and the tariff on ore is now effect- ually throttling our export trade in all the more bulky iron products, and is a tax extorted from our whole manu- facturing seaboard to further benefit a few whose profits would still be enormous in any case. Since very little of their ore can reach this district, the desire of the Lake Superior miners is to drive the production of steel from the seaboard, just as the production of iron has been driven from New England. Hon. A. S. Hewitt said before the Tariff Commission : " In New Jersey and in Pennsylvania there is not a pound of ore — and I mine at least 100,000 tons a year — that is not put on the cars for less money that the freight from Africa or Spain to New York. The reason why these foreign ores come in is because they are low in phos- IRON, 251 phorus, while most of the American ores, I am sorry to say, have a Httle too much phosphorus in them to make steel. Every ton of foreign ore that comes in here makes a market for two of American ore, that otherwise could not be used, and does not reduce the price, because our ore is already sold for half the price of the foreign ore laid down here." L. S. Bent, President of Pennsylvania Steel Company, said : " Practically all the ore imported into this country is used for steel purposes, and there is, therefore, absolute absence of competition between imported and native ore, because all of the native Bessemer ore is already sold and the foreign ore is required to fill an absolute shortage of raw material." Mr. Bent said further : '* There are in Virginia deposits said to be large, of quasi-Bessemer ore, which can prob- ably be used as a mixture by an addition of the purer imported ores. At our works at Baltimore we shall require 1,000,000 tons of ore annually, but without the foreign ores to mix with it we cannot use one ton of Virginia ore in our works." Mr. Bent said : *' At the present mom.ent, to my per- sonal knowledge, there are 75 steamers chartered to bring ore to this country, and all of these steamers are rechar- tered to carry back corn from Baltimore." Formerly freight rates were based on the outward ship- ment alone, on the assumption that they would be obliged to return in ballast. By increasing our imports of ore from the Mediterranean, vessels are dependent on both grain and ore for their earnings, and not upon grain alone. " One of the ship-owners who has been long en- gaged in this trade declared that the policy of discour- aging the import of foreign ores has cost the farmers 252 rKACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. millions of dollars in extra freight on their farm products. The free importation of ore would therefore be a direct benefit t.i the American farmer." No figures have yet been shown from any mine of con- sequence in this country that indicate a labor cost of ore, as put upon the cars, of over $r.25 per ton, while in the great majority of cases the labor cost of ore on the cars at the mines is a great deal less than a dollar. There is not a single port whence ores can be shipped to any port on our seaboard where the freight rates are not above $2, that is to say, even if the foreign mine-owner got his labor for nothing. The cost for transportation alone is so great as to leave the American mine-owner no excuse for asking any protection to enable him to pay the same or higher wages than he is doing now. Since the cost of transportation is such that no ore but Bessemer can be imported, and since we have a domestic overplus of ores slightly below Bessemer grade, which could be used by mixing them with Bessemer ore, every ton imported makes it profitable to mine an additional ton of American ore that could otherwise not have found a market. Knowing these facts, who can support a tariff on ores or iron ? STEEL AND IRON PRODUCTS. •* My observation has taught me that the greatest obstacle to American competition in foreign markets, to nearly every class of goods, is the high price of our raw material. Take off the duty and we will send our goods everywhere. Wages would increase here under such a system rather than become lower." — J. B. Sargent, August, 1888. The effect of the tariff on steel rails is well understood by every one familiar with the true history of our tariffs, STEEL AND IRON PRODUCTS. 253 and is very plainly and conclusively shown by the table on page 180. J. A. Lindquist says : " Ever since 1878 the cost of steel rails, including every item, from the coal and iron mine to the finished product delivered at the cars, but excluding profits at each stage, has been as low here as in England, and generally lower — especially so for the last few years, when the excessive price of coke alone has made a difference of $3 a ton in favor of American steel. . . . The mine-owners, being protected by a tariff of seventy-five cents per ton, have, however, been willing to supply at foreign rates all the ore wanted in slack seasons, and have done so at a fair profit, as shown by their dividend statements. Whenever the demand has largely increased, they have taken advantage of the fact that it is a matter of years to develop new mines, and have charged a profit of seventy-five cents a ton extra for their ores. The pig-iron manufacturer, in turn, when supplied with ore at a reasonable price, could and did sell at a profit (as shown by the dividend statement) pig- iron more cheaply than it could be imported duty free. Previous to 1883 the duty was $7 a ton, but in 18S3 was reduced to $6.72. When the demand largely increased they paid, therefore, the ore producers, without complaint, their seventy-five cents per ton extortion, thus adding to the cost of their own product $1.50 to $1.75 per ton, and, taking advantage of the tariff, raised the price of pig-iron to about $7 a ton higher than it otherwise would have been, thus making %\ or $5 extra profits for themselves. The steel-rail manufacturers, in turn, as long as they were supplied with their raw material as cheaply as were their English rivals, could and did make steel rails more cheaply than they could be imported duty free. When 2 54 PKACT/CAL A'ESULTS OF PKOTECTION. tlic dcmaiul increased sufficiently, however, they were only too glad to pay the i)ig-iron men their $6.72 to $7 excessive profit — which included, as shown above, the $1.50 or $1.75 excessive profit to ore producers, — and the duty on steel rails, being at first $28 then $17 per ton, charged American consumers as nearly as possible that amount of extra bonus. In some cases they were so overdoing the matter that rails were actually imported and sold here, duty paid, for railroads to be built to their own mills. The unity of interest, therefore, between ore producer, pig-iron manufacturer, and rail-maker has been perfect, and has been scarcely more so in those numerous instances where the same company combined all three classes of business — as in the case of the Cambria Company, and many others. " As to the laborer, however, the case is different. His wages, being fixed by the scale of prices in time of cheap- ness to continue over a period of time, cannot be so easily raised when prices rise. There has never been a time when the total labor cost of mining the ore, the coal, and the limestone, transporting them to the furnace, and making the pig-iron has been equal to the duty on the pig-iron, and there has never been a time when the total labor cost in the steel rails, including all that noted above in the pig-iron, has been equal to three fourths of the duty on the steel rails. Steel-rail manufacturers do not deny this, but they admit it to be true. " The cost of ore, coal, and limestone production has not increased here. Meanwhile the demand has enabled Mr. Carnegie and his protected brethren to put up the price, which was $27 in May and June, 1889, to $32, and the committee of steel-rail manufacturers has been stirring heaven and earth to prevent the tariff from being lowered STEEL AND IRON PRODUCTS. 255 to $11.20 a ton." They finally succeeded in fixing the McKinley tariff at $13.44. The high protectionist contractors for the State capitols of Texas and Kansas found it more profitable to import steel beams and pay duties amounting to $28 per ton than to yield to the demand of the ring composed of Carnegie, Phipps, & Co., and eleven other iron companies which control the American product. On structural steel, beams, shapes, etc., the factors of cost are much the same as in steel rails, but the duty is higher and the extortion greater, and the McKinley tariff fixes the rate as high as $46 a ton. The Bessemer patent of making steel rails, an English invention, was purchased by an American syndicate, consisting of about a dozen iron-mill companies, which formed a close pooling corporation in 1877. They had to reduce the old-process price of $80 to $100 a ton in order to make a market. They were protected by a $28 duty until 1883 when it was made $17 a ton. The Indian railways purchased their rails at from $16 to $20 a ton, while our octopus was selling to American railways at the same time at from $35 to $40 a ton. This made a difference in the cost of railroads constructed in a single year of over $30,000,000. When our syndicate charges $40 a ton, English rails compete after paying $17 duty. If free they would sell at $23, and at this price our men make a large profit. What, then, is the tariff continued for .? SHIPBUILDING. Thomas J. Curran, an ardent protectionist, testified before the Senate Committee that "by letting in free ships,— that is, giving foreign ships American registry and 2 5^1 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. pcnnittin<; tliLMu to sail under the American flag, you will take the bread from the families of many American work- men. You will deprive American workingmen of a great deal of work — taking it away from them and giving it to England." On cross-examination he testified that "the workingmen on the Clyde receive better wages ; they receive at least $+ a week more than they do on the Delaware," and that necessaries of life are cheaper in England than here. He was further questioned as follows: " The wages of workingmen being higher on the Clyde, have you any well-formed opinion as to why we cannot, or do not, build ships on the Delaware as cheaply as they are built on the Clyde ? " " Well, you take capital that is invested in England or Scotland, and the capitalist, if he can get 4 per cent, or 4^ per cent, on his money, is content to put it into manu- facturing business. But it is not so with the capitalist here. If a capitalist here cannot make 15 per cent, or 20 per cent, on his capital he is not going to put it into manufacturing." " Then it is because capital here is not satisfied with the return which capital invested in shipbuilding in Eng- land is satisfied with. Is that the reason ?" " Yes, sir." Mr. Curran's silence regarding the duty on the raw material entering into the building of iron ships, amount- ing to 43 per cent, on the average, can only be explained by the fact that he is one of the beneficiaries of this tariff robbery. It is, of course, the chief obstacle to ship- building. After warning the Commission that a reduction of the tariff on ships would take the bread out of the mouths of thousands of workingmen, he is forced to the singularly contradictory statement that the English workmen on the STEEL AND IRON PRODUCTS. 257 Clyde receive higher wages and enjoy more of the com- forts of life than the American shipbuilder, but that the difficulty in competing with England is due to the greater greed of the American manufacturer capitalist. If the duty on raw material were removed, the American shipbuilder could not only compete but undersell his English competitor. Free trade in ships would compel the boss shipbuilders to be content with reasonable profits. Reasonable profit on ore and pig would revive the shipbuilding industry ; employment would be given to thousands of laborers who are now crowding into other industrial branches. Ocean transportation, now monopo- lized by England, would be restored to this country, where it rightfully belongs. Commerce would give employment to many thousands of our idlers, the in- creased demand for laborers would advance wages, while comforts would be cheapened and multiplied. Millions would indulge in comforts which are now monopolized by the millionaire ironmongers. Mr. J. B. Sargent is said to be the largest manufacturer of hardware in this country. His choicest goods, involv- ing the most and the highest-priced labor, as his choicest locks, he finds that he can produce more cheaply than they can in Europe, and he is now exporting largely of them. But protection makes the case very different in articles requiring very much raw material. He says : *' In articles requiring a large amount of labor, and a comparatively small amount of raw material, we can hold our own with any foreigners. Where the raw material is large in proportion to labor the English- man is on top. If the duty on iron were removed I, for one, would take 10 per cent, of the saving to undersell the English foreign markets. I would add 10 per cent, to 258 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. the wages of my men, and the other 10 per cent, would lodge nicely in my ])ocket." The Michigan car works are owned principally and con- trolled by Michigan's millionaire senator and his brothers, who have made their millions off Michigan iron. I clip the following from the protectionist organ, the Detroit Tribune, oi April 27, 1891. " ANOTHER STRIKE. " The trouble this time is at the Michigan car works. " * There are some 2,500 men employed in the works,' said one of the most intelligent of the men last night, * and the average wages paid for ten hours* work is about $1.25 per day. In the winter time, the season when the living expenses are the highest, the shops only run nine hours, and the men suffer a proportionate reduction in their pay. Fully 90 per cent, of the men are working for $1.10 a day. Ten per cent, reduction from this leaves ninety-nine cents a day, which is the exact wages these men have received during the winter. In addition to this, they have sometimes had only two or three days' work in the week. Now how can you expect a man to live and support a family on ninety-nine cents a day ? . . .' " * What class of men are engaged in the strike ? ' " ' Three quarters of them are Poles. That is where the trouble lies. It is the Poles who are ruining this country. They will work for anything and live on nothing, and starve other people off the earth. The remainder of the men are German, Irish, and Scotch.' "W. C. McMillan, general manager of the company, says the men had no grievances whatever so far as the company knew. COPPER. 259 They are paid more than the employees of similar establishments in other cities with which we are forced to compete,' said he ; ' I could name you other manufac- tories right here in Detroit where the wages of the employees are much lower than they are at our works. The fact is they ought to consider themselves fortunate to get the wages they do.' " In the name of protection to American labor ! ! ! Is heaven locked in slumber ? Has the Creator for- gotten his creatures ? Or has he made us the arbiters of our own fortunes ? And have we ourselves for a hundred years voted our substance into the hands of a few iron- mongers in the name of protection to American labor, while they exclude the American and import the most degraded pauper labor, and, while rolling in their mil- lions, pay the laborer less than can keep soul and body together, and then recite to the public this clap-trap that "the men had no grievances whatever," and that the dis- tressed toilers " ought to consider themselves fortunate ? " COPPER. " The mine-owners have publicly stated that they are able to produce more than all the copper this country consumes, and a large part of it at a cost not exceeding 6 cents per pound, and that they proposed to the French bankers, who held enormous unsold stocks, to fix the selling price at about 13 cents a pound, more than double the cost. . . . There will in all probability be a revision of the tariff next winter. The party in power . . . will be strongly pressed to cut off duties where no defence appears to be needed, or where it seems to be not deserved. . . . Under such circumstances the demand for the removal of all duty on copper ore, pig, and bars will be difficult to resist."— 7V^. Y. Tribune, May 15, 1889. The tariff of 1846 left copper ore on the free list. Pigs, bars, and ingots of old copper were dutied at 5 per cent., 26o /'A'.ir77i\ir RESULTS OF PROTECTION. aiul luamitacturcil copper from 20 to 30 per cent. In 1S57 pigs, bars, and ingots of old copper were added to the free list, and duties on manufactured copper were reduced to 15 and 24 per cent. The duties of this decade were the lowest we have ever had since we began to produce copper to any amount. The census shows that the production of copper in this country increased in this decade from 650 tons to 7,200 tons, or over 1,000 per cent. The production of Lake Superior region increased from 572 tons to 5,388 tons. Our exports of manufactured copper and brass amounted to $105,060 in 1850, and to $1,664,122 in i860, an increase of 1,400 per cent. We exported to England in 1850 $14,253, and in i860, $522,333. In 1850 we imported ores from Cuba and Chili amounting to $195,332, and in ten years these imports increased to $1,031,493. Importations of sheathing copper in plates decreased from $715,614 to $87,577, and of manufactured articles the decrease was from $330,197 to $23,271. In i860 there were forty-seven mining establishments, with a capital of $8,525,500, employing 5,153 laborers, and producing $3,361,222 of product ; so the industry was well established under comparative free trade, and no thanks are due to protection for it. Under the free-copper tariff of 1857 copper was cheaper in this country than in England. This lasted for five years, and in this time our exports of manufactured goods increased from $607,054 to $-',375,029, or over 290 per cent. Our miners were prosperous. We smelted large quantities of foreign ores, which we paid for by exporting cotton goods, and we had practical control over the Canadian markets for the products of our copper and brass mills. COPPER. 261 In Dr. Percy's Metallurgy we read : '* The smelter by having at hand a variety of ores may render any one profitable which otherwise could have no value. Fre- quently copper can be extracted at less cost by smelting several ores together than by smelting one ore by itself " The mines in the States along the Atlantic coast produce sulphurets. The ores of Cuba and Chili are chiefly carbonates. Sulphurets could, by a long series of processes, be smelted and refined alone. Carbonates could not. Combined they act as fluxes for each other and thus lower the cost, hence the smelters along the Atlantic have always protested against any duty on foreign ores. Our mining, manufacturing, and exporting of copper increased most wonderfully in the decade of free trade, and our imports fell off largely except of ores, in which our imports increased. The price of copper in i860 was lower than ever before. During the war duties were increased and the Lake Superior miners became millionaires and demanded more and more. In 1868 Senators Chandler and Howard of Michigan, made desperate efforts to increase the duty on ores, saying : " It is the introduction of foreign ores that troubles us, not the importation of sheet brass." Senator Ferry of Connecticut opposed it and said : " It is true that the effect of this bill is to destroy the business of smelting from ores." The bill passed but was vetoed by President Johnson, who said : " The enactment of this bill will prove detrimental to the shipping interests of the nation, and at the same time will destroy the business, for many years successfully established, of smelting home ores, in connection with a smaller amount of those imported from Chili and Cuba. . . . The enactment 262 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. of such a law is urged as necessary for the relief of certain mining interests on Lake Superior, which, it is alleged, are in a depressed condition and can only be sustained by an enhancement of the price of copper. If this result should follow the passage of the bill, a tax for the exclusive benefit of a single class would be imposed upon the consumers of copper throughout the entire country, not warranted by any need of the government, and the avails of which would not in any degree find their way into the Treasury of the nation." But the bill was passed over the President's veto on February 2j, 1869, and Chili and Cuba have ever since bought their manufactures from England instead of from us. Senators Morrill and Sumner opposed this bill as ruinous to our shipping and shipbuilding, and - a year later the House appointed a committee to investigate the causes of the decline of American shipping. Practical shipbuilders testified : " The act of last winter is a prohibitory tariff so far as copper is concerned. Ships that require to be re-coppered take a freight, which they know is not profitable, for the purpose of getting to England, in order to make a saving on their copper." Now what is the result of this enormous duty on copper, which has been maintained for more than twenty years ? Henry McShane, iron-, brass-, and bell-founder of Baltimore, Brooklyn, and New York, testified : " The mining companies resort to export annually in order to maintain high prices at home. It is a conceded fact that . . . these companies, at a time when they were commanding nineteen cents in New York, delivered a large quantity free in Havre at sixteen cents. . . . If we had copper as cheaply as England, I could find sale for many thousands of dollars' worth of bells and ' COPPER. 