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 THE 
 
 DESTRUCTIVE INFLUENCE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TARIFF 
 
 UPON 
 
 Manufacture and Commerce 
 
 AND THE 
 
 FIGURES AND FACTS RELATING THERETO 
 
 BT 
 
 J. SCHOENHOF 
 
 THIRD EDITION, 
 
 NEW YORK 
 PUBLISHED FOR THE 
 
 NEW YORK FREE TRADE CLUB 
 
 By G. p. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 11 St. 1<^ WEST 23D STREET 
 I89I
 
 COPYRIGHT BY 
 
 J. SCHOSNHOF 
 1883
 
 o 
 
 t 
 
 c3 
 
 HP 
 
 INTRODUCTION. S34>d( 
 
 The tariff laws of the United States all bear one and the same 
 characteristic feature, namely, the absence of a rational founda- 
 tion for their claim of " protecting " American manufacturing in- 
 dustries. The word *' Protection " presupposes the existence of a 
 foreign power against which protection is desired. It would be 
 reasonable to infer that those attempting this protection should 
 inquire into the composition of that foreign power, to wit, the in- 
 dustries of foreign nations, and the tariffs upon which these foreign 
 industries are based. Had the fraraers of our tariff laws made 
 such inquiry, they would have found that the starting-point of all 
 industrial nations, from whom our industries are to find protection, 
 is that of free raw materials. The strongest protective tariffs, like 
 those of Germany and France, make no exception to this rule. ^ The 
 United States, on the other hand, commence their industrial pro- 
 ^ duction with rates ranging from twenty to sixty per cent, on raw 
 (^ materials, with rates so much above the starting-point of all com- 
 S peting nations, that the benefits intended to accrue from protection 
 to our industries are usually spent before they have left the raw 
 material, and provided slight protection to crude — or half — nianu- 
 2 factures. Nay, the raw material and half-manufacture frequently 
 2 have higher rates than the article of which they form the component 
 a: material. Our manufacturers in consequence of this inverted appli- 
 2 cation of the protective principle are sufferers to the extent which 
 u." must necessarily follow in the train of such a mistaken policy : 
 < glutted home-markets in American manufactures of lower grades and 
 in continued large importations of foreign fabrics of higher grades. 
 5 The immediate aim of reform must be to right this anomaly, 
 
 to place all raw materials upon the free-list (thus to gain an even 
 starting-point with foreign competitors), and then to reduce the tariff 
 proportionally, so as to reserve the higher protective rate for more 
 developed and the lower rate for cruder branches. 
 
 The new tariff-law of March 3, 1883, though different from what 
 
 was proposed by the Commission, varies in no material point from 
 
 the old tariff, and the changes are in no wise conducive to lighten 
 
 the burdens of the people or to improve the languishing condition 
 
 ' See Appendixl. 
 
 433972.
 
 IV 
 
 of commerce and manufacture. The reductions are insignificant ; 
 some duties, as those on all-wool dress goods, have been raised,^ 
 and the taxes on raw materials remain, with immaterial changes, 
 as heavy as they were before the revision. I have collected the 
 data relating to the various phases of the tariff discussion, and have 
 put them in connected form, so as to present a clear statement of 
 this all-important issue in its bearing upon labor, commerce and 
 manufacture. 
 
 It has been my aim to prove in these pages, from statistical 
 facts reaching over several decades and from the conditions of 
 competing countries, that the recognition of the following propo- 
 sitions as fundamental principles must underlie all attempts at 
 tariff reform if the same be intended to benefit the whole country, 
 give more remunerative employment to labor, and improve its 
 conditions by making its earnings more valuable : 
 
 1. A tariff which taxes raw materials cannot be protective to 
 manufacturing industries. 
 
 2. A tax making raw materials cost our manufacturers more 
 than those of competing nations is practically a prohibition of the 
 exportation of the surplus product of our manufactures. 
 
 3. Protection, fostering competition to unnatural fierceness, be- 
 comes self -destructive on account of this exclusion from foreign 
 outlets. 
 
 4. Foreign commerce and home manufactures must decay where 
 raw materials are taxed. 
 
 5. The carrying trade of the world must cling to that country 
 whose trade and manufacture bear the lightest burdens. 
 
 6. Wages are not gauged by tariffs, but by the general oppor- 
 tunities offered by the respective countries. 
 
 7. The standard of living of the working classes determines the 
 rate of wages. 
 
 8. Where the standard of living is highest, productive power and 
 invention find highest development, and production is cheapest. 
 
 9. Protection is the normal condition of countries whose stand- 
 ard of living is a low one. 
 
 10. Free trade is the normal condition of countries whose stand- 
 ard of living is a high one. ^^ 
 
 ' See Appendix III.
 
 The principles contained in these propositions once recognized, 
 the adjustment of the tariff question will be an easy matter. 
 The want of understanding that is apparent in all discussions is 
 attributable to an insufificient collection of material facts, and to 
 ignorance of the correlation of certain factors that play no small 
 part in the concert of social forces. I have endeavored to link 
 these into the chain of evidence, which I have been collecting 
 for a number of years, against the tariff laws of the United 
 States. 
 
 Though it is the avowed purpose of advocates of protection to 
 frame tariffs for the benefit of the working classes, it is easy to 
 prove that the tariff has not only signally failed to accomplish 
 this, but on the contrary has circumscribed employment and 
 reduced earnings. It must be clear to all that it must be the aim 
 of economic science to elevate the standard of life of the working 
 classes if the science is to fulfil its mission. The removal of bur- 
 densome taxation is, therefore, the first stepping-stone to this end. 
 It is a step of most signal importance, one that cannot be under- 
 valued, as our present system bears heaviest on that class, which 
 is the least capable of bearing double burdens ; taxes to support 
 the government and taxes for protection, which does not protect. 
 The results of nearly twenty years of high tariffs clearly show 
 that the system has worked to the advantage of great monopolies 
 alone. But the effort which is made to have it appear that the 
 war tariff is upheld for the purpose stated, is in itself a tribute 
 paid to the spirit of the times, which would not yield to the 
 infliction of such onerous burdens, were it not in the honest belief 
 that the workingmen's condition in life is improved thereby. 
 To the honest adhei^ents of this belief these pages are addressed. 
 
 Agitation alone can bring a solution. The public mind cannot 
 accept reforms unless prepared by education and enlightenment. 
 This can only be given by free and extended discussion, which 
 must lead to clearing of doubts, and thus toward liberation from 
 oppression, which has been deferred only too long. To this end 
 discussion is invited, as silence and indifference are the deadly 
 enemies of all reform. 
 
 " What great gift have my brothers, but it came 
 From search, and strife, and loving sacrifice." 
 
 — Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia,
 
 STATISTICAL AUTHORITIES USED. 
 
 Census Reports of the United States. 
 
 Reports of the United States Bureau of Statistics, Commerce and Navigation, 
 
 Commercial Relations of the United States, No. 23. 
 
 State of Labor in Europe, 1878. Reports from the United States Consuls. 
 
 The Tariff laws of Germany, France, Belgium, Canada, Great Britain. 
 
 Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Labor Statistics of Mass. 
 
 " *' '• " " " of New Jersey. 
 
 Poor's Railroad Manual. 
 
 Miscellaneous Statistics of the United Kingdom, Part XI., 18S3. 
 Financial Reform Almanac for Great Britain and Ireland, 1883. 
 Accounts of Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom for 1882. 
 Returns of Taxes levied in the different states in Europe, ordered by House of 
 
 Commons. 
 Statistical Abstract for principal foreign Countries, for Parliament. 
 Maurice Block, Annuaire de I'Economie Politique. 
 Leone Levi, Wages and Earnings of the Working Classes. 
 Statistisches Jahrbuch flir das deutsche Reich, 1883. 
 Dr. Emanuel Sax, Die Hausindustrie in Thliringen. 
 Schnapper-Arndt, Fiinf Dorfgemeinden auf dem hohen Taunus. 
 Das deutsche Wirthschaftsjahr 1881. Reports of German Chambers of 
 
 Commerce. 
 Gesellschaft Concordia in Mainz, Statistische Tabellen iiber Arbeitslohne. <
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The development of manufacturing industries under Free Trade and 
 
 under Protection. What Free Trade is doing for the British . i 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 The decay of our foreign commerce caused by the tariff . . 7 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The development of our industries not due to the tariff. The tariff re- 
 pressive rather than otherwise . . . • .12 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The wool-grower not in need of Protection. An overfed infant which 
 
 never knows when it has enough . . . . .17 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The tariff rather destructive than protective in woollen industries . 24 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The tariff on wool and other raw materials the only cause of our inability 
 
 to compete ........ 28 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The tariff on steel rails a further illustration of the effects of Protec- 
 tion. Also a brief history of the great slaughter of the innocents 
 by the combined British capitalist . . . . • 3^ 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The autocrats of the Treasury make decisions that are pleasing to the in- 
 fants. The latter pack commissions with their own men, and Congres- 
 sional Committees act as their pliant tools. But there is many a- slip 
 between the cup and the lip. Also an account of a division of profits 
 between the infants and their workmen . . • ♦43
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 In which it is shown that we are superior to all nations in manufacturing 
 
 skill and physical ability . , . . . .53 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Containing a very useful comparison between American and European 
 
 methods of production . . . . . -59 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 In which the workingman .s reminded, that not all is gold that glitters . 70 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Comparing American wages with English wages, and showing how small 
 the difference in the pay, and how small a tariff would be needed 
 to protect American labor, if raw materials were free . . • "8 
 
 Explanatory remarks to tables. . . . . • .85 
 
 APPENDIX I. 
 
 Showing the tariffs of the principal commercial nations, so far as they relate 
 to manufactures and raw materials, imports and exports of manufac- 
 tures in the aggregate and per capita. 
 
 APPENDIX II. 
 Showing how the nations named in Appendix I raise their revenues. 1882. 
 
 APPENDIX III. 
 
 The old and the new tariff rates of the most important articles of manu- 
 factures and of raw materials belonging thereto. 
 
 APPENDIX IV. 
 
 Showing the ad valorem percentage of specific rates on values of iron, 
 steel rails, and wool, at or near the time of the imposition of the old 
 tariff, previous to its revision, and under the new tariff.
 
 CHAPTER L 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES UNDER 
 FREE TRADE AND UNDER PROTECTION. WHAT FREE TRADE IS 
 DOING FOR THE BRITISH. 
 
 Protectionists have, for the last twenty years, held captive a 
 whole nation of uncommonly intelligent people. They have held 
 them under a spell. The pied piper of Hamelin, by the sounds 
 of his magic flute, could not have produced such wonderful effect 
 as our high-tariff men produce by chanting their few stale tunes 
 in the ears of a credulous people. No deep-hidden sense under- 
 lies these incantations. It is simply the art of the priest and the 
 credulity of the hearer that make the latter accept as tenets of 
 wisdom what otherwise would long ago have ceased to cloud the 
 understanding of a whole people. The mystic words that exer- 
 cise so great an influence are the following : 
 
 1. We are a young nation, and as such cannot compete with the 
 older nations of Europe. 
 
 2. American labor must be protected against the starvation 
 wages of Europe. 
 
 3. Protection is necessary to foster our home industries, and 
 without protection our industries would decay. 
 
 I must admit that at first sight and hearing one may be inclined 
 to accept these as proper dogmas of belief. But on closer inspec- 
 tion they are found to be on very ill terms with experience, 
 figures, and facts. I will take the points in reverse order, 
 because, though they are usually given in the above order, No. 3 
 is the real bulwark of protection, and the storming of the citadel 
 implies the consequent reduction of the lesser works. If protec- 
 tionists were right in their assertion, that protection is necessary 
 to building up home industries and maintaining our position 
 among the great commercial nations of the world, then it would 
 necessarily follow that nations which have forsaken that policy
 
 must be on the decline, dating from the time when they adopted 
 what cur protectionists are wort tc- call "heretical doctrine." 
 
 Let us see jvh^t effect, free-trade principles enacted into laws 
 have had on/thci toiame'y.ce ar.d maniifactures of England. The 
 export of the principal articles of manufacture, starting from 1845, 
 the year still under the influence of the patriarchal system, was 
 as follows : 
 
 (In millions of dollars.) 
 Cottons and yarns ..... 
 
 1845. 
 
 1855. 
 
 ises. 
 
 i88r. 
 
 125. 
 
 168. 
 
 274. 
 
 380. 
 
 Woollens and yarns ..... 
 
 42. 
 
 51. 
 
 122. 
 
 IQS. 
 
 Linens and yarns . . . . 
 
 20. 
 
 24. 
 
 55- 
 
 30. 
 
 Silks 
 
 5- 
 
 8. 
 
 7- 
 
 13- 
 
 Iron and steel 
 
 17. 
 
 45. 
 
 64. 
 
 115. 
 
 Lead, tin, copper, and brass 
 
 15- 
 
 20. 
 
 30. 
 
 26. 
 
 Tools, cutlery, and implements . 
 
 16. 
 
 25- 
 
 45. 
 
 68. 
 
 Coal 
 
 5- 
 245. 
 
 12. 
 
 20. 
 
 3^. 
 
 
 ass- 
 
 617. 
 
 775- 
 
 It was as late as i860 that the last taxes of a protective charac- 
 ter were abolished, consequently the full effect of entire free trade 
 in all materials necessary for manufactures does not appear in the 
 above tables before 1865 ; yet the exports of the above enumera- 
 ted British manufactures rose within a period of ten years (ending 
 with 1865) from $353,000,000 to $617,000,000, or seventy-five per 
 cent. The assertions of our protectionists and of British " fair- 
 traders " to the contrary notwithstanding, England maintains her 
 growing trade even to our times, as shown by the list of exports of 
 1881. The total of exports of British manufactures has increased 
 twenty-six per cent, within this last period, against an increase of 
 twenty-one per cent, in the population. 
 