263 Other brass goods in foreign countries annually, giving employment to an increased number of workmen in this country." Mr. J. B. Sargent testified before the Tariff Commission of 1882 that the price of American copper is five cents a pound higher here than in England or Germany, and said : " So the American manufacturer is protected five cents a pound out of pocket on what is used in this country, and is stopped from manufacturing copper or brass goods for export." The Engineering and Mining Journal says : " The price of copper in England has been governed by the price here, and this is kept to our customers at about four or five cents above the rate at which we sell to foreigners. . . . It it more than probable that with a reduction to the extent of the duty, nearly all the copper exported would be as manufactures." In 1888 the copper which we consumed cost us $5,700,000 more than our copper producers would charge for the same amount of copper at the rate they sold to foreigners. Of this robbery the syndicate secured about $2,000,000 and the mine-owners $3,700,000. Five of the Lake Superior mines pay annually in dividends about $2,000,000, or from 40 per cent, to 125 per cent, annual profit on the capital invested. It is shown also that under cover of the tariff the rollers of sheet copper in this country extort from four to eight cents per pound extra profit. When the lowest- priced sheet copper in this country is twenty-two cents, the same sells in England at thirteen and one half, and our highest-priced copper here worth twenty-seven cents finds its equal there at sixteen and three quarters. Remember always that under the free-copper tariff of 264 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION, 1857 coi)i)fr was cheaper here than in England, and we increased our product rapidly, showing that it was certainly profitable to produce it. The effect of the tariff has been to shut our manu- factures out from the markets of the world and to limit them to the markets of this country. In i860 we exported of manufactured copper $1,664,122. In 1888, after thirty years of protection, we exported but $408,195. In the same year we exported of crude copper $8,750,000, which was sold abroad for millions less than the monop- olists were asking or exacting from our own people. In Blaine's reply to Gladstone he says, we export more brass and copper goods to Canada than does Great Britain. So we do. In 1888 we exported to all British America $135,600 of brass and copper goods, but under free trade we exported to Canada, in 1859, $230,690. Said a manufacturer in Massachusetts : " We might have the whole of the Canadian trade if we could get our copper as cheaply as the English." Remembering that the English get their copper from us, the statement is humiliating in the extreme. In conclusion. If all duties on copper were repealed, no foreign copper, except in ore, would be imported, for even now we export 35,000 tons of copper annually, and sell it abroad in competition with foreign copper. Copper ores would be imported to assist by their smelting properties in increasing and cheapening the production of American copper from American ores. The combination of sheet-copper rollers would be forced to lower their prices to such as would yield them a fair and not exorbitant profit. The markets for American copper and brass goods would not be restricted to our own country, but we TIN. 265 would be able to send abroad the greater part, if not all, of our surplus copper in the form of manufactured articles. The consumption of copper in all forms would greatly increase here because of its cheapness. With ores on the free list, the mines of the Atlantic States will be re-opened and trade with Cuba and Chili be resumed, and " if the Government will only take its hands off, we, and not Great Britain, will control the copper business of the world. That again would mean cheaper copper for all our industries than the citizens of any other nation could get, more and more miners and smelters engaged in producing it, and more and more skilled workmen engaged in manufacturing it to supply not merely our increased home consumption but a great and increasing export trade." TIN. " The existing tariff presents the anomaly of placing a higher duty upon the sheet-iron and steel, which constitute the chief element in the production of tin-plate, than upon the tin-plate itself, which is a manifest wrong. ... I want to read a letter which I will print in my remarks, with the statements of more than a dozen leading men, representing capital to the amount of thirty, forty, or fifty millions, who say that if this duty is put upon tin-plate they will at once embark in the manufacture." — Major McKinley, House, May 7, 1890. Strange it never dawned upon the intellect of the great McKinley that the " manifest wrong " could be righted by reducing the duty on sheet-iron and steel. Previous to 1842 tin-plate was not taxed. In that year a duty of 2^ per cent, was levied. In 1846 it was increased to 15 per cent, and in 1857 it was reduced to 8 per cent. In 1861 it was raised to 10 per cent., and in 266 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. 1862 to 25 per cent., in 1875 it was changed to a specific rate of one and one tenth cents, and by the constant decline in price the percentage of duty is constantly advancing. Under the McKinley tariff the rate is increased , to two and one fifth cents, taking effect July I, 1891. Why do we not make tinned plate ? I quote the following from the New York Press, the paid organ of the tin-plate Protectionists : " South Dakota and Montana are known to contain rich deposits of tin ore. Professor Bailey, United States Geologist for Montana, says that the tin-bearing rock in the region of the Black Hills contains veins more than fifty feet in thickness, which average much better than the tin ores of Cornwall. He thinks there is enough tin there to supply the world, and that it is impossible to imagine this great body of tin ore as ever being exhausted. Congressman Dalzell quotes an authority as saying that the crystals of tin in the Black Hills are easily separable and yield about 65 per cent, of metallic tin, while the Cornish ores now do not average forty-five pounds of block tin to the ton, or 2\ per cent." — February 16, 1889. " Tin-plates can be made in this country with natural gas cheaper than with coal as fuel in England." — January 24, 1889. Tinned plate as now made consists of the very best quality of Bessemer and Siemens-Martin steel, the sheets being cold rolled, pickled, and annealed, coated with block tin, polished, and packed in oak boxes and delivered. And for this article the maker at present prices receives less than three cents a pound, boxes included. " The same quality of sheet steel, without the cutting to size, coating with tin, packing in boxes, or delivering free on TIN. 267 Steamer, costs to-day, from our American manufacturer, after more than forty years' experience, four cents a pound or more." In view of the length of time the iron and steel indus- tries have been protected here, will some one please compute the time and experience these steel workers will require before they will make tinned plate for three cents a pound, while for the cheapest material in it — making 95 per cent, of its bulk — they now charge four cents? Is not Mr. Kasson's remark a truthful one when he says : " It is an attempt against the laws of Providence to force the people of this country to pay more for what they need than the laws of Providence would otherwise require," Nothing is more common than the pretence that the increased duty on tin-plate is to make tin cheaper. The sincerity of the claim can be judged from such utterances as the following in the Senate when the bill was under consideration : " The free admission of iron in steel sheets coated with tin or lead . . . would cause a substitution of imported tin-plates or sheets in most cases for roofing and other building purposes, and for domestic uses where galvanized or other sheet-iron or steel is now used." That is, better material than their own, for roofing and other purposes, is so cheap that their own profits are endangered, and they ask that the consumers be compelled to use the poorer material they themselves furnish or be forced to pay a much higher price than now for tin. But what can we say of that jewelled sentence of rhetorical and economic lore found in the Senate Com- mittee's Report: "The framers of the bill have not hesitated to erect barriers which would carry confidence and comfort into American homes." " Barriers " " carry- ing " anything is pretty good, but when barriers to cheap 268 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. purchases come to carry comforts to our homes logic, rhetoric, and reason must veil their faces as the procession goes by. Previous to the war between the States, or since that event, there has been no tin-plate made in this country. For several years our importations have been from five to six million hundred weight, or in value between $20,000,- 000 and $30,000,000, and to their cost to consumers $6,500,000 for duties has been added. The same im- portations under the McKinley tariff will cost in duties $14,000,000, or if the importation is prevented, by so much is our foreign wheat market destroyed. The expenditure of dairy farmers for articles of tin runs into millions of dollars annually. Under the old tariff their cost was increased by about thirty-five per cent, by the duty, and by the McKinley tariff their natural cost is nearly doubled. One single item which the farmer would overlook may be cited. Tin pails used for packing butter for transport and for sale in 25 lb. packages cost six cents more each because of the tariff. This is one quarter cent a pound on the butter, which either the farmer must lose or the consumer pay. Con- sidering the small margin on dairy farming this item alone may change the balance at the end of the year from one of profit to a loss. Condensing milk is becoming a national industry, and with free tin and free sugar there can be no doubt the canning industry would soon fix the price of American milk and the profits of dairy farming. At present the condenser pays, ordinarily, three cents for the milk which condensed fills a pint can, and he pays a cent and a half for the can. Of its cost one quarter cent was due to the old tariff, which increased cost was TIN. 269 8 per cent, of the price of the milk. The extra cost under the new tariff will be about 18 per cent, of the price of the milk. Hon. Jas. M. Turner, late Republican candidate for gubernatorial honor.s, wrote me that he did not know what the effect of increasing the duty might be, but that if tin-plate could be admitted free he Avould certainly pay the farmers more for their milk. " It is the employment of tin in the canning industries of the country, and in domestic implements, that has made the United States the largest consumer of tin of all the nations of the world ; in fact, a larger consumer than all the rest of the world put together." More than one third of our importation of tin, or the enormous sum of 1,800,000 boxes, we manufacture into cans or packages to hold what have now become neces- saries of life. These 1,800,000 boxes of tin are annually manufactured into 600,000,000 cans, and in them are placed the products of our fields, our orchards, and our waters. This tin costs in Wales $6,000,000, and we pay on it duties amounting to $2,000,000. These cans are but wrappings for the packages and when the food is consumed are assigned to the dirt heap. Two million dollars annually our legislators have compelled us to waste with our garbage, and the McKinley tariff will make it over $4,000,000 unless, perchance, it compels us to use less of these very wholesome and desirable articles of food. This not only deprives the poor man of a desirable change of diet, but restricts the farmer in the production of most desirable crops. One of the largest canning firms in the country said that to advance the duty on tin-plates to two cents a pound would close the doors of at least one half the canning factories. Mr. E. S. Judd, ex-Secretary of the 2;o PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. Baltimore Canned Goods Exchange, said, " Of course the consumer would have to pay the increase, but this he will not do, so Baltimore will lose half her trade. This in- crease of duty on a box of tin means an increase of ten cents a dozen on three-pound cans, or almost a cent a can. ... As soon as the packer raises the prices of his No. 3 cans of tomatoes or corn above a dollar a dozen the demand is going to fall off one third if not one half, and this is proved by an experience of several years." The tin toy trade is something enormous. Formerly we imported large quantities from France and Germany, but they are now made more cheaply and tastily here than anywhere else, and we should have the whole trade of America south of us, but the duty on tin-plate is such that we cannot compete for this trade. Said Mr. Leo Schlesinger, the largest manufacturer of tin toys in the country: "We could make a much larger quantity of goods, but against German, French, and English competi- tion we cannot sell in the markets, that naturally belong to America, because of the tariff which prevents us from doing business in those countries. . . . The foreign manufacturers get their tin-plate entirely free of duty, at a price fully 35 per cent, less than the price we are com- pelled to pay." " Even with a duty of over 2,Z PS'' cent, there were placed in the United States in December and January last, more than $1,000,000 of orders for tin-plates for roofing purposes." When the duty is more than doubled tin-plate will be too dear for general use, and we alone of civilized countries will be compelled to resort to less desirable materials. Mr. Allison said on the floor of the Senate : " I want to say to the Senator, that more than forty manufacturers, TIN. 271 or those who are prepared for the manufacture of these tinned plates, have stated that they will enter upon the necessary preparations immediately." Think of it. Two score of wealthy men come to Washington and confer with the controlling committee of the Senate. They ask for a provision of law that will increase the cost of a given article of general consumption by at least $8,000,- 000. The only inducement they offer for this action is that, if taken, they will be able to go into business that will put that $8,000,000, and perhaps as much more, into their own pockets. The Chairman of the Finance Com- mittee comes before the Senate and the country with this statement, and the Republican Senators vote the advance of tariff tax. " Of course," Mr. Allison said, " no one can predict what the effect of such a prospective provision would be. My impression is that the tendency of it would be at once to depress the price of tinned plate." ' Is Mr. Alli- son knave or fool, and what shall we say of his little echoes all over the land who never think ? Contrast with the unwisdom of Senator Allison the statement of John Q. Adams in his report, 1832, "The doctrine that duties on imports cheapen the price of the article upon which they are levied, cotiflicts with the first dictates of covunon sense. The duty constitutes a part of the price of the whole mass of articles of domestic manufacture as well as upon that of foreign production." What did those twoscore of practical business men who had $50,000,000 of capital to invest in the robbery if they could get the tariff fixed to suit them, think of it ? Are they buying a tariff to depress the price of tin ? If » Tin-plate which before the advance in tariff rates was tjuolecl at $4.40 per box is now, March, 1892, worth $5. 35- 2/2 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. they NvoukI make tin-plate at less than present prices, why do they ask an increase of the tariff ? Finally, are not they the very men who are now making the sheet steel, and after forty years of barbarous protection are now asking 2,Z P^^ cent, more for it than it is worth after it is prepared and tinned ? Can they ask for the increased duty for any other purpose than that they may shut out foreign competition, utilize their high-priced steel, and combine, as they now do, to control prices as they please ? SUGAR. " In 1889, the duties collected on imported sugar and molasses amounted to $55, 975, 610. Add to this the increase of price of domestic sugar arising from the duty, and it is clear that the duty on sugar and molasses cost the people of this country at least $64,000,000. . . . With proper en- couragement we shall eventually be able to produce all or nearly all the sugar required for the consumption of our people. . . . When it is considered that this increased cost due to the duty falls on an article of prime necessity as food, your committee are persuaded that justice as •well as good policy requires that such an unnecessary burden in the way of a direct tax should be removed from sugar, and that the encouragement required to induce the production of sugar in the United States should be given through a bounty rather than by an import duty." — Major McKinley, in Majority Report on Tariff Bill. Well-a-day ! The tariff then is a tax, and a burden, and is paid by the consumer, and he merits relief ; and there is, moreover, an increased price of the domestic as well as the imported article " arising from the duty." But what can we say of the marvellous statesmanship that finds two articles of prime necessity as tin and sugar, both enormously protected for a long term of years, both 1 SUGAR. 273 bearing an enormous burden of "direct " (?) taxation paid by the consumer, and neither of them with all this encouragement produced to any considerable extent, and yet pursues directly opposite policies toward the two articles ? Our recent Congress found the tin and sugar production in this country both alike languishing. On one they more than double the duty, and on the other repeal it almost in toio, and yet promise that under their wise legislation both are to be produced here so abun- dantly that the farmers will have no opportunity to sell their grain abroad in exchange for either. We have seen that doubling the duty on tin is iniqui- tous. We shall see that the sugar bounty is equally foolish and extravagant. It is to encourage, we are told, the production of beet sugar in this country, which can be done here, they say, as well as in France or Germany. Very well. If we plow up our wheat, corn, or pasture lands to raise beets for sugar, it will certainly be as profitable as our present crops, or not as profitable. If it is to be as profitable, why in the name of all reason are the growers of wheat, corn, beans, barley, fruits, and meats — which growers are certainly not in condition to enjoy increased taxation — to be taxed to pay a bounty to beet growers who already have a more profitable business than their own ? If beet growing is not to prove as profitable as grain-growing, what possible excuse can there be for an assembly of wiseacres at Washington to induce their less learned con- stituents to abandon an unprofitable industry for one still less profitable, and tax themselves upon their own poverty to make up the deficiency ? Why could there not have been statesmen at hand to cry out against this infamy ? When will legislators learn some particle of truth from 274 rRACTTCAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. history and i)hilosophy, and understand that the only real economy for them is to keep their hands entirely off other men's industries ? Payment of bounties has been tried in Europe and the result is known. It is but little less iniquitous than the protective tariff. " They inevitably lead to over-produc- tion, and when exports decrease by withdrawal or lessen- ing the bounties the result is to bring ruin upon the producers. In the case of France and Germany the only alternative of a stoppage of the bounties is the ruin of a large part of those engaged in sugar production who are not most favorably situated. Thus, though the govern- ments see that bounties result only in making exported sugar cheap, and sugar consumed at home dear, with the result that the bounties bring no return whatever to the people who pay them, they dare not remove them, lest they ruin the industry thus artificially created. It is this fear that restrains these countries from banding together to abolish bounties. Such a state of things will be the inevitable result of bounty payments in this country. They may stimulate production, but can never make a healthy and natural industry." Speaking of sugar bounties, a German deputy in a recent speech said : " I cannot discern the smallest gain to our country. The profits of the system have only been reaped by England. It is German sugar that has enabled England to give sugar to her cattle. We pay one and a half to two millions sterling to enable England to consume what would probably be worked up by our German industry. Gentlemen, I fear this system has made us the laughing-stock of our English cousins." Sugar as an article of food is a comparatively modern acquisition. It was imported into England early in the SUGAR. 2,ji^ fourteenth century, " but almost entirely as medicine." At this time a pound of sugar sold in Scotland for an ounce of silver, and as late as 1625 a pound cost the equivalent of a dollar in our money, and Lady Margaret Paston wrote her husband begging " that he vouchsafe to buy her a pound of sugar." In 1890, the total product of the world was 5,850,000 tons, of which 3,600,000 tons was beet sugar mainly from Germany, Austria, France, and Russia, and 2,228,000 tons of care sugar, more than half of it from the West Indies ; and 22,000 tons of maple sugar was reported in this country. The total product of this country was 178,998 tons, of which 144,878 was cane sugar from Louisiana ; 2,400 tons of beet sugar was produced in California, and 689 tons of sorghum in Kansas. The consumption of sugar in England per capita is 74; in the United States, 50 pounds ; in France, 28 ; in Ger- many, 21 ; in Austria, 14^^; in Russia, 9 ; and in Italy 8 pounds. England producing no sugar hns the cheapest sugar of any country for consumption and uses the most per capita. This from the fact that she admits it free of duty while the producing countries pay export bounties, after our manner of granting rebates of duties favoring foreigners at the expense of our own people. AVhich nation exhibits the most wisdom in its legislation the results plainly show. France pays a net bounty on sugar exported of $20.54 per ton. Or the people of France make a present of over $9,000,000 a year to the producers and exporters of sugar. Germany and Austria adopt a similar policy. In this country for years the duty on raw sugar was between $49 and $50 a ton, and on the same when exported a drawback of over $56 was allowed, making a net bounty 276 rKACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION: cf $5.96 on a ton of raw sugar, imported, refined, and exported. Secretary Manning, in the face of great oppo- sition, reduced the drawback but still left a net bounty of over $2 per ton. The result of all this has been that " sugar is used to a large extent by the English farmers in fattening cattle for the markets, while at one time it was recommended as an excellent and cheap fertilizer." In the past decade we paid duties of $488,428,816 on $760)352,133 worth of sugar imported. We also imported from the Sandwich Islands, free from duty, $79,387,703 worth, and of course this sold at the same price as the other. We thus gave a gratuity to the sugar planters there of $36,571,614. For drawbacks on exported sugar we paid over twenty million dollars to enable English farmers to fatten cattle on sugar our toilers could not afford to eat, and in short the tariff on sugar has com- pelled us to pay for this article, beyond what is reason- able and right, or what the markets demanded, more than enough in the past twenty years to pay the whole of the present national debt, and all to protect a few Louisana planters and the millionaire refiners. Now comes the outrageous bounty system and if it accomplishes what its projectors promise, to lead to the production of all the sugar we consume, it will cost us vastly more. The bounty, unlike the duty, will not be added to the price of every pound of sugar when we buy it, and its apparent cheapness may double our consump- tion, while its real cost will be concealed behind the bounty where the consumer is insensible of its cost. The bounty offered for the production of sugar is $40 a ton. In France the cost of beets to yield a ton of sugar is nearly $40, and the cost of extracting and making a ton of sugar is $3. SUGAR. 