 Like results followed the abolition of the prohibitive tariff en- 
 joyed by French manufacturers up to 1S60, and the substitution 
 of comparative free trade in place thereof. Next to Napoleon III 
 and M. Rouher, who saw farther in this respect than most of their 
 countrymen, France owes a great debt of gratitude to the indefati- 
 gable labors of Mr. Cobden. After long and most arduous work- 
 ing he finally succeeded in engrafting upon the Gallic trunk a 
 sprig of Saxon common-sense. The Englishman was not basely
 
 selfish. He wished to have England's neighbors, nay, even her 
 hereditary foe, share in the good things to whose possession she 
 owed her commercial greatness (knowing, however, all the time, 
 what then seemed a great secret, that in improving yourneighbor's 
 condition you better your own). But behold what followed. 
 The exports of France, which in i860 were ^450,000,000, attained 
 in 1873 — immediately after a devastating war — to near ^800,-' 
 000,000, Imports and exports in i860 were $800,000,000 ; 
 in 1873, $1,450,000,000. The exports of both countries con- 
 sist mostly of such of the products of their home industries as 
 we do our utmost to prevent our manufacturers from exporting, 
 by laying a prohibitory burden upon all materials necessary to 
 their manufacture. 
 
 British exports of manufactures are nearly $1,000,000,000, 
 The last census reports the total of our inflated manufacturing 
 values as $5,300,000,000. This sum contains $1,670,000,000 that 
 does not belong to manufactures, — flouring, lumbering, black- 
 smithing, sugar-refining (the latter embracing in materials $144,- 
 698,000 and in labor only $2,875,000), coffee-roasting, slaughter- 
 ing, and other similar items not usually considered manufactures, 
 except in American census reports, intended to make a big show- 
 ing before Congressional committees. We have then left about 
 $3,700,000,000. Reduced to English values our manufactures 
 represent about $3,000,000,000. 
 
 The results of both systems of taxation on the textile and 
 metal industries, the pets of our government, are illustrated in the 
 table given on the following page. 
 
 Here are two great divisions : the one embracing all of the 
 textile industries that supply our clothing and all our dry goods, 
 the other all the metal products, utensils, tools, machinery, etc., 
 of this great nation. With very slight exceptions all of our great 
 protected manufacturing industries are contained in this schedule. 
 Take the swollen condition of our prices of 1880 into considera- 
 tion (in proportion 2 to i as to English prices, so far as metals 
 are concerned, and nearly the same as to woollens), and you will 
 find that the English exports alone exceed by far the entire prod- 
 uct of our great manufacturing enterprises. 
 
 On the other hand, we bought, despite our " protective " tariff.
 
 from foreign countries, mostly English, one fourth as much in 
 metals and more than one third as much in textiles (reducing 
 our inflated valuation to the foreign standard), as our whole over- 
 protected manufacturing industry has produced. Our own ex- 
 ports melt into nothingness alongside of the huge figures of 
 British exports in the same line of manufactures — manufactures 
 which we foster into decay by laying a heavy burden upon the 
 materials of which tliey are composed. That the proportions 
 given are correct can be further proven by the quantities of raw 
 materials consumed by both countries. Our "reformed" tariff 
 has changed nothing in this matter ; our industries are not re- 
 lieved, and the British have all cause to rejoice that they have 
 such excellent aiders and abettors in our "protectionists," who 
 have again succeeded in preventing that reform that was to give 
 us gateway to the waters of the oceans. 
 
 I will put side by side with our entire production in the special 
 branches, the corresponding English exports and also American 
 exports, which will give a better illustration of the effects of the 
 respective policies than a volume of argument : 
 
 
 American 
 
 English 
 
 American 
 
 Foreign 
 
 ARTICLES. 
 
 Production, 
 
 Exports in 
 
 Exports in 
 
 Imports, 
 
 
 18S0. 
 
 i38o. 
 
 1880. 
 
 1S80. 
 
 (t) metals . 
 
 $672,078,000 
 
 $237,500,000 
 
 $14,116,000 
 
 $72,744,000 
 
 (a) Brass, copper, 
 
 
 
 
 
 and manufact. in- 
 
 
 
 
 
 dust., telegragh 
 
 
 
 
 
 wires 
 
 30,000,000 
 
 27,000,000 
 
 180,000 
 
 1,787,000 
 
 (b) Cutlery and 
 
 
 
 
 
 hardware . 
 
 38,000,000 
 
 19,000,000 
 
 1,100,000 
 
 1,900,000 
 
 (c) Firearms . 
 
 5,700,000 
 
 6,500,000 
 
 2,286,000 
 
 830,000 
 
 (d) Foundry Prod- 
 
 
 
 
 
 ucts and machin- 
 
 
 
 
 
 ery .... 
 
 214,378,000 
 
 50,000,000 
 
 5,700,000 
 
 1,227,000 
 
 (e) Iron and steel, 
 
 
 
 
 
 tin, etc . . . 
 
 384,000,000 
 
 135,000,000 
 
 4,850,000 
 
 67,000,000 
 
 (2) TEXTILES 
 
 $521,300,000 
 
 $534,500,000 
 
 $10,216,576 
 
 $122,350,000 
 
 (a) Cotton goods. 
 
 211,000,000 
 
 375.000,000 
 
 10,000,000 
 
 30,000,000 
 
 (b) Jute roods . 
 
 697,000 
 
 12,500,000 
 
 
 2,850,000 
 
 
 (c) Linen goods . 
 
 602,000 
 
 30,000,000 
 
 
 22,500,000 
 
 
 (d) Silk goods . 
 
 41,000,000 
 
 17,000,000 
 
 
 32,000,000 
 
 
 (e) Woollens, wors- 
 
 
 
 
 
 teds, and mixed 
 
 268,000,000 
 
 100,000,000 
 
 216.576 
 
 35,000,000 
 
 textiles. 
 
 
 

 
 What bright prospects would open to us if the commerce of the 
 world were thrown open to our industries, which now for want of 
 markets are choking in their own grease ! I shall show in the 
 progress of this argument that it is only a paper wall, the paper 
 that contains the law which taxes raw materials, that shuts us 
 out from our legitimate position — that of rulers of the commerce 
 of the world. 
 
 Germany presents another illustration of the correctness of these 
 views. After long-protracted effort, Prussia finally succeeded in 
 coaxing the three dozen assorted petty states to curb somewhat 
 their proud spirit of independence and enter the " Zollverein." 
 Prussia's hard work to get that " Zollverein " to accept a free 
 tariff on raw materials lasted well-nigh up to the time when, at 
 Sadowa, the modern Macedonians so effectively knocked the 
 dust out of the musty wardrobe of the heirs of the " Holy Roman 
 Empire." The effect on German manufactures and commerce 
 was the same as in the case of England and France, 
 
 But even the " new German policy of protection " has left raw 
 materials free. Excepting Spain, perhaps, it is only the United 
 States who, in spite of the experience of other nations, maintain 
 that a Chinese wall is necessary to the well-being and happiness 
 of her people. All other nations have torn down theirs, and by 
 so doing have almost doubled their foreign trade /<?/' capita. 
 America persists in keeping up her wall. The ill effects of this 
 seclusion our protectionists are trying to overcome by adding 
 another story to the already towering height of the structure. 
 Our exports of manufactures are almost nothing compared with 
 those of other nations. We have almost nothing to offer to an 
 outside world except the produce of the unprotected enterprise of 
 our agriculturists. After twenty years of protection — and some 
 very hard years were among them — our exports of articles of 
 American manufacture were in 1880 : 
 