277 Claus Speckels is authority for the statement that California beets yield 12 per cent, of sugar, which is a much higher yield than is obtained in France, and the cost of the beets delivered at the factory will not exceed $20. Allow ^5 for extracting, and the total cost is $25. Now why did the wit or folly of man ever devise a scheme to pay these men a $40 bounty for a $25 investment ? Simply because all along the sugar planters have been getting the same bounty indirectly under the tariff. Gen- eral Cutcheon spoke at length in Congress to prove the bounty was only equivalent to the old tariff, and Ex- Governor Warmouth, a Louisiana planter, answered the Ways and Means Committee that " to pay a bounty on sugar produced in this country would disclose the fact, which everybody understands, that the tariff is a bounty." Remember, always, this bounty is never paid to the men who raise the beets, but to the capitalists extracting the sugar. The well recognized cost of refining sugar, including all expenses per ton above the cost of the raw sugar, is $14, or five eighths of a cent a pound. The difference in value between the raw and the refined was, in 1888, $27.82, and in 1889, $28,044. Thus the net profit of the refiners was $13.82 in one year and $i4-044 the next. The total production of refined sugar in the United States in 1888 was 1,457,264 tons, on which their clean profit or tariff steal was $18,787,682.92, and in 1889 they refined 1,413,700 tons, and pocketed a clean $18,- 449,602.80. The amended McKinley bill admits sug?.rs below sixteen Dutch standard (unfit for use) free. But above that grade, notwithstanding the bounty, there is a duty of a half cent a pound. So that all sugar imported free must pass 27^ PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. through the hands of the refiners' " trip.t " before it can reach the consumer. And they are authorized to take, through the operation of this law, a net profit or steal above the legitimate profit of foreign competing refiners of %\o a ton, or on the amount refined last year $14,137,- 000. But as cheaper sugar will increase the consumption and so the amount they will handle, McKinley is doubtless correct in his statement that their profits will in no way be diminished by the action of the new law. It was not designed that the stealings of any monopolists should be reduced by this bill. blaine's reciprocity scheme in the light of statistics. We have seen that by treaty with the Sandwich Islands admitting their sugars free we never obtained a pound an iota cheaper, as their product is not sufficient to supply us and it commands the same price we pay others. Now we consumed in 1889, 1,439,701 tons, importing 1,314,202. The entire product of cane sugar in the western hemisphere is 1,238,000 tons, or 76,202 ioxv^lcss than our imports. If then Mr. Blaine succeeds in negotiating reciprocity treaties with every cane-producing island and country in the western hemisphere, the present production of them all would fail to supply our demand, and the result would be that what under the old tariff was paid into the United States Treasury would then be paid to the planters of the favored countries, just as we have already donated $36,571,000 to the Sandwich Island planters in duties remitted. The only way, therefore, if we desire cheap sugar, is to open our markets to every sugar-growing country in the world, as England has so successfully done. SMALL FRUITS. 279 I have thus devoted my two longest chapters to the two items of the McKinley tariff thought by its friends to be its most valuable features. I think I have shown them to be two of the most diabolical steals ever perpetrated on a free people under cover of law, robbing millions to enrich the favored few millionaires. SMALL FRUITS. " Fruit-growing in this country is rapidly beginning to take the place of unprofitable root crops and grain. To make fruit- growing profitable, it is essential that all waste and surplus fruit should be turned into jam. So long as sugar is cheap, fruit utilization becomes a source of profit to the struggling grower. But, on the other hand, if sugar is dear thousands of tenant farmers and workers of small holdings of land will be prevented from saving their surplus fruit, and will be com- pelled to let it fall from their trees, to let it rot in their orchards. Dear sugar thus not only means loss to the farmer but also means a loss of cheap, wholesome food for the people in the towns. I can cite cases where, through being able to obtain cheap sugar, struggling growers have been in a position to pay the whole of their rent by turning their waste fruit (otherwise positively unsaleable) into jam. The very reason why Lord Sudeley and other large fruit growers have been able to make their fruit farms pay is because tons of surplus fruit have been turned into jam." — The Sugar Conven- tion (England), S. Morgan. In 1 841 the seventeen pounds of sugar consumed per capita in England cost $2.30. The seventy pounds now consumed by each British subject per annum cost him less than $2.25. On the other hand, the fifty pounds used by the American cost him $3.80. Sixty to 75 per cent, of the weight of the various kinds of jam is the sugar they contain. 2 So PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. The total value of the small-fruit crop in England and America is about equal each to each — as nearly as can be estimated about $18,000,000 or $20,000,000 in either country. In England not over one sixth of this is marketed fresh, and about the same amount dried or crudely canned for local use. Two thirds of the whole crop or over $12,000,000 is used for jams, giving employ- ment to thousands of men and food to millions. The growers of the United States depend upon the city demand for fresh fruit for three fifths of their crop, and can or preserve less than two fifths of it. The English make into jam two thirds of their product and export largely of this and control the jam markets of the world, while the United States export none but import largely of English jams, and for no reason except the evil effects of our own laws. One hundred and fifty thousand tons of sugar are used annually in England in this industry, and Sampson Morgan estimates that ** in the county of Kent alone there are 50,000 persons interested as growers, pickers, and packers in the production of fruit for jams." Consul Lathrop, in a late report to the State Depart- ment, says : " Preserved fruits and jams are becoming a common article of food throughout the country, not as a luxury but as an inexpensive substitute for butter. Jam sells in England at from 4 to 10 cents per lb. less than butter, and goes further." And a country grocer said : " We have just ordered 1 1 tons of jam ; it is now an article of food for quite poor people. Children used to think bread and jam a great pleasure ; now they would rather have bread and butter, they are so accustomed to jam." Thus the English market is ready to receive all the small fruit that can be grown. It is not sp ip this coun- SMALL FRUITS. 28 1 try. Every fruit grower knows only too well how often he has been obliged to send his berries to the city market, receiving nothing in return but the empty crates, and sometimes not even these. The duty and drawback that our government has made on sugar have enabled our refiners to sell their sugar in England, after paying the freight, at 2.8 cents a pound less than they sell to our own people. Thus our fruits have rotted on the ground to the extent of millions, while we imported English jams under enormous duties and m.ade of our own sugars. The cost of mugs and case for 12 lbs. of jam is 62 J cents to us and only 37 cents to the Englishman. Give them an equal chance, and American potters would pro- duce mugs as cheaply as the English. Protection on the raw materials simply gives opportunity to the man who happens to own a clay deposit to charge an extra %2 a ton for it, while the protection on all the machinery (not on the labor) compels the manufacturers to charge extra for the mugs. Glass tumblers are also used for jam and jelly packages. These with our natural gas can be made vastly cheaper here than elsewhere. Consul Wilson, at Brussels, says : " I seriously doubt the ability of the Belgian glassware manufacturers to undersell us here in articles of the same quality, and I am supported in this doubt by a number of experts in glassware." And he might have added, by the fact that v/e are selling glassware in that very city in competition with the Belgian manufacturers, paying their duty of 10 per cent, and our freight besides, amounting to another 5 per cent. Thus at home under free trade we could undersell them by 15 per cent., or, adding their freight, by 20 per cent. 282 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. An outrageous, ini(iuitous, inexcusable tariff on glass- ware, has enabled the two leading manufacturers of tumb- lers, the Rochester Tumbler Co. and A. J. Beatty & Sons, to combine whenever they please to raise the price 60 per cent, above what we could purchase abroad for, and only last year they raised the price of tumblers 25 per cent, just at the time when the manufacturers of jams were obliged to buy. The McKinley tariff, without any reason save to fatten the monopolists, increases the already ruinous robber tariff by 50 per cent, on most kinds of glassware. Under the old tariff the duties on sugar and packages added to the cost of jams over 40 per cent, of their value, and practically prohibited the utilization of our waste of small fruits. England, to-day, supplies our seaboard cities with jams, notwithstanding a duty of 35 per cent, un- changed by McKinley, and she has the market of all the world beside. Mr. Reed Gordon, over thirty years in the business, says : " Give the American potters free chemicals and clay, give American glass-tumbler manufacturers free chemicals and sand, and they will need no protection ; in fact the tumbler manufacturers need none now. Give us absolute free trade in sugar, glassware, and earthen- ware, so that we may be protected from trusts and com- binations ; give us absolute free trade in preserved fruits, including jams, and we will buy more small fruit from the farmers, pay them better prices, and lower the price of our goods. We can then control the American markets and build up a large export trade to South America, where there is a large demand for jams and other sweets. Not only this, but we would be able to sell our goods in Glasgow, Dundee, and London, — the chief jam manufacturing DAIRY FARMING. 283 centres of the world. We would be able to compete with them in their own markets and at their own prices, in- stead of being undersold by them in our markets as is the case to-day." DAIRY FARMING. *' In a few years you will see the present owners of farms in many instances tenants on them. The cities are prosper- ing, though. New York City has added about $50,000,000 property to its real value the past year. Brooklyn has added between $20,000,000 and $30,000,000 to its real property ; Buffalo has increased $5,000,000 ; Rochester between $2,- 000,000 and $3,000,000; and Albany and Syracuse $1,000,- 000 each." — State Assessors, N. Y. State, 18S9. During the 25 years from 1825 to 1850 the exports of dairy products amounted to 38,000,000 lbs. of butter and 102,000,000 lbs. of cheese. This was less than the amount exported in the single year 1880. "In less than forty years, what was once only a part of general agriculture has become a specialty, employing thousands of farmers and laborers and turning out products valued at over $400,000,000 a year." In 1850 we produced 313,000,000 lbs. of butter, or 13.5 lbs. for each inhabitant, and 105,500,000 lbs. of cheese. In i860, in ten years of free trade, we had increased our butter product over 46 per cent., or to 459,680,000 lbs., or 14.6 lbs. per capita. In 1870 we produced 514,000,000 lbs. of butter, an in- crease of 12 per cent., but made only 13.3 lbs. per capita. In 1880 we produced 8c6, 680,000 lbs. of butter, 171, 750,000 lbs, of cheese, and sold 530,000,000 gallons of milk. 2S4 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. " When wheat ruled at over one dollar a bushel, as it did for more than a generation until a few years since, it was produced to some extent at least in Illinios, Ohio, and New York, but since it has fallen below that price it has become impossible for the Eastern farmers to produce it profitably. In the fifty-five years ending in 1885, the average export value of wheat was $r.2o per bushel, but it fell to 87 cents in 1886 and has ruled at 85 since. " Such prices as these were driving the farmers of Min- nesota and Iowa into bankruptcy, and, like their Eastern neighbors before them, they were obliged to do some- thing else. Dairying offered them the best advantages, and they engaged in making butter and cheese." Our exports of butter in i860 were 7,641,000 pounds ; in 1870, 2, 1 1 9, 000 pounds ; in 1880, 39,236,000 pounds ; but in 1888 only 10,455,000. Of cheese we exported in i860, 15,516,000 pounds ; in 1870, 57,296,000 ; in 1880, 127,553,000; and in 1888 only 88,008,000. Of milk we exported in the same year $294,806. In this last year we imported 143,215 pounds of butter and 8,750,185 pounds of cheese, and of milk $376,062. This shows clearly how useless is the tariff, and how incapable it is of protecting the dairy interest. We ex- ported last year more than ten times as much cheese as we imported, while of butter we exported more than sixty times as much as our imports. We even sent to poor Canada for her own consumption more than three times as much as we imported from all sources. The protection the dairy farmer wants is against those who make him pay more for supplies than do foreigners. And the home market he needs is the market where he can buy as cheaply as foreigners do whose butter and cheese he meets in their own markets. Our imports of DAIRY FARMING. 285 cheese are of fancy grades, and are rather of an entirely different than of a competing article. As to condensed milk, it is seen that we imported more than we exported, notwithstanding the duty of 20 per cent. The McKinley tariff increases this duty to 80 per cent., which makes it very interesting to the sick who have it to buy, but how in all reason, or out of it, is it going to help to extend our market for condensed milk in foreign countries ? New England farmers found themselves unable to raise wheat, and so went into dairying. Now this is failing them, and as nothing else offers relief, they are deserting their farms. The first warning came in the falling off in farm values ; and this warning has already come to every farming region in the country. New York has the advantages of a home market, if any State is ever to have them. Her cities are adding untold millions to their wealth. Do the farmers share in their prosperity ? The agricultural report for 1886 made by Mr. Dodge, a high protectionist, said : " Farm lands have depreciated ^■^ per cent, in value in ten years ; 30 per cent, of the farms in the State are mortgaged, averaging 66| per cent, of their estimated valuation." State Assessor Wood said : " We have visited fourteen counties. ... In all we find the same condition of affairs. City property is increasing in value while farm property is growing less and less valuable. I cannot sec any way for it to improve, and in a few years we shall see more tenant fanners than anything else." Is dairy farming profitable? Are the returns suffi- cient to insure the independence of the farmers of this country ? Or are they to be driven into bank- 286 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. ruptcy by being unable to sell their products at such prices as will enable them to pay wages, purchase sup- plies, and get living returns ? On the answer to this question depends the livelihood of one fourth of our population — more than five times as many as are de- pendent on all protected industries combined. Our legislators are solicitous for the iron, steel, and woollen industries. Why have their thoughts never turned to this more important one ? And who is to be blamed but ourselves ? It will not do to assume that dairying is profitable because its area is extending, because one fourth of the farming lands of New York are now devoted to it. This only shows that grain-growing became unprofitable first. When farmers found they were throwing away time, labor, and money in growing grain, they tried another industry a little less unprofitable. The books of a large creamery in Chautauqua County show that the average price to farmers for milk in 1882 was $1.04 for 100 pounds. In 1889 this average price had fallen to 67 cents. After death, what ? If dairying were profitable, would dairy lands in New York fall in price 33 per cent, in ten years, and would whole town- ships in the immediate home-market section. New Eng- land, be offered at $3 to $5 per acre, and find no buyers ? Why are the sturdy sons of New England and New York farmers fleeing to the cities ? Are the degenerate sons of our New England fathers idiotic, or is this the only course left for an intelligent, enterprising young man ? Better prices for our products are out of the question. There is, however, one alternative. Decrease the cost of production, and cheapen the cost of the articles to be had in exchange for the butter and cheese we sell. DAIRY FARMING. 287 The policy of the protectionists is to have the people of this country forced by law to buy of them, so that, charging whatever they please, they can make a large profit on the comparatively small amount they can sell at high prices to our own people. Other producers, taking the opposite view, want as cheap raw material as possible, so that they can make large quantities of goods at low cost. It is plain to which party the interests of the intelligent dairy farmer must ally him. Free raw material would decrease the cost to him o. all the manufactured articles he buys for himself or for his family. In flush times this would save him a full quarter of his expenditure. There are not ten per cent, of the farmers of this country to whom this saving in the past ten years would not have amounted to more than they now own free from debt, and to those now running behind in spite of all industrious efforts, it would assure a chance for prosperity. Free raw material would enable the American manu- facturer to make goods more cheaply than can anybody else in the world, thus enabling them to supply the world's markets and employ more and more laborers — the best possible customers for the farmers. Since our manufacturers can at present more than supply the home demand for manufactured goods, this is the only direc- tion in which American farmers can hope for increased demand for their products. We imported in 1888 327,000,000 jjounds of dairy salt, on which we paid duty $402,400, and for whose benefit was this ? It was only put there to compel us to pay a higher price for every pound of salt the trusts produce in this country. Such is protection. 288 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. Over 200,000,000 pounds of tin-plate are consumed annually by the dairy interests of this country. On this they have been paying over $2,000,000 annually in duties direct. Counting the ])ercentages necessarily added by the dealers through whose hands it comes, this tariff alone has cost the dairymen over $3,000,000 per annum. Under the McKinley tariff this is to be increased to over $7,000,000, which is more than the net profit of the entire dairy interest. If there is a shadow of truth in their hullaballoo about having to kill all the sheep in America if wool is not protected, then it is equally true that unless this tariff is repealed we shall have to kill every cow in the land and all of the dairymaids. There is only one thing that prevents our condensed- milk manufacturers from supplying the world's increasing demand for this product and giving a market for many times the milk they now take. Nowhere else so conven- ient for manufacturing and export can the milk be gotten of so good quality and so cheap as here. Nowhere can the canning and condensing be done more cheaply than here. Remove the tariff taxes from buildings, transportation, machinery, and supplies, and, above all, from sugar and tinned plate, and there will at once be a demand at pay- ing prices for twice the milk product of the present time. At the one condensing factory at Wassaic, N. Y., the duties on the tin and susjar used in a single day were $230. To condense 1,400 quarts of milk — costing, at 67 cents a hundred pounds, $20.10 — requires 475 pounds of sugar and 125 pounds of tin. On these the duties were $15.50. How long, O Lord ! how long ? So long as Congress is composed of protectionists, just so long will the farmer be plundered. So long as the representatives of the unprotected classes are indifferent FARM PRODUCTS. 289 while the representatives of the protected interests are aggressive, keen, and organized, just so long will the farmer be made the victim. The unprotected farmers number eight millions. The men deriving any benefit from the tariff are very few, but powerful. They can raise millions for campaign pur- poses, but we can cast more votes than they can buy. Let us understand our own interests, and stand by them. Lay by the old party harness for a season and fight for our families, our firesides, and our purses. FARM PRODUCTS. "The agricultural interest, it will be seen, is much the largest interest in its aggregate product as well as in the number of persons employed. I believe that no one will claim that this large interest is directly protected. It is true that under our customs laws there is a small duty upon wheat, barley, oats, and other agricultural products. Bui it docs not afford any protection to the great wheat- and grain-producing regions of the country." — Hon. Wm. B. Allison, High-Tariff Senator from Iowa, March 14, 1879. "The home production of sugar does not materially aff'ect the price, and the duty is therefore a tax which is added to the price not only of the imported but of the domestic product, which is not TRUE of duties imposed on articles produced or made here substantially to the extent of our laants."— Hon. Wm. McKinley, Jr., Majority Report, Introducing his Famous Bill, April 16, 1890. WOOL. This subject has been fully discussed in a preceding chapter, page 222. But to freslien the reader's memory of the conclusion and to verify the same, I quote from the circular of William Bond, the most eminent living author- ity on wool : " An experience of high duty for over twenty-five years has failed to increase the value of wool, 19 290 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. home-grown. So different is the character and quality of wool grown in different countries, and even in different parts of the same country, that if wools were free the probable result would only be to equalize values the world over, and it would be found that other countries would want our wool as much as we should want theirs." That the high tariff does not increase the price of our wools, and that they are no higher than like grades abroad, is shown by the fact that we export wools every year. In 1886 we exported 2,188,080 pounds, worth $476,274. Within a few years we have sent to Canada 2,388,000 pounds, to England 114,657,10 Scotland 29,334, to Germany 42,258, to Mexico 76,602 pounds. Have the farmers of America ever once thought to inquire the price of wool abroad to learn whether they are really deriving any benefit from this tariff for the sake of which they have robbed their families and voted their farms into the hands of millionaires ? The only wool tariff that could possibly help us is a discriminating tariff, fixing a high duty on the particular kinds and qualities we produce and admitting other kinds free. But the McKinley tariff exactly reverses all this, greatly increasing the duty on the kinds we must buy, but reducing the only duty in the whole schedule that could benefit farmers, showing conclusively that he has no thought of really helping them, while he has fixed the tariff to suit those who had millions to pay for the fixing. MEATS. There are a thousand things in the McKinley tariff that are expensive, burdensome, iniquitous, inexcusable. But there is nothing so disgusting, even nauseating, to the intelligent student as the insulting pretence to protect FARM PRODUCTS. 