 Agricultural implements, clocks, etc. • . . . $3,500,000 
 
 Cotton manufactures ....... 10,000,000 
 
 Iron and steel manufactures, tools, etc. .... 12,000,000 
 
 Leather manufactures ....... 6,000,000 
 
 Woollens and wearing apparel ..... 700,000 
 
 All other manufactures .,...,. 10,500,000 
 
 $42,700,000
 
 Of all our exports, about 5 per cent., or $42,700,000, were what 
 may properly be classified as American manufactures. This 
 amount is less than 5 per cent, of the exports of the manufactur- 
 ing industries of Great Britain, whose people are not exposed to 
 the paternal care of a protective government, but are permitted 
 to buy their raw materials where they can get them cheapest. 
 In i860 we had a moderate tariff averaging 19 per cent, on duti- 
 able goods. In 1S72, a year of great commercial prosperity, we 
 had an average tariff of 48 per cent, on dutiable goods. The two 
 representative years compare as follows : 
 
 * 
 
 
 
 Increase 
 
 
 i860. 
 
 1872. 
 
 or Decrease 
 per cent. 
 
 Agricultural implements, sewing- 
 
 
 
 
 machines, etc. 
 
 
 $5,000,000 
 
 
 Copper and brass manufacture . 
 
 $1,670,000 
 
 460,000 
 
 — 18 
 
 Iron and steel manufacture, tools, 
 
 
 
 
 etc 
 
 5,700,000 
 
 8,500,000 
 
 + 50 
 
 Cotton goods .... 
 
 10,900,000 
 
 2,300,000 
 
 — 79 
 
 Wearing apparel and woollens . 
 
 930,000 
 
 640,000 
 
 — 32 
 
 Leather and manufactures 
 
 850,000 
 
 650,000 
 
 — 23 
 
 All other manufactures 
 
 3,850,000 
 
 3,050,000 
 
 — 21 
 
 
 $23,900,000 
 
 $20,600,000 
 
 
 The increase in imports is greatest in all articles that pay the 
 highest rates of duty, especially in those whose raw materials are 
 heavily protected. 
 
 Comment is unnecessary. The above figures tell us two facts 
 with sufficient clearness. The first fact is, that protection does not 
 exclude European manufactures from the United States. The 
 second fact is, that protection does most effectively exclude the 
 manufactures of the United States from the markets of Europe ' 
 and the world. 
 
 In 1S60 our exports of industries now protected were nearly 7 
 per cent, of our entire exports ; in 1872 they were not quite 4 per 
 cent.; in 1880 they were about 5 per cent. Omitting agricultural 
 implements and sewing-machines, which were not exported in 
 i860, then the decline in exports of protected goods shows 
 $8,000,000, or 2;^ per cent., which is only 3 per cent, of total ex-
 
 ports. The imports of protected articles compare in reverse 
 ratio : 
 
 
 
 
 Inc. 
 
 Rate of 
 
 
 i860. 
 
 1S72. 
 
 or dec. 
 
 duty 
 
 
 
 
 p. cent. 
 
 p. cent. 
 
 Clothing 
 
 $2,200,000 
 
 $3,000,000 
 
 36 
 
 50 to 100 
 
 Cotton goods .... 
 
 33,000,000 
 
 35,000,000 
 
 6 
 
 35 to 75 
 
 Flax and manufactures 
 
 10,000,000 
 
 22,500,000- 
 
 125 
 
 35 to 40 
 
 Silk and manufactures . 
 
 33,000,000 
 
 36,000,000 
 
 10 
 
 60 
 
 Wool and manufactures 
 
 36,000,000 
 
 80,000,000 
 
 122 
 
 50 to 125 
 
 Earthenware, fancy goods, leather 
 
 
 
 
 
 goods, etc. . . . . 
 
 19,900,000 
 
 34,200,000 
 
 75 
 
 35 
 
 Copper, brass, tin, etc . 
 
 8,500,000 
 
 17,200,000 
 
 100 
 
 35 to 40 
 
 Iron and steel manufactures . 
 
 21,000,000 
 
 55,000,000 
 
 162 
 
 72 
 
 50 to 200 
 
 
 $163,600,000 
 
 $282,900,000 
 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE DECAY OF OUR FOREIGN COMMERCE IS CAUSED BY THE 
 
 TARIFF. 
 
 Our merchants and manufacturers suffer most by our tariff 
 provisions. Right before our very doors a heavy trade is done 
 with the South American and Central American republics, the 
 fruits of which are gathered by the subjects of the monarchies of 
 Europe. Somebody ought to do something — invoke the Monroe 
 Doctrine, to say the least — to make these republics acknowledge 
 the solidarity of republican interests, and do their duty toward a 
 sister republic — viz., buy more goods from us. 
 
 We bought of them in 1880 ^176,000,000 worth of goods — 
 coffee, sugar, woods, wool, nitrates, guano, dye-stuffs, etc. — while 
 they took only $58,000,000 worth from us. One-third of this sum 
 consisted of manufactures of the United States. Cotton manu- 
 factures were represented by the sum of $3,899,400. This was 
 our share of the supply of a population equal to that of the United 
 States ; a population that has no manufacturing industries at all, 
 but draws this chief article of its clothing mainly from foreign 
 countries. Of this article we grow the staple, export it to England,
 
 8 
 
 where it is turned into manufactures and shipped to those coun- 
 tries. 
 
 Brazil, of whom we buy annually ^52,000,000 worth of goods, 
 takes from us $8,500,000 ($690,000 cotton goods) in merchandise 
 and the remainder in exchange on London, wherewith to pay for 
 the cotton that England had to buy from us to fill the orders for 
 cotton goods from Brazil. 
 
 Brazil purchased from England, in 1 8S0, of cotton goods $1 7,000,- 
 coo, from the United States barely $700,000. Of Cuba we bought 
 $65,000,000. We sold the ever faithful isle $11,000,000 ($4,200,- 
 000 manufactures including $90,000 in cotton goods). 
 
 The imports of English and American cotton goods into all 
 the Central and South American States for the year 1880, com- 
 pare as follows : 
 
 
 English 
 goods. 
 
 American 
 
 goods. 
 
 Mexico ....... 
 
 Central America ..... 
 
 British Honduras 
 
 British West Indies .... 
 
 Other West Indies (including Cuba) . 
 
 United States of Colombia 
 
 Venezuela ....... 
 
 British Guiana ..... 
 
 Brazil 
 
 Uruguay 
 
 Argentine Republic ..... 
 
 Chili 
 
 Ecuador 
 
 Peru 
 
 $2,406,000 
 
 ?, 161,000 
 
 209,000 
 
 3,400,000 
 
 6,100,000 
 
 3,163,000 
 
 1,449,000 
 
 670,000 
 
 17,180,000 
 
 3,081,000 
 
 4,816,000 
 
 5,162,000 
 
 1,020,000 
 
 418,000 
 
 $832,200 
 
 77-700 
 
 66,8co 
 
 131,000 
 
 825,000 
 
 586,000 
 
 149,000 
 
 12,800 
 
 687,000 
 
 52,500 
 
 133,600 
 
 217,800 
 
 104,000 
 
 24,000 
 
 
 $51,235,000 
 
 $3,899,400 
 
 In other words. Great Britain sells thirteen dollars' worth of her 
 cotton goods to these American states, colonies, and sister repub- 
 lics, where we place one dollar's worth of ours. 
 