291 farmers by naming high duties on their products which they produce largely in excess of the domestic demand. It is practically saying to the farmer : " You are a fool. You will never know but what a tariff on wheat helps you the same as a tariff on manufactured articles helps their maker when he gets for them three times more than the price foreigners ask you for like goods. I will fix high duties on your products, which I know, and have announced from my place in Congress, can have no pos- sible effect on prices. But by this means I shall hold your vote for this whole iniquitious scheme, which is taking all your substance and giving it all to the million- aires who support me." Our average annual product of meats is worth eight hundred million dollars. We exported one hundred millions, and imported a half million of some choice and peculiar products. McKinley and his ilk say nothing of the product or export, but announce with flourish and froth that we imported ^530,000 worth, and they will pro- tect the farmer against this competition. Well, it is ^J-^ part of our export, and just one pig to 1,300 of our product. He has doubled the tariff on beef, pork, and mutton, and added 150 per cent, to the duty on hams. Helps us, don't it? In 1889 we exported of beef $34,651,847; of mess pork, $4,735,077 ; of bacon and hams, $34,651,847 ; of lard, $27,329,173. Our imports in the same year of all these combined were $60,380. In 1 88 1 our exports were more than double these figures, while our imports were just $27,254. But our tariff laws aimed against our farmers purchasing abroad are just as effective against selling abroad, and these figures show the result. 29:: PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. The average prices for two entire years in New York are sliown in this table : Mess Beef. Pork per Barrel. Lard, Cents. 1881 $11.74. $19.78. iif. 1889 7.10. 12.59. 6Jt' How long, oh ! how long? DAIRY PRODUCTS. United States average annual production : -D »i I Export 25,000,000 lbs. Butter 1,300,000,000- T » r^r^ .< •^ ' ' (Import 70,000 ^, (Export 03,000,000 " Cheese 400,000,000 •{ y » o^^«^.^^ i« ^ ' • I Import 8,000,000 We import of butter one pound to 20,000 pounds pro- duced. We must have increased protection against that pound. Affects farmers' prices, does n't it ? Our immense import of cheese was a choice morsel for the demagogues in Congress to mouth. How they would protect the farmer ! They did n't mention the fact that we exported twelve times more, or that the imported were of kinds entirely unlike ours and were invoiced at the foreign port of shipment at fifteen cents a pound, while the domestic product was all the time selling here at less than eleven cents. Great is McKinley ! Old Tariff. McKinley Tariff. Butter, per pound 4c. 6c. Cheese, " 4c, 6c. Milk, " condensed... 20^. 3c. " pergal \o%. 5c. Sugar of milk, pound free. 8c. These figures are nice to look upon, " when they are read." Does any one believe that they will ever have FARM PRODUCTS. 293 any effect whatsoever upon the price of any farm product in America ? If, however, a poor widow's child is sick in the city and must have sugar of milk, the druggist will kindly explain to the famishing mother the beauties of the may- skin-me tariff. BREADSTUFFS. " A tax which is added to the price . , . which is not true of duties imposed upon articles produced here substantially to the extent of our wants." United States Annual Product. Exports. Imports. Wheat. ... 450,000,000 115,000,000 10,000 bushels. Corn 1,750,000,000 50,000,000 20,000 " Oats 675,000,000 1,000,000 125,000 " Rye 28,000,000 300,000 500 " Old Tariff. McKinley's. Wheat per bushel 20c. 25c. Flour 20 ^. 25 }lf. Corn per bushel loc. 15c. Meal " " IOC. 20c. Rye " " IOC. loc. Oats " " IOC. 15c. Oatmeal, per pound , ^c. ic. Was a grosser insult ever offered to an intelligent people ? Under absolute free trade no quarter of the earth can think of competing in our markets with our own products since we ship our grains to Europe and there meet and compete with the products of the cheapest labor in the known world. Our trifling imports of grain arc for seed upon which the farmer himself pays the duty, or the little that comes over the Canadian border from small farmers near our villages and remote from Canadian towns. Of course the poor people in these villages have to pay dearly for the grain they consume, and it affects 294 PRACTICAL RESULTS! OF RROTECTLON. the j)rice of farm products precisely the same as draining the teapot in the ocean to drown the sailors. Farmers have been paying very dearly for the past thirty years for a home market which was to yield them abundant blessings. Are they getting any nearer to it? Since 1850 our population has increased 175 per cent.; our wheat production, 389 per cent.; corn, 257 percent.; and oats, 411 per cent. It is thus seen that the propor- tion which we must sell abroad is rapidly increasing. Pro- tectionists try to belittle our exports, and compare our net exports with our total product, but when we remember half the people in America are agriculturists and neces- sarily consume a large part of their product, we find that of what they have to sell nearly one half must be exported, and the proportion is increasing, and the penalty for exporting and bringing home the necessary payment is also rapidly increasing. The effect is plainly shown in this table of exports for the two years 1880 and 1889, and the average prices of 1881 and 1889 : CORN. OATS. RYE. Exports. I Pr. I Exports. I Pr. I Exports. $54,279,608 63c. $308,129 46c. $2,387,493 33,852,762 I 43C.I 518,735 I 28C.I 8i,4S7 No comment can add force to these figures. POTATOES. And still McKinley's curse rests upon the farmer. Our annual product of potatoes is 200,000,000 bushels, and our importations ordinarily one per cent, of this or 2,000,000, while we export 400,000 bushels. Old tariff fifteen cents per bushel ; McKinley tariff twenty-five cents. WHEAT. Exports. Av. Price. 1880-81 $225,879,502 $1.32 1889 86,949,186 .88 FARM PRODUCTS. 295 Since 1880 we have had two potato crop failures, in 1881 and in 1887. At each of these times we were obliged to import about 6,000,000 extra bushels, but with these exceptions our importations are much less than stated above. Of course when the crop fails and farmers have to buy potatoes, a duty of twenty-five cents per bushel which they must pay is not an unalloyed blessing. Our importations consist almost exclusively of early potatoes from Bermuda before those from the Southern States come into market, and seed potatoes from Nova Scotia. Farmers all along our seaboard find this impor- tation the most desirable method of avoiding the rot and securing early crops. Just how an increase of the duty will help them is not plain. The number of bushels imported for several years has been as follows : 1884. 1885. 1886. 1887. 1888. 1889. 281,687 1,175,262 1,129,446 2,931,528 6,458,545 1,506,846 Our annual production is over 200,000,000, which is " substantially to the extent of our wants." According to McKinley an importation of less than one per cent, cannot affect our prices, and the price to the grower cannot be increased by the tariff. BARLEY. Our Annual Production. Export. Import. 65,000,000 1,500,000 11,000,000 bushels. Old Tariff. McKinley Tariff. Barley, loc. per bushel 30c. per bushel " Malt 20c. " " 45c- " Pearled \c. " pound 2c. " pound It is true we now import a large i)crcentage of the barley used in this country. Does the tariff, or can any 296 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. tariff advance our prices ? Mr. Harrison is a student of markets rather than of theory. He can read the follow- ing prices in the Oswego Times, a protectionist paper published in the centre of the barley region : Canada Barley, 62 to 78 cents. Canada Barley Malt, 75 to 90 cents. State " 55 to 57 " State " " 65 to 82 " This tells the story plainer than words. Canada barley is not a competitor with our barley, but is a different and a superior article, and makes a higher-priced malt. Mc- Kinley would not claim to make Canadian malt without Canadian barley. The only effect of putting a higher duty on barley will be to make the malsters and brewers pay higher prices for their supplies, or to drive the malt- ing and brewing business from this country to Canada. In 1882 barley was worth over a dollar per bushel, but in 1889 the protectionist war against the farmer had reduced it to a comparative level with all other farm products to 65 cents. TOBACCO. " A tax which is added to the price ... of the domestic product, which is not true of duties imposed on articles produced here substantially to the extent of our wants." Our annual product, 560,000,000 pounds ; exports, 260,- 000,000; import, 17,000,000. Leaf for Cigar Wrappers. Old Tariff. McKinley's. Not stemmed $ .75 $2.00 Stemmed i.oo 2.75 Other leaf, not stemmed 35 .35 40 .50 We export half the tobacco we raise. The only tobacco we import is from Cuba or Sumatra for wrappers for the FARM PRODUCTS. 297 choicest cigars, which cannot be made without this wrap- ping. Does this importation affect our production or our price? Our exports were 207,000,000 in 1884, and had increased to 305,000,000 in 1887. Our imports were 14,000,000 pounds in 1883, and have never yet reached 17,000,000, while tobacco is almost the only farm product that has maintained its price through the recent years. The average price of American leaf was between 1 1 and 12 cents in 1882 and 1883, and has remained the same. The Sumatra leaf is worth in Europe $t a pound. In this country it has cost $t.8o (oh ! yes, the tariff is a tax " added to the price "), and under McKinley's tariff it will cost $3 a pound. What a competitor this is with 11 -cent tobacco, and what will be the effect of this increase? An entire repeal of the duty would encourage the manu- facture of the best brands of cigars in this country and improve the demand for our tobaccos. The may-skin-me tariff can only have the opposite effect, EGGS. Yes, eggs. Once eggs, like Switzerland, were free. Under the old tariff they were the only farm product that had not a pretended protection, and were the only product of the farm that advanced in price during the past ten years. They averaged higher in 1888 than in 18S0. Our annual product is 1,200 million dozen. We ex- port a half million dozen and import one egg of every 81 we consume, "substantially to the extent of our wants." The McKinlcy abomination puts a duty of 5 cents a dozen on eggs. Suppose it does advance the price of eggs the first winter to the poor consumers, how long will the farmers be in finding it out ? 2gS PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. If the next season they add one hen in 80 to their flocks the supply and the price become the same as before, and we need no importation. But, what is more prob- able, they will add a larger percentage than this, and consequently get less for eggs than before ; but they are now keeping as many hens as they find profitable at present prices. Is it not plain that any legal tinkering with natural production can only result in loss ? HOPS. " Duty is added to the price . . . not the case." Our annual product, 36,000,000 ; export, 10,000,000 ; import, 3,000,000 pounds. Old duty per pound, 8 cents, McKinley's 15 cents. The whole area devoted to hop culture in America is less than three townships, 60,000 acres yielding 600 pounds to the acre. Verily the farmers of this country need protection in hops — skips and jumps. Protect by a tariff an industry that exports from a fourth to a third of its product ! The reason why we import any is thus given by the representatives of the brewers and hop-growers before the Ways and Means Committee of Congress : " A few years ago there came to be a large importation to this country of certain brands of German beer. They came here and American brewers had to compete with them. To do this they had to use German hops in order to produce those particular brands of beer which would successfully compete with the German beer . . . An increase of the duty on hops would simply lead to a larger importation of the German beer. German hops would come into the country not as hops, but as beer. This FARM PRODUCTS. 299 beer in which these foreign hops are used is for a particu- lar class of customers. It caters to a class who want just that beer." Our importations then are to flavor beer which would otherwise be imported, or to make up a deficiency in case of a short crop. BEANS AND PEAS. Our annual product of beans is 7,000,000 bushels : ex- port, 300,000 ; import, 700,000. The old tariff was 10 per cent., the new is 40 cents a bushel. About ten years ago new varieties of beans were devel- oped which were greatly superior to the old kinds, and since that time our annual production of beans has more than doubled. Prices of domestic beans in 1889 varied in New York from $2.40 and $2.45 for prime marrow to $3.90 to $4 for prime red kidney beans. We imported that year 680,000 bushels, bought abroad at an average price of $1.15 to feed our sheep. Thus our farmers have found it profitable to raise one bushel of choice beans and exchange them for more than three bushels of cheaper kinds which he could not afford to grow. The McKinley tariff puts an end to all this, and who is to be benefited thereby ? Why, the McKinley party, to be sure, if they can succeed by this means in securing the votes of a few thousand farmers who — don't know beans. HAY. " The duty is therefore a tax which is added to the price, not only of the imported but of the domestic 300 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. product, which is not true of duties imposed on articles produced here substantially to the extent of our wants." Our annual product is 45,000,000 tons ; export, 20,000 ; import, 100,000. Old tariff $2 per ton, the new is $4. We import one ton in 451. If any farmer in America believes this can affect the price of hay one cent except upon the immediate Canadian border, he is welcome to the belief, but he has the assurance of Major McKinley that he knows it does not. DOMESTIC ANIMALS. Total numbers in the United States January, 1890, estimated in millions : Horses, 25 ; mules, 3 ; cows, 16 ; oxen and other cattle, 37 ; sheep, 45 ; swine, 55. Our importations in 1889 were of horses and mules 48,769, or one in 584 ; of horned cattle 57,551, or i in 920. Of sheep, 398,891, or one in 112. Of hogs, 1,453, o^ one in 38,000. The old tariff was 20 per cent. The new varies from 20 and 30 to over 100 per cent. Our importations are not for beef, pork, or mutton in competition with farm products, but are of the farmers, by the farmers, for the farmers, and just how doubling, tripling, or quadrupling the duties is to help them does not appear. COTTON, is the one farm product which is and ever has been on the free list, the one farm industry in which there are to-day more rvLtn prospering than in all other agricultural industries combined, the one industry that makes no pre- tence at seeking a " home market," but depends, and ever has, for more than two thirds of its product upon a for- FARM PRODUCTS. 3OI eign market. Northern farmers cannot raise cotton, but they can learn from this a useful lesson, that the one industry in which the farmers have for fifty years steadily made money is dependent upon a foreign market and is entirely unprotected. Our product, consumption, exportation, and importa- tion have for the past ten years remained comparatively constant and uniform, all of them showing a slight in- crease from year to year, indicating a very healthy, nor- mal, and prosperous condition. In 1889 our production was 3,449,240,505 pounds, our home consumption 1,072,- 208,916, or 31 per cent, of it, and our export 2,385,004,628, or 69 per cent, of the product, while we imported 7,983,696 pounds, or one pound in every 134 of our consumption. This is a very much larger proportion of our consumption than is imported of beef, pork, mutton, wheat, corn, oats, rye, hay, butter, eggs, horses, cattle, or hogs, and just about the same proportion as is imported of sheep and of pota- toes. Why has not McKinley come to the rescue against this importation of 8,000,000 pounds of cotton ? Because he knows that where we produce the articles " substantially to the extent of our wants," or vastly in excess of our con- sumption, the tariff has no more effect than the pope's bull against the comet. Why on other farm products ? Because he hoped thereby to capture the votes of some thousands, perhaps millions, of idiotic Northern mud- sills. Why not on cotton ? Because he had not a hoi)e, by this silly swindle, of hoodooing the Southerner into supporting his party or policy. This closes our discussion of the effects of i)rotcction on commodities. We have not found one article that needs protection or that is benefited thereby ; neither 302 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTTON. can we conceive of an article, the protection of which can result in good to the people of this country as a whole. Let us next consider the effects of protection upon the men themselves engaged in the various industries, first upon the farmers, then the unprotected laborers, and lastly the laborers engaged in the protected industries. THE FARMER.! " When the farmer starts for town with a load of produce, his wife bids him an affectionate adieu, saying, " ' Good-bye, free-trader, good-bye,' For she knows he is to sell his grain at the price it would net him in Liverpool in open competition with the whole world. " When he returns with a little bundle of protected clothing under his arm in exchange for his ton of grain, if she sings the same tune, it is in a different key, w^ith the new chorus, " ♦ Oh, my ! protection comes high ! ' " We have seen that a protective tariff on farm products can not help to advance their price for the simple reason that we are exporters of these, and not importers. A tariff to prevent importing what we never would import can have no effect. We produce annually, $2,500,000,000 of agricultural products. America can consume but $2,000,000,000, and we export $500,000,000. With manufacturers the condition is the opposite. We consume annually $7,500,000,000. We produce $7,000,- 000,000, and would produce $1,000,000,000 more if our manufacturers did not combine to limit production, ' See appendix. THE FARMER. 303 advance prices, and lie idle one sixth of the time. We import, in spite of the tariff, $500,000,000 of manufac- tured goods annually. If we did not there would be no sale for our surplus agricultural products. A tariff is levied on these imports, not for a revenue from $500,000,- 000, but to protect and advance the price of the $7,000, 000,000 produced at home. " So long as the importation continues^' we were assured by John Quincy Adams, "///^ duty 7nust be paid by the purchaser of the article. It is sub- stantially paid upon the article of dofnestic manufactures as well as upon that of foreign production." We have seen, too, on page 32, that if the tariff prevents the im- portation of an article, something is added to the price of the domestic production, or there is no protection. A 6-cent duty is not added to the price of calico which sells at 5 cents, but if without the tariff the same calico would sell at 4 cents, then the consumer is taxed 25 per cent, as often as he buys, and this, too, to benefit the wealthy manufacturer. The amount that the farmer is thus taxed is almost incredible. General Lieb prepared with the utmost pains a dozen tables, enumerating the articles a farmer must ])urchase to establish himself in a very cheap way upon a farm. He gave in these the prices of several hundred articles under the tariff of 1883 ; also the price they would bring if free, and in a third column the amount added by protection. I have not space here to reproduce his tables entire, but in the table following I give a summary of the footings of his tables. Each line in this table is the footing of one of his tables, e.g , under materials for farm house he enumerates the amount, price, and kind of all materials, from sills and joists to lime, hair, and paint. 304 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTLON. The total is given in the first line of the following table. Assuming his tables to be correct, I have computed the differences in the two tariffs, and have added a fourth column showing the amount we are now taxed on the same items. While the McKinley tariff is in the main higher, the reduction in the duty on coarse lumber has made the tax on building and fencing material somewhat less than before : PRICES WITH PROTEC- TION. PRICES WITHOUT PROTEC- TION. MFCS. TAX, TARIFF 1883. m'kinley TAX, TARIFF 1890, Materials for house Materials for barn Materials for fencing. . . . Farm machinery Farm supplies $816.20 352-50 884.00 823.00 181.70 239.60 85.60 78.70 61.90 117.50 117.20 10.75 $676.24 310.80 754-40 651.50 134-09 171.94 55-86 53-99 40.14 81.25 76.81 7.08 $139.96 41.70 129.60 171.50 47.61 67.66 29.74 24.71 21.76 36.25 40.39 3-67 $105.05 31.28 97.20 189.80 83.80 95.00 34.80 41.85 39-95 67.40 75.80 4-55 Household furniture Kitchen furniture Owner's wardrobe Housewife's wardrobe. . . Two boys' wardrobe. . . . Two girls' wardrobe Domestic supplies Total $3,768.65 $3,014.10 $754.55 $866.28 If the farmer would do without these things, and buy diamonds, statuary, and sauer-kraut, he would find these on the free list. If he would know why this is so, he can ask the protectionist who represents him in Congress. Better still, ask himself why a protectionist represents him. General Lieb says : " If, after reading the above items, our Illinois farmers would take a look at their account books and see how much money they have spent for THE FARMER. 305 household goods, for farming utensils, lumber, etc., etc., during the high-protection period, and deduct the per-centage of the tax, the result would serve as an eye-opener to make clear to them where the lion's share of the $4,280,576,088 has gone. It would also give our Illinois farmer an inkling how it happened that during the twenty years of protection the manu- facturing but naturally poor commonwealth of Massa- chusetts accumulated twice as much wealth as did his own State, while during the ten years preceding, when the low-tariff system prevailed, the wealth of Illinois had trebled. " After a careful ' reckonin',' it might perhaps dawn upon our farmer that for every dollar's purchase made for his household or farm, he has been paying fifty cents more for the benefit of somebody else. Should he ' figger ' a little further, he will perceive that, while the 'home- market ' theory is undoubtedly a very soft thing for Lis New England brethren, it is an exceedingly hard thing for him. It might also occur to him that in voting these long years for 'protection to home industry ' and such balder- dash, he has been voting a good share of the proceeds of his own industry into the pockets of the Eastern manufacturers. " Now if this system had the indemnifying effect of enhancing the price of things the farmer has to sell cor- respondingly with the price of things he has to buy, this extra burden would not be so oppressive to bear, but the very opposite has always been the effect of a protective tariff in this country. From 1846 to 1850, under the low- tariff system, wheat averaged $1.10, and corn 57 cents, but in 1887, after a quarter of a century of high protection, the price of wheat, which had been declining from year to 306 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTLON. year, was quoted in Chicago market at 77 cents, and corn at 39 1 cents per bushel." In Michigan the Secretary of State has carefully gath- ered the statistics, and has done some of the " figgerin' " for the farmers. From statistics issued April 13th from the State De- partment it is shown that the wheat crop in Michigan for 1889 cost to produce $18,200,328, and that its value was but ^16, 728,803, or an actual loss of $1,471,525. The total cost of the corn crop was $12,269,032, and the total value $7,254,245, or a loss of $5,014,787. The cost of the oat crop was $9,013,655, and its value $7,390,056, or a loss of $2,740,198, a total loss on the production of the three crops of $9,226,510. John Bright most forcibly exemplified the protective system as "an organized army against the consumers, who are simply a mob." Any one who understands the difference between a thoroughly disciplined military force and an unmanageable hooting mob will see the force of the figure, but when we see half of this howling mob making no effort to oppose the enemy, but on the contrary shouting themselves hoarse to urge them on, we see the present condition of American consumers. Statistics are sometimes tedious, and tariff figures truly tell a terrific tale, but I cannot close this chapter without a few of them. By the census of 1880, the entire num- ber of people engaged in mechanics, manufacturing, and mining was 3,837,112. It is believed that only one tenth of these, or 400,000, were in protected industries. For these, 65,000,000 people are taxed, and little of it goes to these laborers, but rather to the 500 millionaires employ- ing them. Glass-blowers are protected. I have seen blowers at work where I was told they made as high as THE FARMER. 