 This is certainly food for serious reflection. We must get 
 customers for the surplus products of our mills, or the next col- 
 lapse will be far more disastrous in its consequences than the one 
 which ended in 1879. There is no reason why we should not sell 
 the bulk of the cotton goods they need to all the Spanish
 
 Americas and Brazil. Our cotton is not protected ; hence we 
 manufacture better cottons than the English, and intrinsically as 
 cheaply as they. And still all the States of Central and South 
 America do not take one fourth as much cotton goods from us as 
 Brazil alorte buys from England. What can be the cause of this ? 
 It cannot be the want of shipping. Even if the Stars and Stripes 
 do not float over all the bottoms that carry between our ports and 
 these countries, the fact that we get $176,000,000 annually of their 
 produce sufficiently guarantees that we can carry back as much 
 tonnage as we bring in, and at moderate cost. We may, there- 
 fore, boldly maintain that it is not for want of ships that our 
 exports fall so far behind, but for lack of enterprise in our manu- 
 facturers and merchants, and the cause for this in turn is to be 
 found in the government's neglect to abolish oppressive laws and 
 to enact progressive ones that shall lend a helping hand to our 
 foreign commerce. This, however, is not to be wondered at. 
 Foreign intercourse means liberality ; protection means exclusion. 
 The human mind is so constituted that it cannot be both liberal 
 and narrow at one and the same time. The two poles of the 
 needle can never meet. 
 
 During the bad times, between 1876 and 1S79, I have seen as 
 many as 8,000, and even 10,000 packages of cotton goods sold 
 at one auction sale. The same process is repeating now, in 1883,^ 
 Auction sales in staples of 10,000 and 15,000 cases. Of course 
 the goods were sacrificed in order to make room in the store- 
 houses for new goods of the same character, although the home 
 trade had been supplied with cheap goods in advance of the season. 
 The consequence was the same as now, depression, constantly 
 increasing. Had they been dumped where the sea is deepest, the 
 result would have been less disastrous to all concerned — manufact- 
 urer, jobber, retailer, and working people. In that case a few 
 millions would have covered the loss ; in piling goods upon 
 goods, the tumble followed each new attempt with increasing dis- 
 aster, and crushed all that "did not stand from under," to use a 
 slang expression. Had we had an export trade this would have 
 been avoided, at least in its severest phases. But why did we not 
 send our goods to those countries ? Simply because we had not 
 learned, or not tried to learn, to accommodate ourselves to their
 
 lO 
 
 wants. Protection has taught us to look to the country inside the 
 big wall as our customer for our manufactures, and " if outsiders 
 do not want the stuff as we make it, they can let it alone." 
 
 There is, however, another reason why we do so small a busi- 
 ness; it is the absencc^of accommodation extended to our im- 
 porters and exporters, as shown by both the letter and the spirit 
 of our revenue laws and government regulations. Other govern- 
 ments, even those of the paternal type, regulated by the police 
 officer, make such arrangements as will help foreign commerce. 
 Germany has her free ports of entry. But even inland cities have 
 the same advantages of a liberal system, A German importer 
 receiving a foreign invoice leaves all his packages in the public 
 storehouse. He takes orders on his samples, not alone in Ger- 
 many, but over all Europe. As he sells his stock he takes the 
 goods from the different packages in any quantity his trade may 
 require, and pays duty thereon. He may go a dozen times to the 
 Custom-house till a case is sold out, or an invoice exhausted. In 
 this wise he can do quite a prosperous export business from the 
 public storehouse. The German trade to the Levant and South- 
 eastern Europe is rapidly growing, and finding all his wants — 
 both of German and foreign production — readily supplied in any 
 of the large trading centres of Germany, the foreign merchant 
 looks to these for the selection of his stock. That the sale of 
 German manufactures is benefited by the trading facilities ex- 
 tended to foreign goods is quite evident. 
 
 I will cite a case from my own experience, as an illustration of 
 how advantageously this system works both to importers and ex- 
 porters. Some years ago I shipped from New York some dozens 
 of cases of my manufactures to a house in Munich. When the 
 time for settlement approached, claims for deduction (a chief part 
 of a German merchant's profits) came in so heavily that I refused 
 to allow them, I resold the goods to a house in Vienna, and 
 although there remained of each case only a portion of the original 
 contents, even to parts of dozens, yet there was no time lost in 
 measuring circumlocution-tape, nor was any fine or tax levied 
 upon the transfer. This could not have been, were it not that 
 one can take parts of cases, pay duty if for home consumption, 
 or send them free of duty in any desired quantity to foreign
 
 countries. Without this h'beral system the foreign consignor 
 would be at the mercy of the importer unless the goods be paid 
 for before delivery. 
 
 Consider the advantages to be derived by our merchants and 
 manufacturers from the adoption of this system in America. There 
 is no reason imaginable why South American buyers cannot be 
 brought to buy European goods in American free ports as easily 
 as Eastern merchants got accustomed to buying their French 
 and English goods at the fairs of Leipzig and Frankfort, or at 
 the free ports of Hamburg and Bremen. Our manufactures are 
 frequently shipped to South America by way of London. It 
 would hardly pay buyers from those countries to visit our markets 
 when they can find all they need in close proximity at another end 
 of the world. 
 
 With free raw materials we could export a variety of manufact- 
 ures and make it worth their while to buy an assortment of our 
 goods. Under existing circumstances even the extension of our 
 railroad system into Mexico will be of use only in the sale of 
 some of our cotton fabrics, while American woollens are being 
 slaughtered in New York auction houses at the rate of 10,000 to 
 12,000 pieces in one sale. While this is going on in New York, 
 dry-goods firms are sending travellers into Mexico, selling Ameri- 
 can cottons and English woollen goods. The cotton goods are 
 shipped from New York, the woollens from England. With wool, 
 shoddy, and woolwaste, iron and steel for machinery and building 
 purposes, 50 per cent, higher, it is out of the question to consider 
 the possibility of exporting our woollens. Consequent upon all 
 these drawbacks it follows that shipping cannot be done by us as 
 cheaply as by foreign nations, even if a free gift were made to us 
 of a whole fleet of steamers. Where a cargo both ways is always 
 sure to be obtainable, the carrying can be done at considerably 
 lower rates than where one or the other trip has to be made in 
 ballast. 
 
 Commerce is the twin sister of industry. Equal development of 
 both is necessary to the healthful existence of nations. Why com- 
 merce is the Cinderella of our government may be a conundrum 
 to some. The reason is, however, a very plain one. We all know 
 that the ** fostering of our home industries " uses up all the ener-
 
 12 
 
 gies of our statesmen, so that no time Is left to inquire into the 
 real causes of the decline of our commerce. 
 