307 $20 per day. Famous lilowers, you will say, and so I thought when I was told they would " blow in " their entire week's earnings on Saturday night. Window-glass is protected by a duty running as high as 132 per cent. Is this prohibitory ? Not exactly, for glass really costs almost nothing. Clean sand and natural gas make it. The government collects over $1,000,000 annually on the little we import, and " so long as the importation continues the whole duty is added to the price of the domestic as well as the foreign." I have seen it estimated that the tariff adds over $50,000,000 to the cost of the cheapest plain window-glass. On plate glass pur- chased by the wealthy, the duty is very much less, ranging from 20 per cent, upward. I give a few items only as samples of the thousands of things on which we are taxed. In i88o there were employed in this country in making floor oil-cloth 1,690 men, 5 women, and 40 children. The value of their product was $4,271,066. Total wages paid, $733,235, and the duty on the goods is 40 per cent. What ! 40 per cent, to equalize the difference in labor cost between us and Europe when the entire labor cost here is but 15^ per cent. ! Yes, to protect the laborers, and they received the munificent sum of $8.25 per week. But how does this affect us ? Well, the importation still con- tinues ; so the whole duty is added to the price. The gov- ernment collected in 1886, duty on imported floor-cloth, $110,347, and we paid for protection on home-made floor-cloth over $1,500,000, and all this to the men who employ the 1,690 men who make it. Of carpets we imported, in 1886, $1,329,340 worth, and paid on these duties amounting to $659,874, or 50 per cent.; and for what purpose? To add to the surplus 308 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. in an overflowing treasury ? or was it to protect the many millions of carpet made in this country ? " So long as the importation continues," the whole amount of the duty is certainly added to the [jrice of both. Besides this, our carpet-makers paid into the treasury of the United States that year $2,198,140 duties on imported carpet wools. Does any one doubt that we who bought the carpets paid them this with percentages added ? Will the McKinley tariff help this order of things ? We have seen on page 194 that the old tariff on carpets ranged from 40 per cent, to 60 per cent., while the new tariff ranges from 50 percent, to 85 per cent. We have seen, too, that the " may-skin- me " tariff has increased the duty on carpet wools to 32 per cent, and 50 per cent., while reducing the duty on such wools as we grow from 1 2 cents a pound to 1 1 cents. Can your protection representative tell you why this is thus ? We produce in this country, annually, crockery worth about$io,ooo,ooo. We imported,in 1886, $4,992, 2i4worth, on this we paid in duties $2,829,535. The same percent- age on the domestic product is $5,780,000, or a total tax on crockery of over $8,600,000, and percentages added to this by all the dealers. And for whose benefit do we pay these millions ? The census gave the entire number of men employed in crockery-making as 7,205, and we paid this to the men who employ them that they may pay better than the pauper wages of Europe. Did they advance wages by this amount ? The census tells us that the entire sum paid for wages was about one third of this, and we have the statement from both Secretaries Blaine and Evarts that, considering the efificiency of the labor, they paid less than is paid for the same labor in Europe. Major McKinley is said to understand the tariff better than any other man in America. Did he know about THE FARMER. 309 this ? Oh, yes. He increased the duty on crocker)' 5 per cent. The old duty on bags and bagging was straight 40 per cent. In 1886 the government collected duties on these, $470,725. We produced in this country that year over $16,000,000 worth of the same goods. " So long as the importation is continued," etc. Forty per cent, of $16,- 000,000 is $6,4oo,ooo-tax that we paid when we bought bags. And for whose benefit was this? The census gives the entire number employed in making bags and bagging as 2,505 men, 2,129 women, and 817 children. Did they get this lovely protection of over $6,000,000 ? The census figures reply : the total wages paid these 5,451 hands was $1,603,785, or an average of $7 per week for each man, $5 a week for women, and $3 per week for children. Who then did get this money ? Ask the men who put up the boodle for the " Boodle Congress." McKinley understands it ? Oh, yes ; he raised the duty from 40 per cent, to 50 per cent., and, brother farmer, your representative voted for it. Will you again vote for him ? In 1886 we bought in Europe cotton hosiery worth $5,780,744.81, and on this thegovernment collected duties, $2,312,337.91, making it cost when landed over $S,ooo,- 000, and probably twice this amount when retailed. Of woollen hosiery we bought abroad $1,930,389.19, and on this paid duties, $1,132,994.98, a first cost of over $3,000,000 and a duty of over 60 per cent. On im- ported hosiery, then, the government collected a tax of over $3,445,000. And for what purpose ? To protect hosiery made in this country, of which the estimated product for the year was $35,000,000. Sixty per cent, of this would be $21,000,000 for protection, or even al 40 per cent, the tax to monopoly is $14,000,000. 3IO PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. Who needed this amount of protection ? In 1880 the whole capital stock invested (water and all) in the hosiery manufacture was $15,579,501, and the total wages and salaries paid to the 28,885 rn^", women, and children employed was $6,701,475. An average of $7 a week to men, and $4 and $2 respectively to women and children. Plainly the protection did not go to the laborers, or to protect them from competition with the pauper labor constantly imported from Europe. Surely the man who " understands " the tariff and has framed the present schedule has not permitted these rates to continue. No, indeed ! Where the rate before was 40 per cent, on cotton stockings it is now 65 per cent., and on woollen ones, where the old was 66 per cent., the new duty is 136 per cent. Moreover, on the rich man's stockings, worth over eighty cents per pound, the present duty is 79 per cent., but on those bought by the poor, worth less than thirty cents a pound, the duty is 166 per cent. How long, O Lord ! how long will poor consumers continue to vote for this sort of thing ? A volume might be filled with examples like the above of our iniquitous protective duties, but enough. Their aggregate weight is something almost inconceivable, but the mortgaged condition of our farms tells all too plainly the sad tale of their effect. The last twelve months that the old tariff was in opera- tion government collected duties on imports, $238,784,- 929.71. In the first twelve months under McKinley's tariff customs receipts fell off over $42,000,000, the receipts being $196,279,654.60. This falling off is not from any reduction in rates, but because our imports of dutiable goods has fallen off from $534,209,720 in the THE FARMER. 3II previous year to $427,364,400 the present year. Why this falling off ? Simply this ; the tariff was imposed to prevent foreign trade. We cannot import German stockings and pay a duly of 166 per cent. The duty was fixed at that to exclude them, and enable our manu- facturers to add 150 per cent., or any other sum they please less than this to what German stockings would cost us. Encourages American industry, does it ? Let us see. President Harrison, in his message to Congress, December 9, 1891, rejoices that our agricultural products are ^700,000,000 more than last year, and a general scarcity in Europe makes an unusual demand for them. But in another part of his message he says : " The in- crease in the value of exports of agricultural products during the year . . . over the prior year was $45,846,197." In other words, the McKinley tariff has thus far prevented the export of some $600,000,000 of farm products. Not very encouraging to our industry. The government then collects, in round numbers, $200,000,000 per annum on imported goods. The dealers add percentages on this, making it $400,000,000 when we consumers pay it. Brother farmers, you use protected American goods. The lowest estimate I ever saw is that we pay at least four times more for protection on domestic goods than for the comparatively few im- ported. This, then, is an added tax of $r, 600,000,000, or $2,000,000,000 together. Figure it yourself, my brother, and see if you can make it less. The average county, then, in South Michigan, of 32,500 inhabitants, if average purchasers, pays $1,000,000 each year for this tariff. Sufficient to build twenty first-class court-houses every year. Do you wonder that " half the farms in Michigan are mortgaged for nearly half their value " ? 312 rKACTICAI. RESULTS OF PKOTECTJON. I cannot close this chapter more fittingly than with the following words of L. L. Polk, President of the National Farmers' Alliance, before United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, April 22, 1890. " We protest, and with all reverence, that it is not God's fault. We protest that it is not the farmer's fault. We believe, and so charge, solemnly and deliberately, that it is the fault of the financial system of the Government— a sys- tem that has placed on agriculture an undue, unjust, and intolerable proportion of the burdens of taxation." EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON UNPROTECTED INDUSTRIES. " The scale of American wages is higher than that of any other country in the world. It is because we have for years by our protective tariff discriminated in favor of American manufactures and American workingmen." — Benjamin Har- rison. Of all absurd claims put forth to perpetuate this out- rageous system of legalized robbery, the above is perhaps the most utterly and inexcusably false and pernicious. That, philosophically considered, it is impossible for the tariff to have any such effect, is fully demonstrated in another part of this work. Not talking of tariff, any thoughtful mind can suggest scores of reasons why wages should be vastly higher here than in overcrowded and tax-ridden Europe. That, considering their real effi- ciency, their value and their product, they are not as well paid as in England, is conclusively shown by the UNPROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 313 official reports of Blaine and Evarts when Secretaries of State. The practical results of protection upon the laborers of this country at the present time remain to be discussed in these chapters. Of the 17,000,000 of people in this country engaged in gainful occupations, one half are on farms. The effect of the tariff upon these is sufficiently shown in the pre- ceding chapters. Half of the remainder are engaged in personal and professional service. By no possibility can we conceive them as being in competition with similar service across the ocean, and the only possible effect the tariff can have on them is to increase the cost of the articles they must buy. Statistics show that only one twentieth of our toilers are engaged in producing protected articles. Mr. Harrison's jingo statement has a resonant if not even a benevolent sound, but if he should attempt to explain to a thinking man just how a protective tariff has elevated the scale of American wages, the best he could possibly say is that it so adds to the profits of manufacturers that they can afford to pay higher wages. When they pay higher wages than are paid in industries not directly protected men will flock from unprotected industries to them, thus making a scarcity of help in the latter voca- tions, and consequently higher wages will result. In no other way is it possible that the tariff can advance wages generally. Now the fatal defect in all this philosophy is the admitted fact that protected industries pay notori- ously less wages than the unprotected. Certainly they could afford to divide their enormous profits with their laborers. It is equally certain they can afford, from their enormous wealth, to advertise their business extensively in the regions of Europe where the 314 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. cheapest and meanest laborers on earth can be found, and import them by thousands to usurp the places of their "American toilers the moment the latter demand wages upon which a Christian can live. So long as they do not pay better wages than unprotected industries there is no possible way by which the tariff can advance wages generally. The United States census classifies two million persons as laborers. " Their tools are very simple. They con- sist of the shovel, the spade and the pick, the saw and the axe, the spur and the whip. They are our daily toilers. They clean our streets and sewers, dig our trenches, throw up our railroad embankments, drive our teams and take care of our horses, split our wood, load and unload our vessels and freight cars — in short they perform the toil- some drudgery of the American people. " All of this labor has of necessity to be done here. Foreign labor cannot possibly compete with the laborer here, and it is adding insult to injury to tell him that the rate of his wages depends upon the amount of import taxes piled upon the things he must buy." The " pauper labor " can, however, compete by coming here, and that is the aim of the protection scheme. While the politicians are howling themselves hoarse with such fictions as that at the head of this chapter, the capitalists are busy importing the " paupers " to keep wages below the living limit of men who aspire to the privileges of civilization. If Congressmen really wished to benefit our toiling poor, would they not do precisely as they did by the citizens of Chicago and Portland when they wished to aid them after their homes and cities were burned ? They permitted them to import needed material free of duty. UNPROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 315 and it did aid them. But in those days it was never denied that " the tariff is a tax." A million men are engaged in the transportation busi- ness. Will some kind protectionist please tell what benefit it is to these men to have a duty of 166 per cent, imposed upon the cheap woollens and knit goods they must purchase for their families — duties placed there for the express purpose that our wealthy manufacturers may charge abnormal prices for their goods — a percent- age of duty which Mr. Burrows says is " necessary," which means, if it means anything, that our manufacturers do charge at the present time two and a half times more for these goods than our German cousins ask us for them. The census shows there are in this country 1,075,653 persons employed as domestic servants. Their wages are three times higher in some localities than in others. Does protection cause this when the protection is the same for the whole country ? The only thing that can reduce their wages is competition of the European labor after it comes here, and it is the one thing admitted free of duty. Does it benefit these servants that they have to pay an additional price of 60 per cent, on all they buy ? Is it not plain that if Congress really wanted to benefit these people they would reverse the present system ? Suppose for any reason they really wished to grind these servants down to lower wages and to exact tribute from them besides. Could they devise a scheme more effective for this purpose than our present tariff legislation? And then could dema- gogues say a more untruthfully malicious thing c)f the system than that at the head of this chapter. The census report enumerates 17:1,726 l)lacksmiths. Can any one conceive of any possible means by which their wages can be increased by the tariff ? We cannot 1 6 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. well send our mules to Europe to be shod by a " pauper" blacksmith. There is one way in which their wages can be reduced, however, and that is by importing the pauper blacksmiths here that our millionaires may employ them in all their factories at less than a man of enlightened tastes and aspirations can afford to work for, and that is our present policy. The same census tells us there are 44,85 1 barbers in this country. They receive from ten to fifteen cents for a shave. A like service is rendered in Germany for one third this sum. Is there a duty on shaved faces that makes this difference ? Or is it because there are three times as many barbers in Germany, or because Germans shave themselves ? Can any sane man contend for a moment that the tariff has aught to do with barbers* prices when they receive twice as much for the same service along Lake Superior as in South Michigan ? In one thing the tariff does affect them, however. When they purchase utensils or clothes for their little ones they are required to pay tribute to our monopolists of any- where from 50 per cent, to 160 per cent. The census says our flouring mills employ 53,440 millers. We pay them $2.50 per day and Europe pays but seventy-five cents if you please. Can a tariff on cotton, iron, glass, and tin advance their wages, or even a tariff on mill products so long as we import never a pound of flour ? " Pauper " millers can come here free as air. That can reduce wages, but the only thing that can advance them is to restrict the incoming of millers or to enlarge the markets for our flour, which is now competing with the pauper flour of the whole world, notwithstanding we are fined for every exchange made abroad. UNPROTECTED INDUSTRIES. 317 The census reports 89,625 engineers and firemen. Will Mr. Harrison step out from under his great hat long enough to inform us just how the tariff is to protect them against the pauper firemen and engineers in England, who might fire our engines there, spirit them across the ocean and continent, and steer them by telephone ? But our firemen experience frequent reductions in their wages because of the freely incoming paupers, and still they pay tribute on all manufactured goods they buy. We have 85,671 physicians and surgeons, 227,710 teachers, and 30,477 musicians, all paid two or three times more than is paid for similar talent in Europe. This is because God has smiled upon our land and made us able to pay them ; because we have such natural advantages as are enjoyed by no other land on earth ; because of the abundant opportunities for young men, and young women too, to " go west," leaving us a com- parative scarcity of teachers. All of these are willing to pay their share toward the support of the government. But is there any reason why they should be compelled to pay a still higher tribute to our millionaires on the pre- tence that it is to protect them against the pauper teachers and doctors of Germany or the fiddlers of Italy ? How can those harpers harm them so long as they remain in Italy ? By the census returns we have 380,718 clerks. Can a duty on what they must buy, or on what they sell, ad- vance their wages ? How can restricting trade benefit them ? Double their work or the amount of goods for them to handle and their wages would advance ; or allow agriculture to become profitable, so that farmers' sons would not be compelled to seek trade for a liveli- hood, and clerks' wages might be higher. 3l8 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTLON. Wc have 121,942 launderers and washwomen. Will Mr. Harrison please tell us whether their "higher scale of wages " is due to the fact that we must pay double prices for all the woollen clothes we have for them to wash, or is it because they must pay two and a half prices for their own dirty socks ? We have 64,678 clergymen enumerated in the cen- sus, and pauper clergymen continually coming from Canada to underbid them in salaries, and the direct effect of the tariff is to double the price — I say double, for most of them must buy cheap clothes, upon which the tariff runs as high as 166 per cent. — of the com- forts in their homes and the clothes to cover their children. But why multiply examples ? Everything said of each class above applies with equal force to every one of the 1,819,256 persons enumerated under the head of trade and transportation, and to the 4,047,238 in professional and personal service, and to two thirds of those enumerated as in manufacture — as the 102,473 brick- and stone-masons, the 128,556 painters, the 22,083 plasterers, 72,726 printers, the 77,050 saw-mill employes, the 34,536 employes not specified, 41,309 bakers, the 49,138 coopers, the 378,143 carpenters and joiners, and the hundreds of thousands in other unpro- tected occupations. I know a poor fellow who earns a livelihood digging ditches. He supports a family of small children, and pays the highest possible tribute to monopoly on all the necessaries he must buy for their comfort or their home, and yet he voted for more protection. He thought, I suppose, that the English would dig ditches, send them over here, and lay them down at prices to reduce his EFFECT OF PROTECTION' O.V LABORERS. 319 wages. Whatever he thought, considering their circum- stances and opportunities, his stupidity, ignorance, or perverseness bore no comparison to that of Benjamin Harrison, as given at the head of this chapter. EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON LABORERS IN PROTECTED INDUSTRIES. "Were it possible for every voter to see for himself the condition and recompense of labor in Europe, the party of free trade in the United States v^ould not receive the support of one wage-worker between the oceans." — Jas. G. Blaine, May, 1888. In 1844 the people found agriculture yielding a profit of 8 per cent., and manufacturers, owing to excessive protection, reaping a profit twice as large. They promptly restored the so-called free-trade party to power, and in 1846 the tariff was revised on a basis of tariff for revenue only. Statistics show that for fourteen years the country flourished and gained in wealth as never before or since. Since i860 protection has again cursed the land. The census of 1880 showed that the farmers had so long been denied a fair exchange of their products abroad that everything they produced, " sold, consumed, or had on hand," was accounted as worth but $2,213,402,564,— not enough to pay the farmers' wages for their toil by over $100,000,000, and yielding no interest whatever on their $12,000,000,000 of capital invested, and no percentage of profit whatsoever. The manufacturers, on the other hand, had $2,700,- 127,000 capital invested, and produced goods which the' tariff made worth $5,369,579.i9i- ^''^^7 P'"*'^ f*"" materials $3,396,823,549> '-^^d for wages, $947,953,795 i 320 PRACTICAL PESULTS OF FROTECTIOM. leaving them a profit of 36|- per cent. They certainly were able, from this enormous profit — or theft, whichever you regard it — to pay the hands in their employ enor- mous wages. Did they do so ? It is the object of this chapter to inquire. If they were carrying on business from purely philan- thropic motives, they doubtless did. If they were doing business on "business principles," they bought the cheapest labor they could find on earth, and paid for it the very least cent for which it could be obtained. Mr. Carroll D. Wright, chief of the United States Labor Statistics Bureau, records that the percentage of wages paid to the value of production was 24.68 in 1875, and in 1880 it was only 20.83, ^ decrease of one sixth in five years. Mr. Arnott, of Philadelphia, who collected the statistics for 1880, said : " While wages earned in protected industries in 1870 was, per hand employed, $446, for the year 1880 it was but $313.75, or a decrease of about 29 per cent." On page 653 of the United States Senate Committee's Report, the testimony of Mr. Howard of Fall River, a former member of the State Legislature and secretary of the Spinners' Association, is given as follows : " The Pacific Mills in Lawrence last year reduced the wages of their help about 25 per cent., and we could prove that for nineteen years preceding the corporation had declared dividends averaging 2o|^ per cent. We could find evidence of that in our State records. They have not only made that dividend, but their capital stock has been increased from $2,500,000 to $5,000,000." Senator Pugh asked : " Is not the tariff adjusted, or said to be adjusted, so as to afford protection to the American laborer, by enabling the manufacturer to pay EFFECT OF PROTECTION^ ON LABORERS. 32 1 him the highest prices for his work ? Is not that the general ground on which it is claimed there should be protection ? ' ' That is the ground upon which it is claimed, but that is not the prevalent opinion among the working people." What benefit or share do the operatives receive when the product is sold and the proceeds are divided between them and capital ? ' " The benefit ? Looking at the wages here, compared with the wages in England, I cannot see any benefit." " That is, the manufacturers take the whole benefit ; is that it ? " " Yes ; they will go over to Canada and bring over hordes of French people here to work in our mills at fifty or seventy-five cents a day." The well-known advocate of protection, Mr. John Jar- rett, the ex-president of the Amalgamated Iron and Steel Workers of the United States, who went personally to Illinois in 1886 to assist in defeating Wm. R. Morrison's re-election to Congress, testified before the same com- mittee : " The wages of labor can only be maintained at a living standard by the working men belonging to organi- zations. " I could name you mills which, during the boom of 1878, did not advance wages, although iron advanced to over four cents a pound. When iron sold at four cents in the market they did not advance wages a cent." " So the manufacturers took all the benefit of the advance ? " " They took it all." Further than this, manufacturers unblushingly admittrd 3-- PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. that they resorted to hlacklisting men for giving testi- mony. Of this damnable practice the report says : " Nearly all of the Fall River operatives seemed to fear the possibility of the manufacturers discovering that they had given information. One of them said, and his state- ment will cover what was said by many others : ' If it were known that I was giving you any information I should be discharged to-morrow.' " Another testified : " Having taken an active part in forming the Curriers' Union I have been blacklisted, or something of that sort, so that it has been almost impossi- ble for me to obtain work." John Morrison, a machinist of New York City, testified as follows : " Where do you work ? " " I would rather not have it in print. Perhaps I would have to go Monday morning if I did. ... If they know that we open our mouths on the labor question, or try to form organizations, we are quietly told that ' business is slack,' and we have to go." John Jarrett, the well-known protectionist, again testified : " They have a man named Sargent, who is there at the State-house every week, and when I was on the legislative committee I used to see him watching every man that came in, so that a Lowell man who had to earn his bread in the mills dare not put his head into the committee- room. The same is true in Lawrence. They had a detective named Filbrook always watching to see if any Lawrence men came before the committee to give testi- mony. . , . That is the condition of affairs. These man- ufacturers have their detectives employed permanently. EFFECTS OF PROTECTION' ON LABORERS. 323 I have been told that Filbrook gets a salary of $6,000 a year from the Pacific Mills alone." The report contains scores of pages of testimony like the above. But why repeat it ? It is notorious that pro- tected industries pay much less wages than do others, because the millionaire manufacturers have facilities for obtaining the cheapest, and it is well known that they resort to every means that their wit or wealth can provide to keep wages at the lowest possible limit. As a scarecrow to assist in perpetuating this robber- system it was thought advisable to keep the picture of human wretchedness prevailing among the poorer classes in the old country constantly before the eyes of the American working man. However wretched may be the condition in the " Black Forest," or remote regions, they are careful to conceal the fact that laborers are 100 per cent, better off in free-trade England than in any highly protected country in Europe, and immeasurably better off than in England when the protective (?) system prevailed but forty-five years ago.' It would be the most instructive and valuable lesson the American working man could study, to learn of the terrible degradation to which laborers were driven in England under the so-called protective system, and then to learn from reliable reports and statistics how rapidly the laborers in our own country, in the most highly protected industries, are being driven to the same desperate straits. The Cleveland Herald— good protectionist authorit> — publishes the following concerning the sufferings of the miners and their families scattered along the Pennsylva- nia Railroad between that city and AUentown : " These • See pages 20(;-2i4. 324 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. people have had their wages reduced from time to time until they are now only getting from sixty to seventy cents a day, or an average of sixty-five cents. . . . Never in the history of the place has there been so much suffering among the poor. The jianic of 1873 is no comparison. . . . " Mr. Schrack, who works in one of the mines in East Texas, did not reach home till 7.30. Supper had been prepared, and consisted of bread and molasses, mush and coffee. A stiff breeze was blowing from the northwest, and the cold air fairly whistled through the cracks of the old structure. " ' Will you kindly give us an insight into your daily life, Mr. Schrack?' " ' Well, to tell the truth, it is a tough one. I get up at four o'clock every morning, and leave here half an hour later, in order to reach the works at six o'clock.' " * What are your duties ? ' " ' I am a loader, and with the help of another man we load from sixty to seventy cars per day.' " * What are you getting per day "i ' " 'Sixty-two cents.' " ' How do you manage to live with that amount ? ' " ' Oh, we manage to just hang together. We can't afford meat but once a week. Bread and molasses con- stitute our chief diet, with a few potatoes and corn meal thrown in.' " ' How about your clothing, shoes, etc.? ' " ' The children have no shoes, and really I cannot afiford to buy any for them.' " * How much did you earn in January ? ' " '$1 1.38 ; I had work but about eighteen days.' " * How much does it cost you to live ? ' ** * My earnings did not quite cover the bills, and the EFFECT OF PROTECT/Oy ON LABORERS,. 325 grocer told me that hereafter none of the men would be allowed to exceed their earnings. I have not handled a cent since December first.' " * How is that ? ' Why, you see, after the grocer is paid nothing is left.' "This is the story of a dozen or more, and with the ex- ception of one or two cases all tell the same story. " Benville Eck said : ' I don't know how the men live, but judging from what I see here, bread and molasses are the chief articles of diet.' " A correspondent of the New York World writes thus : " There is a full supply of so-called ' hunks ' in town. This is the miners' name for the poor creatures who are brought over here in gangs from Hungary, Poland, Aus- tria, Russia, and Italy, and put to work at wages that no man with a family to support could stand. The highest paid them is ninety cents a day. They work for what they can get and herd together like cattle, twenty and thirty in a single room, sleeping on the floor, or in the woods when the weather is warm." The Chicago Herald contributes the following : " With what commiseration for poor Ireland and be- nighted, free-trade-ridden England, with what pride in the institutions of the land of his birth must every American read of the recent evictions at Hazelton collieries near Wilkesbarre. " For brutality and consequent misery they surpass the most exaggerated horror yet reported from Ireland. . . . Village and hills and collieries are the property of a firm named J. S. Wentz & Co. The men are forced to sign a lease which places them absolutely at the company's mercy. . . . This is a strictly American and highly protected lease. Mark how it operates. ... Six families 326 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION: with all their goods and chattels were thrown on the hill- side. . . . Their oppression did not stop here. Not only were they thus deprived of home and shelter, but not a soul in the village dared shelter them or their goods. The company had given notice that any tenant offering shelter to these evicted would be himself dispossessed. Mrs. Dunlavy was sick in bed when the officers arrived, but she had to go, and her bed was put out after her. . . . Nor were the evicted tenants able to remove their goods, for the company had prohibited any wagon from entering its lands for that purpose, and refused to grant the use of its own teams. Women and children were compelled to hunt miles in search of a place to spend the night. , . , Their goods are lying to-day just as they were thrown cut, the people being unable to move them. . . . The miners are now compelled to trade at the company's stores. . . . Four dollars is stopped for rent, and $1.90 for coal, with 65 cents added for delivery, and sometimes taxes are added upon the dwelling. . . . Their slavery is complete. It is remarked that under these conditions the mining population grows sullen and dispirited ; that the young men flee away to the cities as they grow up, leaving their places to be filled by cheap Slav labor im- ported for the purpose ; that the young women take to a life of shame rather than live in the cursed atmosphere of their youth ; that the children are joyless and igno- rant. The houses are horrible. The saloons are better, and the company sells the liquor. Men take to dissipa- tion from sheer despair." John Jarrett is a protectionist authority that no protec- tionist will dare to impeach. At a meeting of the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Capital in the city of New York, he was sworn as follows : EFFECT OF PROTECTION O.V LABORERS. 327 ** Please state your residence and occupation." " My name is John Jarrett. I reside at Sharon, Pa. At present I am President of the Amalgamated Iron and Steel Workers of the United States." " Do you know anything of the condition of the Penn- sylvania coal miners ? " " I do, sir. . . . The condition of the coal miners is pitiable, miserable in the extreme. . . . They are illy paid. Then, too, they suffer from the truck system. Under that system they pay one hundred per cent, more for what they buy than other people do. Then the houses they live in are extremely miserable. . . . The coal miner ought to be better paid, better clothed, better housed, and better fed than he is." " Have you been among the English miners ? " " Yes, sir ; and from my experience among the miners I may say that they are really better cared for than are the coal miners in the United States." " Do you mean that they have more comfort during the year ? " "Yes, sir." Enough ! Enough ! ! Let us turn from the place of Mr. Blaine's business to the place of his home — the home of protection, protection-cursed New Eng- land. Thomas O'Donnell, a mule spinner at Fall River, Mass., testified before the Senate Committee : " I have a wife and two children. I went to work when I was young and have been working ever since m the cotton business. . . . " How much have you saved ? " " I have not a cent in the house, did n't have whin I came out this morning." 328 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. " Taking a full year back, can you tell how much you have had ? " "That would be somewhere about $133 if you had not lost any time. Is that all you have had to support your- self and wife and two children ? " " Yes, sir." " Have you had any help from outside ? " " No, sir." " Do you mean that yourself and wife and two children have had nothing but that for that time ? " " That is all. I got a couple of dollars' worth of coal last winter and the wood picked up by myself. I go around with a shovel and pick up clams and wood to help out ? " "What do you do with the clams ? " "We eat them ; I don't get them to sell but just to eat for the family. That is the way my brother lives too, mostly ; he lives close by us." " How many live in that way down there ? " " I could not count them, they are so numerous. I suppose there are 1,000 down there." "A thousand who live on $150 a year?" " They live on less." " How long has that been so ? " " Six years this month." " How many pounds of beefsteak have you had in your family during the year ? " " I don't think there have been five pounds in a whole year." " You have had a little pork ? " "We had a half pound yesterday. I don't know when we had any before." EFFECT OF PROTECTION O.V LABORERS. 329 " What have you eaten ? " " Well, bread, mostly, when we could get it. We some- times could n't mak£ out to get that, and had to go to bed without a meal." " Has there been any day in the year when you had to go without anything to eat ? " "Yes, sir, several days." " More than one day at a time ? " "No, sir." " Have the children gone without a meal any day dur- ing the year ? " " They have gone without bread some days but we have got meal and made a porridge of it." " What have the children got in the way of clothing ? " " They have got along quite nicely all summer but they are now beginning to feel quite sickly. One has one shoe on, a very poor one, and a slipper that was picked up somewhere. The other has two odd shoes on with the heel out ; he has got cold and is sickly now." " Have they any stockings ? " " He had two stockings, but his feet came through them for there is a hole in the bottom of his shoe." " What have they on the rest of their person ? " " Well, they have a little calico shirt,— what should be a shirt, and one little petticoat and a kind of little dress." " How many dresses has your wife ? " " She has had but one since she was married, and she has n't worn that more than half a dozen times. She has worn it just going to church and it is pretty near as good as when she bought it," " She keeps that dress to go to church in ? " " Yes, sir." " Are you in debt ? " 330 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. "Yes, sir. I am in debt $15 for those funeral expenses of a year ago." "You live in a hired tenement ?" " Yes, but of course I can't pay big rent. My rent is $6 a month. The man I am living under would come and put me right out and give me no notice whatever, if I did n't pay my rent. He is a sheriff and auctioneer man. I don't know whether he has any authority to do it or not, but he does it with people." " Do you see any way out of your trouble ? What are you going to do for a living, or do you expect to stay right there ? " "Yes, I can't run around with my family." " You have nowhere to go to, and no way of getting there if there was any place to go to ? " " No, sir, I have no means for anything, so I am obliged to stay there and try to pick up anything as I can." The New York World thus describes one of the highly protected silk-ribbon factories of that city : " The employees of the factory numbered 550, and, with the exceptions of the weavers at the looms and the foremen and packers, all were women and girls. " A few questions put to the proprietor of the factory brought out the cold, hard facts, that the working hours for the girls and women were from seven o'clock until six, winter and summer alike, and their wages from $3 to %"] a week. " A little damsel of apparently 16 years said : " * I get $3 a week. I had to work three weeks here for $1 a week. It took me that long to know how to watch the spools. Then they gave me $2.50, and last month they raised me 50 cents. " ' I have a sister two years older than myself; she works EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON LABORERS. 33 1 in a paper-box factory and cannot earn more than $2.50 a week. Our mother goes out washing, and together we earn enough to keep us. ... I shall be eighteen my next birthday. No, of course I should not be able to live on my earnings if I were alone. It is only by liv- ing with my sister and mother that we can get along.' " The New York Herald, speaking of the laborers in the most highly protected of all American industries, that of ready-made clothing, said : " Not in pleasant homes nor in comfortable workrooms are these to be found, but in dingy, foul-smelling rear houses, in mouldy cellars, in crumbling garrets, or in noi- some, cramped, and crowded tenement-houses, where men, women, and children are huddled together at the rate of over two hundred thousand to the square mile, where hope perishes, and where it seems impossible to live, much less to work, " Here their lives are passed, forever engaged in the fierce struggle with want. Slaves of poverty, bound with fet- ters they cannot break, held fast in the iron grip of circum- stances, they toil on instinctively until the release comes. " The average earnings of men and women do not exceed $6 a week, and for this miserable pittance they must labor from twelve to sixteen hours a day through- out the busy season. Then come the three idle months during which they live — well, as best they can, for they have no surplus from the nine months' work, their earnings then being barely sufficient to keep body and soul together. Through the streets of the city they plod, looking for work, and in their wretched, cheerless houses they rest, waiting for work." And yet carpenters, blacksmiths, barbers, and masons are voting for more protection, believing the wages paid 332 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION: in protected industries are such that men are constantly flocking from their trades into these, and that such is the cause of their high wages, and so too they are told by the politicians who are paid ])y the millionaire robbers for telling it. Talk about " pauper laborers in Europe." The New York Herald again says : " The condition of laborers in sugar refineries (highly protected) is literally that of white slaves. The lowness of their wages is by no means the sum of their hardships. In no occupation is the toil more exhausting, in none so oppressive, in none more beset with menace to the health, or even to life and limb." An Englishman who had quit the business, when asked concerning the comparative condition between the sugar refineries of this country and in England, said : " If I were to work in a sugar refinery again I would much pre- fer to do so in England ; you can live better there on the wages which they pay than you can here . . . Mind you, you have regular employment there the year round. . . . It is just there where the shoe pinches at the present time. . . . Half of the journeymen sugar refiners are idle. Worse than this, many of those who are not idle are not allowed to work half their time, some of them get only three, four, or five hours in a day. How far will that amount of labor go toward supporting a man, think you, let alone a wife and family ? " The foregoing is sufficient to convey a general idea of the deplorable condition of the working people in our most highly protected industries. The reports of special correspondents and the sworn statements of intelligent operatives corroborate the numerous reports which have daily been published during the last few years. EFFECT OF PROTECTION ON LABORERS. 333 Moreover, these damaging facts to the claims of pro- tectionists have never been denied, and indeed, cannot be denied. These people are the living monuments of the heartlessness and cupidity of a privileged class. President Harrison squeaks out from under his great hat : " Wait and see how the old thing works now that we have the rope a little tighter about the throats of our laborers than ever before and are taxing them more than ever before on their necessaries." Well the New York Herald has recently devoted a whole page to the present condition of the coke workers in Pennsylvania, saying : " What a spectacle for the heart of the Keystone State and the home of protection ! What a satire on civilization and rebuke upon religion ! " I know a protection orator who made his stock argu- ment in 1888 the fact that in England women have been known to work at the forge side by side with their hus- bands, and he painted in glowing terms the degradation of this country when the same thing would become neces- sary if our then existing tariff, averaging 47 per cent., should be reduced, by the Mills Bill becoming law, to 42 per cent. Well, in this year of grace, 1892, under the increased tariff, I read from Alice L. Woodbridge, Secretary Work- ing Women's Society, New York City : " Already wo- men are found in iron foundries, brass foundries, wire mills, etc., and always at lower wages than men receive. The factory inspector of Pennsylvania tells me of women employed in wire mills who lift spools of 60 lbs. weight and place them in the winding machines. The average day's work is 500 spools, or 30,000 lbs., for which work they receive ^6 per week. ... In the busy season 334 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PKOTECTION. they work from one to five hours extra without extra pay. . . . Another wrong to working women is the competition of child labor. . . . Can there be a more convincing proof of the evil of child labor than the fact that the number of children under sixteen years of age employed in this city equals the number of women who live by questionable means ? " Suppose their assertions were admitted, that the workers in England are in a worse condition than ours, is there not a world-wide difference between the natural conditions of the two countries to account for it ? Eng- land is a small, overpopulated island, with iron and coal as her only natural resources. England is selling 500 yards of woollen and cotton fabrics to foreign nations where we sell but 20, and all other manufactured articles in proportion. Is the Englishman such a superior business man .? Has he more good sense ? Has he greater spirit of enterprise ? Are the managers of his mills more efficient and inven- tive than ours ? No, but instead of confining his trade within England's realm, he trades everywhere at a profit. " America is a land immense in extent, sparsely settled, endowed with natural wealth unsurpassed by any coun- try on the globe. In making invidious comparisons between the conditions of the workers in both, the pro- tectionists are adding insult to injury, such pictures of human wretchedness and misery as the above should not be among the possibilities in America. There are many reasons why affluence and comfort should be the excep- tions among the working classes of England, while there is absolutely no excuse why in the United States plenty should not be the rule." CONCLUSION. 