 The only remedy known to them is the nursing-bottle of " sub- 
 sidy." This, however, cannot impart life to the sickly infant, dy- 
 ing for the want of fresh air and free motion. These cannot be 
 bottled. 
 
 People indulge in the belief that our home industries are pros- 
 perous, thanks to our present high tariff. No greater fallacy has 
 ever been produced and believed. It is a sad duty to a tender- 
 hearted reformer to be compelled to demolish cherished notions 
 with remorseless figures, and I beg therefore to be permitted to 
 reserve their production for my next chapter. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF OUR INDUSTRIES NOT DUE TO THE 
 TARIFF. THE TARIFF REPRESSIVE RATHER THAN OTHER- 
 WISE. 
 
 We are informed, whenever the occasion offers, that our pros- 
 perity is due to protection. We must infer from this that our pro- 
 tectionists, who claim so many things as the results of their acts, 
 are able In some mysterious manner to influence the sun and the 
 soil to bring forth more bountiful crops. Were it not for our rich 
 crops and our cheap Western lands as against a succession of 
 bad seasons over almost the whole of Europe and the rent-ridden 
 farmers of the United Kingdom and other countries, our prosper- 
 ity would not be greater now than it was from 1875 ^^ 1879 — a 
 period equally blessed by protection. The prostration of our In- 
 dustries was then well-nigh complete In almost every branch. 
 More than one third of all blast furnaces and steel works were 
 blown out. Failure followed failure In the Iron and woollen Indus- 
 tries — the spoiled children of a protective government. Protection 
 could not save them from ruin. Our workingmen turned tramps 
 for lack of employment, and vast numbers of men became pauper- 
 ized. It was the " boundless West " that saved us when protection 
 would have starved us out of house and home. Now a friend In
 
 13 
 
 need is a friend indeed. If our friend fails us in our need, then we 
 do not want him at all ; we can take care of ourselves when we are 
 well off and prosperity smiles on us. 
 
 "But protection has built up our industries." Well, let us see 
 whether this be so. Protection, of course, has built a great many 
 factories. The profits that protection held out caused very many 
 men to invest huge piles of money in brick and mortar, and large 
 dividends were made in the few good years which the investors 
 enjoyed. Thousands became hopelessly bankrupt as soon as the 
 tide had turned — all thanks to protection. They were simply 
 crushed by the fruits of the mock prosperity caused by protection. 
 Manufacturers argued : If we make a given amount of money 
 a year with our present capacity, then we can double our profits 
 by doubling our production. Arithmetically this reasoning was 
 correct ; economically it proved erroneous. That siren song of 
 protection ate up dividends, surplus earnings, and capital. 
 
 " Methinks the waves will swallow 
 Eolh boat and boatman anon ; 
 And this, with her sweet singing. 
 The Lore-Ley hath done." 
 
 But do we really owe to protection the development of our 
 home industries ? Let us see what they were under the low 
 tariff of 1857. The census gives the total of manufactures for 
 
 1850 as ..... . $1,019,000,000 
 
 i36o as ..... . 1,836,000,000 
 
 1870 as ..... . 4,232,000,000 
 
 While 1S60 shows an increase of 85 per cent., 1870 shows 125 
 per cent, increase. If our protectionists state that protection 
 caused this surplus of increase in dollars and cents of manufact- 
 ures, then they have some showing. Translated into real values the 
 exhibit will be less gratifying. Protection and money manufact- 
 ured by the printing-press raised prices. The money value was 
 greatly enhanced ; the real increase, however, had not kept up 
 with that of i860. Some industries were even "fostered" in a 
 b?xkward direction. The prices of principal commodities com- 
 pared as follows :
 
 14 
 
 i6 50 
 
 1S70 . 
 
 $30 00 
 
 3 40 
 
 1870 . 
 
 4 40 
 
 10 
 
 1 363 . 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 i863 . 
 
 31 
 
 3 40 
 
 1363 . 
 
 5 00 
 
 6 87 
 
 5 i368 . 
 
 15 00 
 
 
 ( 1872 . 
 
 II 50 
 
 Pig iron (cost) . i36o. 
 
 Coal (cargo) . . " 
 
 4-4 Shirting, bleached (retail) 
 Cotton flannel (retail) . 
 I5oots (retail) . " 
 
 Flour (retail) . " 
 
 From these figures it is evident that it is not an exaggeration to 
 state that the cultivation of the art of growing rich by govern- 
 ment enactment resulted in raising the prices of all commodities 
 contained in the estimate of the census of 1870 fully 60 per 
 cent. Deducting this inflation from the valuation of 1870, there 
 remains of the 4,200 million dollars only 2,625 millions to be com- 
 pared with the production of 1S60, leaving an increase of 40 per 
 cent, in real values against an increase of 85 per cent, in i860. 
 To meet the assertion of protectionists that a high protective tariff 
 was necessary to develop our industries, I will here state that it 
 has done nothing of the kind, and prove it by comparing the 
 number of hands employed in the census — years i860 and 1870 
 respectively — the former a year of low tariff, the latter a year 
 in which a high tariff and cheap money had had full sway to 
 develop our industries to an extent that must have gladdened the 
 heart of the most insatiable protectionist. Of course, I sliall 
 select only such items as represent large interests : 
 
 
 i860. 
 
 IS70. 
 
 
 Hands. 
 
 Product. 
 
 Hands. 
 
 Product. 
 
 Boots and shoes . 
 
 123,000 
 
 $>)2,O0O,OO0 
 
 136,000 
 
 $182,000,000 
 
 Carpets 
 
 6,700 
 
 7,900,000 
 
 12,100 
 
 21,800,000 
 
 Clothing, men's and 
 
 
 
 
 
 women's . . . . 
 
 120,500 
 
 83,000,000 
 
 118,700 
 
 160,900,000 
 
 Cotton goods 
 
 115,000 
 
 107,300,000 
 
 129,400 
 
 168,000,000 
 
 Cutlery and edge tools. 
 
 4,200 
 
 4,600,000 
 
 8,900 
 
 11,000,000 
 
 Hardware . . . . 
 
 10,700 
 
 10,900,000 
 
 14,200 
 
 22,200,000 
 
 Hats and caps . . . 
 
 11,700 
 
 16,900,000 
 
 16,200 
 
 24,800,000 
 
 Hosiery 
 
 9,100 
 
 7,300,000 
 
 14,800 
 
 18,400,000 
 
 Leather 
 
 26,000 
 
 75,000,000 
 
 35,000 
 
 157.000,000 
 
 Silk goods . . . . 
 
 5.400 
 
 6,600,000 
 
 6,700 
 
 12,700,000 
 
 Woollen and worsted 
 
 
 
 
 
 goods 
 
 43,000 
 
 66,000,000 
 
 90,000 
 
 173,000,000 
 
 
 475.300 
 
 $482,500,000 
 
 582,000 
 
 $951,800,000
 
 15 
 
 The increase in the number of hands employed in all of the 
 most important of our protected industries is equal to the increase 
 of population, which was about 22^ per cent, in the decade. The 
 increase in value, however, is nearly 100 percent., or about 6^ 
 per cent, greater than the increase in hands employed. The num- 
 ber of hands employed by the various industries is surely better 
 evidence, when either greater or smaller, of a rise or decline in 
 industrial pursuits, than the valuation in dollars and cents at a 
 time when the purchasing capacity of the dollar was reduced to so 
 low a point as stated above. I have omitted iron from the list, as 
 iron has always enjoyed a pretty good rate of protection, and as it 
 will not be denied, I presume, that the great demand for iron was 
 due to railroad-building, etc., and not to protection. In i860 we 
 built 1,846 miles, and in 1870 we built 6,070 miles. Out of 100,- 
 000 of our population there found employment 
 
 1S60. 
 
 1870. 
 
 In the manufacture of Boots and Shoes. 
 " " Clothing 
 
 " " Cotton goods 
 
 388 
 
 387 
 360 
 
 358 
 310 
 340 
 
 These three industries, employing two thirds of all the working 
 men and women engaged in the production of all articles of cloth- 
 ing and of dry goods for the household, gave relatively consider- 
 ably less employment under the fostering care of a protective 
 tariff, than under the low tariff of 1857. Only 15 per cent, of the 
 total mentioned above (excepting woollen goods) gave employ- 
 ment to 50 per cent, more hands, an increase of 23 per cent, 
 above the increase of population. Woollen goods are the only 
 articles that show a very large percentage of advance — whether to 
 the advantage of the protected I shall investigate later on. One 
 thing, however, must be clear from the figures produced, that the 
 development of our industries, from 1850 to 1S60, was as great, 
 if not greater, under a low tariff, as from i860 to 1S70 under the 
 high tariff. To claim fathership of an "infant" that was a full- 
 grown youngster before the paternal claimant was even born, 
 is a rather bold undertaking. The United Kingdom of Great 
 Britain and Ireland gave employment at that same time (1870) to
 
 i6 
 
 more than three tim&s as many working people under free trade 
 as we did under protection in the following industries, subject to 
 the Factories Acts : 
 
 Cotton goods ......... 450,087 
 
 Woollen and worsted goods ...... 234,687 
 
 Silk goods. 48,124 
 
 Hosiery and laces ........ 18,062 
 
 Leone Levi's compilation contains a vastly greater number of 
 people employed in the above manufactures, but he includes those 
 employed outside of factories. 
 
 Another evidence of a relatively smaller production under our 
 high tariff can be adduced by a statement of the quantity of cot- 
 ton consumed. In the three years of a low tariff preceding the 
 high tariff for protection — 1859, i860, and 1861 — our mills con- 
 sumed 2,700,000 bales of cotton, against 2,900,000 bales in 1869, 
 1870, and 187 1. (This is an absolute decline, in view of the 
 increase of population, only partially balanced by the disappear- 
 ance of exports, which in i860 exceeded those of 1870 by nearly 
 $9,000,000.) In the former years it did not need government 
 protection to induce our people to spin cotton, work the mills and 
 the mines, and grow rich. All they needed was the equal protec- 
 tion of the law, and this they were granted ; while under the 
 new policy monopolies of gigantic proportions grew up, and " a 
 tariff for the protection of American labor " has proven to be a 
 machine to tax the poor for the benefit of the rich.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE WOOL-GROWER NOT IN NEED OF PROTECTION, 
 
 The curse of American politics, log-rolling, is also the cause of 
 the absurdities of our " well-balanced tariff." It gave us a sys- 
 tem of taxation that grinds every one, does cruel injury to a 
 whole nation of working people, and good to no one except a 
 few monopolists and tax-gatherers, and it may safely be asserted 
 that the corruption of our politics is largely due to protection, and 
 to the mania for government aid and subsidies engendered thereby. 
 Self-reliance and independence are lost where large profits are 
 more the results of legislative grants extended to industrial enter- 
 prises than of unassisted work. The lobbyist seeks, and frequently 
 finds, an open door to executive departments, and it is doubtful 
 whether a civil service can be thoroughl}'- reformed that is con- 
 stantly exposed to the persistent efforts of the briber. Worse, 
 however, than this corrupting influence upon the civil service, is 
 the effect upon legislation and the legislator. The lobbyist, the 
 advocate of special laws, is the greatest enemy of free institutions. 
 When a people loses confidence in its representatives, when, 
 rightly or wrongly, the latter are held in suspicion of being the 
 tools of private interests, then the calamity is irreparable. The 
 briber of an officer of the government does momentary harm, 
 while unjust laws tax generations with unjust burdens, that are 
 the more galling the more people become conscious of the methods 
 by which were obtained the industrial preferences and the privi- 
 lege of taxing the masses for the benefit of the few. One interest 
 is arrayed against another, as may be seen from the history of 
 the tariff on wool and woollens. As the manufacturer wanted 
 a higher tariff on his manufactures, the agriculturist had to be 
 
 17
 
 i8 
 
 pacified. To make him willing to pay more for his blankets, 
 flannels, and clothing, he was thrown a sop in the nature of a 
 promised higher price for the wool he raised. But he found out 
 to his cost that not all is gold that glitters. Wool prices were 
 raised, but the level was raised all around. He earned more 
 dollars, but he had to spend a great many more to obtain the 
 same amount of goods that entered into the production of the 
 articles for which he sold his wool. The money did not reach as 
 far as formerly, and as a consequence he got into debt much 
 faster than he could ever hope to get out of it. 
 
 But even his protected wool often proved a source of great risk 
 and danger to him by that very protection which he had consid- 
 ered so great a boon. It is in the nature of all protection that it 
 either stimulates over-production or invites to indolence, careless- 
 ness, and neglect. Both, of necessity, defeat the objects for 
 which protection is imposed. Therefore, on the whole, protec- 
 tion must inevitably work injury to the protected. 
 
 No other reason can be adduced why wool was to be protected 
 but :ompromise of conflicting interests. Wool can be grown as 
 cheaply here as in any other country under the sun. The very 
 variety of our climate invites to it. The Territories promise as 
 free and cheap a yield as Australia and South America. Why 
 make the people of all the States pay toll to the farmer of Ohio if 
 his land becomes too valuable and expensive for pasturage and 
 sheep-raising ? With equal justice he may claim protection for 
 his wheat because the centre of wheat-raising keeps moving to 
 new and cheap lands. To what extent sheep-farming as an indus- 
 try migrates to cheap lands, and correspondingly declines where 
 lands become dear in consequence of denser settlements, can best 
 be realized by a glance over the tables on the following page. 
 
 The wheat States of twenty years ago can hardly be called so 
 now, and still they prosper and earn a fair enough yield of other 
 and more remunerative crops. You cannot force nature with a 
 pitchfork, nor by legislative enactment abrogate eternal laws. 
 Ohio wool will still be wanted, as well as Territory wool, and it 
 will command its fair price, with or without protection, as each 
 class of wool has its own qualities necessary to manufactures. If 
 a free tariff of wool were to kill sheep-raising, why did it not do
 
 19 
 
 so when we did have an almost free tariff ? Up to i86r, grades 
 below 20 cents a pound were free ; above 20 cents, the duty was 24 
 per cent. In 1S61 the tariff was changed and remained in force 
 till 1S64 : Less than 18 cents, 5 per cent. ; from 18 to 24 cents, 3 
 cents a pound ; above 24 cents, 9 cents a pound. In 1866 the 
 present rate of duty was imposed, or rather that in force up to 
 the last change. 
 