335 CONCLUSION. " I don't know what it is we want, but we want it right away, and vre w^ant it bad." I think the above are the words of a farmer at a national gathering of one of the third or fifth party organ- izations. If these were not his words, they certainly might have been, for they echo the sentiment of two milUon farmers and two million other tired toilers who are certain that something is out of joint in our financial legislation, but are not at all certain what it is. Well, to any such who have followed me through these pages I would say : When the coroner finds a man dead in the street, weltering in his own blood from a bullet hole through his heart, he does not go to great expense to learn whether he died of phthisis pulmonalis or liver complaint. He has discovered in the one bullet hole the all-sufficient and necessary cause of death. Have we not, too, discovered the one all-sufficient and inevitable cause of all the financial ills we need lay at the door of our national Congress ? " But," I fancy some of you will ask, " if the protective system is really such wholesale robbery as is here de- scribed, are there not statesmen in the G. O. P. of equal liberty and moral reform, who would be aware of the wrong and who would right it ? " I answer : There were eminent statesmen, and thou- sands of intelligent men less eminent, who voted for Hayes as against the protectionist Tilden, and who voted for the free-trader Garfield against the " local-question " Hancock, who understand the effects of the tariff to be exactly as described in this book ; thousands who be- lieved in Clay's and Greeley's theory of protection to 2,^6 PRACTICAL RESULTS OT TROTKCTION. infant industries, to the end that they might be estab- lished in this country to compete with and undersell the foreigner when once established. They understand a demand for perpetual protection is for j)erpetual robbery. Oh, yes. There are statesmen who understand it. We call them Mugwumps now. The statesmen who remain in the party ? Well, well ! Who are they ? We used to send statesmen to the United States Senate. To-day the Senate is a club of million- aires whose wealth has been taken from the toiling mil- lions by this tariff and piled into their pockets. They understand the tariff perfectly. Their wealth has pur- chased their seats in that body for the single purpose of continuing the robber system. How great is their influ- ence in securing the election or appointment of Con- gressmen and Cabinets to stand by them none but politicians can know. They are at the head of the " organized army " of protected robbers. They dictate the literature of the press that fools four million farmers into riveting the chains of their own slavery. They post ten thousand protection speakers, who neither know nor care aught about the tariff, and who could not compre- hend its intricacies if they would. They speak for money. Here, brother farmers and fellow-toilers, is an issue upon which we can all unite against monopoly with full assurance that we are entirely right and our oppo- nents entirely wrong. Science and history, political economists and philosophers, in this country and the world over, are agreed that free trade is for the best interest of all mankind, and that protection is robbery of the millions for the enriching of a favored few. Careless demagogues, for their own advancement, and our organ- ized enemies will seek to divide our forces by side issues CONCLUSION. 337 of less moment. Meantime the battle is on between tariff reform and perpetual, unendurable robbery, and will be won this year by ourselves or our enemies. To you, my friends, who have come with me through these pages may I make a most earnest appeal, that we stand united by this issue. The other wrongs of which we com- plain will not be righted this year, and upon none of the other popular demands of the time do we have the united support of the best thought of all lands. May it not be that we are mistaken in our demands, and may I, in part- ing, suggest a few of the errors into which there is danger that we may be led ? It has happened a thousand times in the history of legislation that laws have been demanded in the interest of a certain class, as laborers, debtors, etc., and after their enactment they were found to have exactly the opposite effect from that designed, as witness our interest laws, mortgage-tax laws, and many others. The demand for the free coinage of silver is a more or less intelligent demand. But in the form in which it is usually put, that the government shall give free coinage to both gold and silver dollars of the present weight and fineness, and maintain them each at par with the other, or of equal value, it is simply an impossibility and a senseless demand. The government can maintain a limited coinage at a fictitious value for a limited time, but when it gives freely, without cost, and in unlimited amount any stamp you please upon loo cents' worth of silver and the same stamp upon i 25 cents' worth of gold, the value of either is entirely beyond the control of all human law. If we have free coinage of silver either the dollars will remain as valuable as now or they will not. If they are 33S PRACTICAL RESULTS OF I'ROTECTION. as valuable and will buy as much, they will cost as much and no one can get them any more easily than now except silver miners. At present we buy the metal at 80 cents and coin it into dollars, and we all share in the profit, which amounted to $6,313,767.90 last year. Under free coinage, if the dollars remain as valuable as now, the whole of this profit falls at once into the hands of the mine-owners. Why do we ask for it ? On the other hand, if the dollars are not as valuable, we thus demonetize gold, unsettle all values, and vitiate all contracts. The acknowledged leader in the State of Michigan of one of the third or fifth side-issue parties which favor free coinage said to me : " I know it. The masses don't need to know it, but it is repudiation. It is legally settling our debts with less than we promised to pay. But they have been defrauding us for years, and we want to get even." With a man who wants legislation to enable him to cheat, it is of course impossible to base an argument upon moral grounds. But whom does he mean by they ? All contracts made within the last thirteen years have been upon the basis of the present value of a dollar. To whom do we owe money that is due and will be falling due who would be sufferers by this .? First and foremost of all are the laborers, who always work under a contract made before and receive their pay after service. They are always the chief sufferers from a depreciating currency. Next, the farmers, widows, orphans, and all others who have sold lands or other property and have not yet received pay. But among the greatest sufferers from a fluctuating currency are the farmers, whose prices are ever and ever fixed for them by others. With a vary- ing currency those who fix the prices invariably take a double advantage. All history shows that under such CONCLUSION. 339 circumstances capital and capitalists always look out for themselves. They are able to "stand from under," while all with whom they deal have to suffer. Why do we ask it ? An increase of currency is another popular demand. All said in the last paragraph applies here. Those loud- est in the demand for more money raise the double objection to gold and silver that they are too scarce, too dear and expensive, and, at the same time, too heavy and inconvenient. Did it ever occur to them that if there had never been but just half as much gold and silver in the world, and it had cost the same labor to obtain them, they would serve to make our exchanges just the same as now, and our coins would be just half as large and half as heavy ? When they object that they are too heavy and inconvenient they are really saying there is too much gold and silver in circulation. Again, it is not money, as such, that any of us want. What we want are more comforts, more conveniences, more luxuries. Fifty dollars put into the pocket of every man, woman, and child, could do no possible good while it remains there. We want it for what it will buy. If it will buy no more than twenty-five dollars will at present, what is the use of having fifty in place of twenty-five ? Why do we ask it } Is there not danger in the demand, and who has taught us to ask it ? Certainly not the scientist, the historian, the philosopher, the political econ- omist ; they all know very well that of all devices for cheating the poor there is none more efficient than a depreciated, a cheap currency, " Government should loan to farmers at 2 per cent," If this demand should be made in sober earnest by more than half the American people it would be the most dan- 340 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. gerous and, at the same time, ridiculous class legislation ever attempted. According to the census returns farmers are making no percentage of profit whatever. The more money tliey hire at 2 per cent, the worse off they are, for the average farmer could never pay i per cent, under the present tariff laws. But seriously, what money is government going to loan to us ? What is government ? We, the people, are the government, and we never had a cent of money except what is earned by labor and owned by individuals. The government at Washington is composed of a few men we have sent down there to enact laws to prevent injustice among our citizens. We send O'Donnell from this dis- trict, and Belknap from the fifth. Quite ordinary mortals when at home, but when in Washington we demand that they loan us money at 2 per cent. Whose money ? They and the government at Washington have not a cent for their own use, never had a cent, never can have a cent, except as they take it from those who have produced it by individual toil. All wealth, all value is created by labor. Legislation can create nothing of value. If gov- ernment could create money, even enough to run its own expenses, and thus relieve us of all taxation, it would be the greatest discovery of this or any other age. Let them try it on this small scale first, before loaning the stuff to us. Do you think any Congressman would go to Washington on such terms ? How did we become con- fused with so much nonsense ? To carry on the war Con- gress did give the notes of the whole people — we, the people promise to pay — and we have had to pay. Do you want more of your notes issued by your agents at Washington, and to whom, and for what purpose ? When do you want to pay them ? Remember if you do not pay CONCLUSION. 341 them they are good for nothing. I have not space here to convert those who have prejudged the case. I can only assure you that all philosophy, all history, all men who are competent to judge the scheme condemn it. Do you know that you never wanted to hire money, as such, and never will ? What you want is capital, the product of other men's toil. You want to buy a horse you have not yet earned. The man who sells him has no capital to spare. He wants to use it. You go to some one who has one hundred days' surplus earnings. You hire of him money to pay for the horse. What you are really owing for is the horse, and the rate of interest you can afford to pay depends upon how profitable to you the horse is. You build a better house than you have earned. You first owe the carpenter for his work. You shift and owe another man for his capital. Now you want to hire money to take up the old mortgage, giving a new one. What you are really owing for all the time is the house, and the rate of interest you can pay is what you can pay for a house you have not yet earned — or more likely you have earned it over and over, but protection has taken it while you bought necessaries for the little ones. "The national banks must go." Do you, my brother, know what a bank is, and what it does ? A short time ago I had money in a bank and I wanted to pay a man in New York. My check is as good as gold, but he does not know it, and if I send it, it will not be honored there. I hand it to my banker and ask him for his check on a New York bank. My check is just as good as his, perhaps better, for I have gold in deposit, and I don't know that he has. But I gladly pay him a difference, as his is cur- rent in New York. It accommodates both of us, and the New York parties as well, yust so, before we had national 34^ PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION. banks I wanted to buy a horse. My note was good, but the seller would not take it as it was not current. I went to a capitalist to hire — a banker is always a capitalist ; he gave me his notes. My note was as good as his, and better, for mine drew interest and his did not ; but I paid him, not only interest but a bonus besides, and gladly ; for his notes were current and as good as gold. It was an accommodation to all of us, and no one's else business on earth. Laws have no business to meddle with it. As Hon. J. G. Blaine says of trusts, " It was a private affair," with which the President had no business to meddle. In progress of time it came about that irresponsible men would issue bank notes to the unsuspecting and unguarded public, and then rob them by not redeeming the notes. It then became necessary that government should restrict and control bank issues, simply to protect its citizens from loss through fraud or mismanagement. Finally it has come about that the general government restricts bank issues to those who have deposited with the treasurer their property, their capital, the product of their labor and saving, their government bonds, to the full amount which they may issue. To guard against the pos- sibility of an over-issue of a single unsecured note, the government provides that they shall not issue a single note except on the blanks furnished by the treasurer. That is all there is about the issue by national banks. All the nonsense we hear about the government giving them money has not the shadow of foundation in fact. If we do not care to hire these notes they cannot, under any possible circumstances, do us any particular harm. If we do want to hire capital, and find lenders more numerous because of this issue, it should certainly be to our advan- tage, and cannot be to our harm. CONCL USION. 343 No one has ever yet lost a dollar by failure of these notes. Neither indeed can he. Under present legislation they are as good as gold and so ir.ust remain. By our own tinkering what we do not understand we may depre- ciate or destroy their value. If we fool with the free- silver boom, and find it loaded, we may awake some fine morning and find that these notes which were just as valuable as gold when we took them, are just as valuable as silver when we come to use them. If we lose 20 per cent, on every one of them, the banks will make as much and we shall have learned something. Do you know very much about banking, anyway, my brother, and are you sure that somebody is not making a cat's-paw of your vote for purposes you do not fully un- derstand ? Many of the things we hear said of national banks and the demands regarding them are just as sensi- ble and just as ridiculous as if the bankers should assem- ble in national convention and resolve that it is a mean, dirty trick for farmers to grow potatoes in the dirt, and demand that hereafter they shall grow them upon trees like apples. Our present system is acknowledged to be the best the wit of man has ever yet devised. Instead of cur- tailing it, would it not be wise in us to enact that every outstanding United States bond may be deposited with the treasurer, and the owner may issue his note for the amount if he please. These notes could never depre- ciate. If we did not need them in business they could do no harm. They would lie idle in the hands of their makers If we need them in autumn to move the crops, there would be an abundance of currency perfectly good and just at hand and to be had at lowest rates. If there was great profit in the issue, we could exact tribute for 344 PRACTICAL RESULTS OF PROTECTION: the franchise and thus all share in the profit, and that is just what we have done by the national banks. We have taxed them at times so there was no profit to them in the issue. " Be sure you 're right, then go ahead." On the one great issue we are sure we are right. On these side issues the best thought of really great men is not so unanimous. I will assure you, and every great political economist living will bear me out in the statement, that the man does not live who can foretell what the effect of the free coinage of silver in this country would be. On these questions, which at best are fraught with danger, we can afford to go slow. Another year we may know more about silver. I have no doubt that, except for the craze in this country, the leading nations of the world might soon agree upon a ratio of coinage acceptable to all. My dear friend, you do not agree with all I have written. Very well. If you have as good reason for the faith that is in you, we will still be friends. But if I had the voice of thunder that could be heard and heeded by every tariff reformer in the land, I would say this : However we may agree or disagree on other reforms, let nothing come be- tween us and success in the all-important tariff reform. Let no third, fifth, or ninth party divide us in any congres- sional district where there is a possibility of electing a tariff reformer. Whatever name or guise or party collar a candidate may wear, if he is sound on this question let us unite in his support. The candidate of the dominant party is most likely to win. Can we not lay aside our individual hobbies long enough to elect him ? Perhaj)s you say, in all this you see the marks of the party harness I wear. Perhaps, in this you are mistaken. These are to me simply questions of scientific and eco- CONCL USION. 345 nomic interest, of deep and abiding interest. I belong to no party, but every party belongs to me if I can use it to advance a cause I believe to be just and right and urgent. I voted with the republican party repeatedly when the tariff was not an issue. I voted with the prohibitionists again and again when there was no important issue be- tween the great parties. Intemperance is a mad dog at large in the streets, and all good citizens should unite for his destruction. But just now he is not in the immediate vicinity of my family and there is no possibility that my vote in the coming general election could do him either good or harm. Meantime there is a vampire at the throat of my children, sucking their life-blood day and night and while they sleep. I will dismiss the mad-dog fright for the moment and do all in my power to slay the vampire, protection, — wont you ' APPENDIX. THE TARIFF WAR ON THE FARMER. BY THOMAS EDGAR WILLSON.' " Where, then, is the remedy from the heavy burden of a 50 per cent, tax on the necessaries of life, both imported and domestic ? There is only one element or class able to remove it, and that Sampson is sleeping in the lap of Delilah and will not awaken. I, of course, mean the farmers. The plundered, unprotected, twenty-five million of geese-like farmers who permit themselves to be plucked of almost every feather by a hundred thousand ' protected ' monopolists. While the ploughmen act like Issachar's ass, and crouch between two burdens, both will be kept on their backs. The fabricants live focalized in the cities and plot and scheme for the promo- tion of their selfish interests and bring their united lobby in- fluence to bear on members of Congress, whereas the farmers live isolated and scattered, and can't or don't combine in defence of their interests. Hence, they are unprotected, un- represented and unconscious of what keeps them poor. They are captivated by the specious cry of * protection to American industry,' tho' they get none of it ; and of the value of the 'protected ' home markets to them, as if protected monopo- lists eat any more than other men." — Joseph Medill, editor of the Chicago Tribune, the Republican Organ of the Northwest. I. Between 1850 and i860 was the so-called " era of free trade." In 1862 began the protection, which has been • This essay, inserted by permission, was first published in Tariff Reform, a semi-monthly journal published by the Reform Clulj, 52 William Street, New York. To this journal I am indebted for many of the facts and figures in Part IV. of this work. 347 348 APrENDix. such a good thing — for somebody — that it has been in- creased in amount every few years. In 1888 the farmers of the Northern States voted in favor of another large increase and another turn of the tariff screw. Their bene- fits from it must be large and their increase in prosperity since i860 must have been in marked contrast to the previous decade without its blessings. The Tenth Census statistics concerning agriculture will show exactly how great it is. Turn to page 650 of the compendium and read on : VALUE OF FARM LANDS. 1850. i860. 1880. I3. 271. 575. 421 $5,645,045,007 $10,197,096,776 Increase for ten years — 1850 to i860 3.373.4^9,586 Increase for twenty years — 1860 to 1880 3.552,051,769 Yearly rate of increase — 1 S50 to i860 337.34^^958 Yearly rate of increase — 1S60 to 1880 177,602,588 ' Per cent, of yearly increase — 1850 to i860, io|^ ' Per cent, of yearly increase — 1860 to 1880, 2^ 2. The average value of our improved land was $1 1 per acre in 1850 and $16 in i860, an increase in the ten years of $5, or 45 per cent., in the decade. Its value was $19 per acre in 1880, an increase of $3 in twenty high tariff years, or 9 per cent, each decade. Before i860 the an- nual increase in value per acre was 50 cents. Since i86o it has been only 15 cents yearly. 3. The total acreage in farms at the three different periods was as follows : 1850. i860. 1880. 293,560,614 407,212,538 536,081,835 Increase 113,651,924 128,869,297 Yearly increase. . . . 11,365,192 6,443,468 •The total increase in value under twenty years of protection is only equal to the increase under ten years of "free trade." The yearly increase since i860 is only one half what it was before i860. There has been a drop from 10^ per cent, increase in i860 to 2^ per cent, increase in 1880. In these twenty years the population more than doubled. THE TARIFF WAR ON THE FARMER. 349 With all the enormous railroad expansion and opening up of new territory between i860 and 1880 farming had ceased to pay and fewer people went into it. In 1850 the acreage was 12.7 per inhabitant ; in i860 it increased to 12.9 ; in 1880 it decreased to 10.7. 4. The average value of each farm in 1850 was $2,258 ; in i860 it was $3,251 ; in 1880 it was $2,569. The increase between 1850 and i860 was $993. The decrease between i860 and 1880 was $682. 5. The average value of farm land per inhabitant in 1850 was $142, It increased to $2 II in i860 and de- clined to $203 in 1880. 6. In New Jersey, which since i860 has become merely the kitchen-garden for her own cities. New York, Brook- lyn, and Philadelphia — her 2,096,294 acres having a population of 4,000,000 to feed — the value of her im- proved farm land has declined since i860. In the ten years before i860 it increased in value $25, or from $68 to $93 per acre. In 1880 it was worth only $91 per acre. The yearly increase in the value of New England's farms before i860 was $10,395,529. Since i860 it has been $5,218,579. 7. For clearness, let these facts be arranged in tabular form. For the whole United States we have this result : 1850. i860. 1880, Average value of farms $2,258 $3,251 $2,569 Per inhabitant 142 211 203 Improved land per acre 11 16 19 Acreage per inhabitant 12.7 12.9 10.7 Taking the six New England States, which have had nothing but remarkable prosperity, with an enormous increase in their " home market," we get the following results : 350 APPENDIX. 1850. i860. 1880, Value of farms $372,348,543 $476,303,837 $580,681,418 Average value of farm. . . 2,220 2,589 2,802 Averaj;e value per acre (imjiroveil) 33 39 44 Average value per capita 136 152 145 Acreage per capita 4.1 3.8 3.2 Twenty years of protection brought no greater increase in the vahie of farms than ten years of free trade to the New England States. This average was that of the whole Union. THE FIGHT FOR THE AMERICAN MARKET. All that the people of the United States eat, wear, and use must be provided by their own labor. It is distributed by an exchange of products through trade. In 1880 the farmers numbered 7,670,493. Of these 5,773,008 worked in 1879 to supply the American market with what it wanted to eat, and 1,897,485 to supply the American market with a part of what was needed for wear and use — clothing, iron, and the like. Of the $2,- 213,402,564 worth of farm products raised in 1879 only $1,666,925,861 could be profitably disposed of, or were needed here, leaving a surplus of $546,476,703, which had to be exported — exchanged abroad for manufactured products — and brought back here for final sale to their countrymen. When their surplus farm products are sent abroad for exchange into something their countrymen wanted, they have to import the payment. Nothing is permitted to come into this country except through the custom-house. When their payment passes through the custom-house, all of it which would interfere with the mills and factories is taxed 48 per cent, on the average, which amounts to a THE TARIFF WAR ON THE FARMER. 351 tax on the whole of about 30 per cent. Here is a clear statement that shows his burden at a glance : Year. Agricultural Exports. Workmen Engaged. Tax Levied on Payment. Rate. 1880 $685,961,091 730,394.943 552,219,819 619,269,449 546,313,318 530,172,966 484,954,595 523,073,798 2,381,809 2,536,093 1,917,429 2,150,206 1,862,905 1,840,875 1,683,870 1,816,228 $164,630,661 189,902,685 165,665,945 185,780,834 155.531.442 169,655,349 145,486.378 162,152,877 24 1881 26 1882 30 1883 30 1884 1885 29 32 1886 30 1887 31 Total Average $4,662,361,979 582,795,247 16,188,715 2,026,089 $1,338,806,171 167,350,771 232 29 This tax is levied to protect the American mill-owner from the competition of the American farmer. The 14,500 protected mill-owners and the 1,897,485 farmers are fight- ing one another for the "home market " for manufactured goods — the mill-owners to get it all, the farmers for a share of it. If the mill-owners gain it all, the 1,897,485 farmers must abandon their land and find other work. The tax is not levied to keep out the foreigner. He cannot come here, except as an immigrant, and then he is welcomed. Fully three-quarters of all he sends here is payment for our farm surplus, because we have little else to sell. The business question is : " Shall our 1,897,485 farmers be permitted to supply their countrymen yearly with mill products worth $415,000,000 (abroad), by an exchange of our surplus farm products for them, or shall they be taxed out of the business to protect the 14,500 mill-own- ers from their competition ? " 352 APPENDIX. OVER THE HILL TO THE POORHOUSE. The war which the protected mill-owners began in 1862 to obtain control of the whole market for manufac- tured goods, and to secure for themselves the $4 15,000,000 supplied by the farmers, and as much more as they could get of the partly manufactured goods imported, has been increasing in importance every year. It will not end until the farming industry is ruined. The mill-owners cannot break down its competition except by the ruin of all in the farming business. Between 1850 and i860 our agricultural exports in- creased 25 per cent, yearly. In the twenty-eight years since then they have increased only three per cent, yearly. That shows well for the work of the mill-owners, but here is something which shows better. Since 1 88 1 they have driven our exports of farm pro- ducts down $230,000,000. Here are the figures : Year. Total Agricul- tural Exports. Provisions. Breadstuffs. Textiles. 1881 1882 1883 1884 1885 1886 1887 1888 $730,394,943 552,216,511 619,269,449 536,315,318 530,172.835 484,954,595 523,073,798 500,840,086 $156,807,605 122,020,357 109,217,119 114,353,788 107,332,456 90,625,216 92,783,296 93,058,705 $270,332,519 182,670,528 208,040,850 162,544,715 160,370,821 125,846,558 165,768,662 127,191,687 $247,715,394 199,849,992 247.350,911 197,018,277 201,979.197 205,561,916 206,300,059 223,022,032 Here is the result of the last seven years of the farmers' competition with the manufacturers, aided as the manu- facturer is by the tariff, as stated, page 43, Bureau of Statistics Report for 1888 : THE TARIFF WAR ON THE FARMER. 353 Exports of Domestic Merchandise. Agriculture. Manufactures. 1881 $730,394,943 $89,219,380 1888 500,840,086 130,300,087 The exports of the mill-owners have increased 4^ per cent. The exports of the farmers have decreased 31 per cent. Of the total exports of the United States, the farmers have lost 10 per cent, and the mill-owners have gained 10 per cent. How eifective has been this process in helping to reduce the market and the prices for what American farmers pro- duce, may be inferred from the following table. It shows the debt of the United States on the ist day of July, 1866 and 1885, including non-interest-bearing greenbacks, ex- pressed in dollars, and also in the things working folks have to produce in order to get the dollars with which to pay debts and interest : National Debt. National Debt, Debt in 1866. 1885. Dollars 2,773,000,000 1,830,000,900 Beef, barrels 129,000,000 135,000,000 Corn, bushels 2,000,000,000 3,000,000,000 Wheat, bushels 800,000,000 1,740,000,000 Oats, bushels 3,262,000,000 4,357,000,000 Pork, barrels 82,000,000 96,000,000 Cotton, bales 12,000,000 34,000,000 We paid from 1866 to 1884 on the public debt : interest, $1,870,000,000, and principal, about $1,200,000,000 ; yet we find that what there is left of it, when measured by farm labor, or the product of farm labor, is 50 per cent, greater than the original debt On page 37 of the same volume will be found the following exports of five of our highly protected mill 23 354 APPENDIX. products needing no protection when sold abroad in open competition with the foreign mills in the foreign markets : Protected mill products. Export value. Cotton yoods $13,013,189 Iron and steel 17,763,034 Copper ore 5,064,687 Copper manufactures 3,812,798 Sugar (refined) 2,340,300 Glassware 881,628 These are "infant " industries, receiving from 40 to 228 per cent, protection in this market, which are perfectly willing to sell abroad without any protection whatever. They want protection in this market only from the com- petition of the American farmer's exchange for foreign- mill products. They can and do compete with foreign mills in the foreign markets, and undersell them at a fair profit. But they charge our own citizens as much more for their goods than they charge foreigners, as the tariff will let them. The American farmer's surplus, which can be exchanged for foreign-mill products, is the only thing that stands in the way of their pillage of the Amer- ican people. THE FARMER MUST GO. To give the 14,500 mill-owners complete control of the home market for manufactured goods, to transfer to them the fat slice of $415,000,000 the farmers now have, nearly 2,000,000 farmers must be driven from the land they till. There is no other way. The mill-owners say they must go. They are not con- tent with the decrease in eight years of 31 per cent, in the farmer's competition. The farm surplus must all be wiped out. The market for manufactured goods " be- longs " to the mill-owners, and they must have it. THE TARIFF WAR ON THE FARMER. 355 The President says they tnust go. He asks Congress to impose much heavier taxes on all goods imported into this country in payment for our farm products exported than they now bear ; to largely increase the mill-owners' present j^rotection against the competition of this foreign payment to the farmers for their surplus exported. Congress says they must go. Its acts provide for an increase of the burdens on the foreign exchange of our surplus farm products until every pound of cotton, every bushel of wheat, every pound of meat shall be kept in this country by making the foreign payment for it, after deducting the tax, less than the cost of production. If the farmers wish to stay on the land they must reduce their crop one fourth to get even present prices, and they must be satisfied with average earnings one fourth less than they have now. SAWDUST PROTECTION VS. REAL PROTECTION. The Farmer Buncoed. When a farmer goes to New York and falls into the hands of the bunco steerer or sawdust swindler, nearly every man who passes them on the street recognizes "Hungry Joe" or "Hank Davis," knows that he has a fresh victim, laughs to himself, and goes on. It is none of his business. He is not his brother's keeper. For twenty-five years the mill-owners have " buncoed " the farmers. Who cared ? Why should any one care ? No one had anything to gain by interfering. It is a fight between them for the American market for manu- factured goods in which no one else has anything at stake worth mentioning. The mill-owners want all the market ; the farmers have a fat slice, worth in i88i about $730,- 35^ APPENDIX. 000,000, and now worth $500,000,000, which the mill- owners are trying to bunco him out of. It is a pretty large amount for a "bunco," and the on-lookers have the same interest in the game that they would have in a prize- fight for that amount. They have seen the farmer drop $23,000,000 per year into the bunco, and they want to know if he will drop the remainder. Why should they spoil the sport wlien it is not to their interest, particu- larly, to interfere, for this bunco of the farmer means cheap food. It is almost incredible, but it is true, that the mill- owner has made the farmer believe firmly, among many other quaint and curious statements : 1. That the people of the United States do not have to earn with their labor all they enjoy, but that foreigners are ready and willing to make this country a "dumping ground " for the products of their labor, to which the Americans are welcome — without payment — if they only refrain from using American products. 2. That the more we import the poorer we became, while the more we export the richer we become. Mr. William McKinley, in his speeches, points out as the crowning triumph of our prosperity that in less than ten years we exported $1,000,000,000 worth of products more than we have imported. As a matter of fact, this $1,000,- 000,000 is simply a measure of how much more we had to pay for what we did import than we would have had to pay under natural conditions. The protectionists have killed our shipping, so that we have to export enough more than we import to pay the Englishman for freight both ways. 3. That the farmer supplied only food products to the people of the United States ; that the exports of farm THE TARIFF WAR ON THE FARMER. 357 products have no connection with our imports of foreign goods. 4. That the protection the mill-owner asks for is only against foreigners, not against Americans ; that he is willing and anxious the farmer should be protected against "foreign competition." So he is. The farmer may have all the protection possible against all the " foreign " competition that may be imagined, so long as he has no protection against American-mill competition. Our farm labor supplied $730,394,943 worth of foreign manufactured goods in 188 1. In the past seven years our farmers have surrendered $230,000,000 of this market for their labor. In 1888 they only supplied foreign goods worth in exchange for our farm products $500,840,086. Have the mill-owners thanked them ? Have they not grown fiercer and more clamorous in their demands that the farmer shall surrender all ? Is he not more at their mercy now than he was in 1881 ? Will he not be abso- lutely in their power when he abandons all competition with them. And what has the farmer now ? He has still left the market for food products — except the picayune portion amounting to $44,864,918 — and he has still left a slice of the mill-owners' market amounting to $500,840,086. The total importation of manufactured goods was $422,016,995, and of partly manufactured and crude, $301,940,119 more, of which $500,840,086 worth were paid for with our farm labor. If all our ports were hermetically sealed against im- ports, would the planter get one cent per ton more for his cotton, the corn-grower for his grain, the shepherd for his wool, or the well-owner for his oil ? If he should export his surplus, of what benefit would it be to export 35S APPENDIX. it if he could not import the payment ? The only pay- ment he can get is foreign goods. THE " HOME MARKET " HUMBUG. But here comes in the " home market " humbug. The mill-owners say : " Pay us to build mills. Give us enormous bonuses to run them, and our workmen will eat your produce and give you a home market for all you can raise." Can the mill-owners do this ? Are they do- ing it ? In the first place, the mill-owners and all their em- ployees, added to the miners, include less than ten per cent of our working population. We now make ()i\ per cent., nearly \\, of all the manufactured goods we use, and mills and mines are shut down on the average from one tenth to one sixth of the time, when their working men must eat even though they do not work. That is to say, even if we absolutely prohibited imports, and forced our citizens to buy of our mill-owners every dollar's worth of goods they used, there could be no perceptible increase in the number of those to consume the farmer's products. It is plain enough, therefore, that the mill-owner, how- ever " protected," cannot give the farmer any better " home market " than he has. This is strikingly illustrated by our experience. For thirty years the high-tariff stimulus has been given to manufacturing industries. They have grown beyond precedent, and if they could have given our farmers a profitable " home market " and made them independent of foreigners, they must have done so. But the fact is the reverse. Adopting the careful calculations of Mr. Davis (which are quoted with approval by the American Economist, the organ of the Protective Tariff League), THE TARIFF WAR ON THE FARMER. 359 we find that during a period of thirty-nine years (1S50- 1889) population and the production of the more impor- tant staples increased as follows : Population 175 per cent. Cattle 185 Swine 66 " Cotton 201 " Corn 257 " Wheat 389 Oats 411 " That is to say, after a whole generation of protection and unparalleled growth of manufactures, the farmer has fewer people in the United States to feed, in proportion to the crops he produces, than he had in 1850. Or, to put it in another way : After the mill-owners have fooled him for thirty years in pretending to give him a home market and make him independent of foreigners, the American farmer is to-day, under high protection, more dependent than ever upon foreign market, and is forced to find sale abroad for a larger proportion of what he produces than he was in 1850, under " free trade " tariff. THE WOOL BUNCO GAME REVEALED. The tariff on wool is an ideal example of " sawdust " pro- tection for which the farmers have paid good money. The wool manufacturers stirred up a few political farmers to organize themselves into a " National Association of Wool Growers," and then got it to agitate for a high duty on wool, — this as an excuse for their (the manufacturers') attempt, then successfully made, to get an increase of duty on manufactured goods. The way the game was worked was this : The manufacturers claimed that it took 3i to 5 pounds of unwashed wool to make a pound of cloth ; and so, procuring the " growers " to ask for a duty J 60 APPENDIX. of 10 cents per pound on unwashed wool, asked and got for themselves a " weight " or " compensatory " duty of 35 to 50 cents per pound in addition to the already high ad valorem duty by which their cloths were "protected." There never was a prettier bunco game played. In the first place, the farmer did n't get more for his wool — the price of wool has gone down ever since. In the next place, even if goods are made of straight wool, it does not take 3I to 5 pounds for a pound of cloth ; and the manufacturers use so much of shoddy and adulterants, that on an average not over two pounds of unwashed wool goes into a pound of even pretty good cloth. The net result to the farmer was this : He was fooled into asking for a tariff which did him no good in order that the manufacturer might get an extra compensatory duty for the extra price, which the latter did n't pay, of a great amount of wool which the latter didn't use — thus enabling the manufacturer to charge the farmer an extra bonus averaging 40 cents per pound for all his woollen goods.. It does the farmer little good, although he may not be sorry to hear it, to know that almost immediately after the mill-owners had thus buncoed the farmers, fashions and trade conditions (especially in the adaptation of the "combing" process to clothing wools) so changed, that the mill-owners found that in limiting their supply of cer- tain foreign wools they had cut their own throats as well as destroyed the farmers' market for his fine wools that would have been used to make up the long "lustre" staples from abroad. The price of wool in this country has been but little (and often no) higher than it has been abroad, grade for grade. No farmer has ever received one cent for his clip more than he would have received under "free trade." THE TARIFF WAR ON THE FARMER. 36 1 Hardly a year has passed that buyers from the woollen mills of Scotland, England, Germany, and Canada have not invaded our market, buying here just because they could buy cheaper than anywhere else in the world. Let us see how much wool we export yearly. Men who have common-sense know that we export only when the price abroad is enough higher than the price here to include the freight. When the price is the same in Liver- pool that it is in New York to send it abroad is to sell at a loss of freight. Here are our exportations for the past few years. Total export Year. Total pounds. value. 1883 64,474 $22,114 1884 10,393 3,073 1885 88,006 16,739 1886 „ 2,138,080 476,274 1887 257,949 78,002 1888 22,164 5,272 1889 141,576 23,065 Where was this wool shipped to ? Who bought it ? Here is the report of the Bureau of Statistics : Canada, 2,388,- 069 pounds; England, 114,657 pounds; Scotland, 29,334 pounds; Germany, 42,258 pounds; Mexico, 76,602 pounds. The farmers of the United States have never once in- quired the price of wool abroad. They have shipped their wool to Liverpool and Glasgow, for sale there at foreign market prices, in competition with the English and Scotch sheep farmers whom they undersold — after paying freight. WHEN, WHOM, AND HOW "PROTECTION" PROTECTS. What, then, is real protection ? // is control of prices in the domestic exchatige market. This is all there is to it. If any one thinks there isany more, let him ask him- self where anything more can be added. 362 APPENDIX. This control of prices may be secured in two ways. 1. By a natural or business monopoly, which under our present form of government cannot be touched by law, and is considered the inalienable right of the individual. If Jones, owning land in West Virginia, finds on it a mine of .aluminum ore, he may charge any price for it he pleases. There is no other mine in the world. If Wong, in China, finds another mine, he and Jones may agree upon a sell- ing price. No law can touch them. This is private pro- tection. With more than one producer able to supply the whole market there is no protection without combi- nation. 2. By getting the government to shut out foreign com- petition while home producers " combine " and so destroy domestic competition. When a constituent of Mr. Dawes found on his Massachusetts farm a mine of emery ore, he could not charge what price he pleased. There was no other mine in the United States, but there were many other emery mines in the world — so many that their owners could not combine and fix the price. They were compelled to sell in open competition one with another, and the owner of the American mine had to compete with them. But Mr. Dawes believed in Protecting American Industry in capital letters. He was chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and in the next " revenue " bill he inserted these Avords : " Emery ore, 25 per cent." Then the owner of the American mine added 20 per cent, to the foreign price to all he might sell to his country- men, and they had to buy of him or pay blood-money and blackmail ; but he could not add anything to the price when he sold abroad. This was special protection by law, by giving him control of prices. The United THE TARIFF WAR ON THE FARMER. 363 States government protected him in charging his coun- trymen more than the market price. We import ^13,000,000 worth of brown and bleached linens yearly, which pay $4,000,000 duty. We have five little linen mills whose combined total product is worth at the market price $602,45 i. It is not necessary for them to combine, as the market price must be h'gher by 35 per cent., and their competition would not lower it. But whenever the domestic product is large enough to affect prices, there can be no real protection without combination. There is now no protection on steel rails, although there is a very heavy duty. The Steel Trust, which controlled prices, was broken some months ago, and while another is forming the competition of the Bes- semer rail-makers drives prices here down to the natural level. Whenever the twenty-nine firms patch up a new trust or selling agreement, the price of rails will go up to the amount of the protection. Can the farmers combine? They number 7,670,493. The protected mill-owners in all industries number less than 14,500. The largest number in any one industry is less than 2,000 — in point of actual fact, less than 1,000. If the farmers were few in number, organized, as each one of the protected industries is, into a small society ; if this society fixed the price at which each member could sell, as the protected industries do, then the farmers might benefit by the tax. No one except a farmer wants protec- tion unless he can control the price at which he must sell. THE END. 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