 RELATION OF SHEEP-CULTURE TO FARMING IN THE PRINCIPAL 
 WOOL-GROWING STATES AND TERRITORIES DURING THE 
 CENSUS YEARS 1870 AND 1880. 
 
 
 Number 
 
 of Sheep. 
 
 C. 
 
 Number 
 
 of Farms. 
 
 u 
 V 
 
 aM 
 
 States with 
 
 
 
 u ^ 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 |o^ 
 
 Rapidly Increasing 
 
 
 
 SgS 
 
 
 
 is 
 
 .5 « 
 
 Populations. 
 
 
 
 " u U 
 
 
 
 2i u 
 
 0"^ 5 
 
 
 1870. 
 
 18S0. 
 
 "Q 
 
 1870. 
 
 18S0. 
 
 a 
 
 ^.^^ 
 
 New York . . 
 
 2,181,578 
 
 1,715,180 
 
 — 21 
 
 216,253 
 
 241,053 
 
 + II 
 
 107. 
 
 Pennsvlvania 
 
 1,794.301 
 
 1,776,598 
 
 — I 
 
 174,041 
 
 213-542 
 
 + 23 
 
 96 
 
 
 West Virginia . 
 
 552,327 
 
 674.769 
 
 + 22 
 
 39,773 
 
 62,647 
 
 + 58 
 
 25 
 
 
 Kentucky 
 
 936,765 
 
 1,000,269 
 
 + 7 
 
 118,442 
 
 166,453 
 
 + 41 
 
 41 
 
 
 Tennessee 
 
 
 826,783 
 
 672,117 
 
 — 19 
 
 118,141 
 
 165,650 
 
 + 40 
 
 37 
 
 
 Missouri . 
 
 
 1,352,001 
 
 1,411,289 
 
 + 4 
 
 148.328 
 
 215,575 
 
 4- 45 
 
 30 
 
 
 Georgia . 
 
 
 419-465 
 
 527,589 
 
 -f 26 
 
 69,956 
 
 138,626 
 
 + 98 
 
 26 
 
 
 Ohio . . 
 
 
 4.92S.635 
 
 4,902,486 
 
 — 1 
 
 195,953 
 
 247,189 
 
 4- 26 
 
 80 
 
 
 Indiana . 
 
 
 1,612,680 
 
 1,100,511 
 
 — 32 
 
 161,289 
 
 194,013 
 
 4. 20 
 
 55 
 
 
 Illinois . 
 
 
 1,568,286 
 
 1,037,073 
 
 — 34 
 
 202,803 
 
 255,741 
 
 4_ 26 
 
 55 
 
 
 Iowa . 
 
 
 855,493 
 
 455,359 
 
 — 47 
 
 116,292 
 
 185, 35r 
 
 -f 59 
 
 30 
 
 
 Micliigan 
 
 
 1,985,906 
 
 2,189,389 
 
 -f 10 
 
 98,786 
 
 154,008 
 
 + 56 
 
 29 
 
 
 Wisconsin 
 
 
 1,069,282 
 
 1,336,807 
 
 + 25 
 
 102,904 
 
 134,322 
 
 + 31 
 
 22 
 
 
 STATES THINLY SETTLED AND TERRITORIES. 
 
 Texas .... 
 
 714,351 
 
 2,411,887 
 
 +238 
 
 61,125 
 
 174,184 
 
 +185 
 
 6. 
 
 Kansas . 
 
 109,088 
 
 499.671 
 
 4-358 
 
 38,202 
 
 138,561 
 
 4-263 
 
 12. 
 
 Oregon . 
 
 318.123 
 
 1,083,162 
 
 +240 
 
 7,587 
 
 16,217 
 
 +114 
 
 1.8 
 
 California 
 
 2,768,187 
 
 4.152.349 
 
 + 50 
 
 23.724 
 
 35,934 
 
 + 51 
 
 5.6 
 
 Utah .... 
 
 59,672 
 
 233,121 
 
 4-291 
 
 4,908 
 
 9-452 
 
 4- 93 
 
 1-75 
 
 Colorado . 
 
 120,928 
 
 • 746,433 
 
 +517 
 
 1.73S 
 
 4,506 
 
 4-159 
 
 1.9 
 
 New Mexico 
 
 619,438 
 
 2,088,237 
 
 +237 
 
 4,408 
 
 5,053 
 
 + 13 
 
 0.98 
 
 Oiir imports, in round numbers, were, in
 
 Gold Values. 
 
 iSGo 
 1861 
 1862 
 
 1863 
 1864 
 1865 
 1866 
 
 $5,000,000 
 5,000,000 
 7,000,000 
 
 13,000,000 
 
 16,000,000 
 8,000,000 
 
 11,000,000 
 
 In the ^uasi free years the imports were far less than in the 
 protected ones. From 1866 to 1870 imports declined ; protection 
 had then fairly begun to bear fruit. The industry had by that 
 time been fostered to such an extent that in 1869, according to 
 the report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, about 8,000,000 
 sheep were killed (the sheep in the country being thereby reduced 
 about 20 per cent.), because sheep-raising became unprofitable on 
 account of the over-supply. After that wool advanced again, and 
 the stock was increased, with the same result after a few good 
 years. This process repeated itself about three times during the 
 last fifteen years. The average prices of common raw wool for 
 each of the ten years of the last decade are given by the Bureau 
 of Statistics as follows : 
 
 1870. 1871. 1872. 1873. 1874. 1875. 1876. 1877. 1878. 1879. 
 36c. 35c. 26c. 23c. 22ic. 35c. 23c. 33c. 27c. 2gc. 
 
 For medium Ohio fleece, washed, Mr. James Lynch reports : 
 
 1872. 1873. 1874. 1S75. 1876. 1877. 1S7S. i87g. 1S80. 18S1. 
 65c. 63c. 51C. 53c. 50c. 43c. 45c. 35c. 55c. 49c. 
 
 In June, 1879, the price of wool was lower than any reached for 
 a number of years. I was offered a lot of wool at twelve and a 
 half cents, that a few months later could not be bought at double 
 the price. The fluctuations to which the tariff for the protection 
 of American labor subjects the prices of wool are of a nature that 
 cannot but be disastrous to manufacturers who depend on that 
 staple. How easy it is to manipulate an article which is cut off 
 from the levelling influence of foreign supply is best illustrated by 
 reference to the wool trade of 1879, A boom was created that en-
 
 riched many speculators and ruined many more. In the summer and 
 fall of 1879, when prices were lowest, the wool dealers sent their 
 agents secretly into the wool regions to buy up wool. Manufacturers 
 and their agents did likewise, — but all. very secretly and stealthily. 
 Neither was to know of the movements of the other, Meanwliile, 
 the trade papers made it their special business to prophesy noth- 
 ing less than a wool famine. They figured down to a pound how 
 much wool was in the storehouses, in the factories, and on the 
 sheep's back. They proclaimed that the farmers had no wool, so 
 to speak. Now, of course, a farmer is but a mortal, and in spite 
 of his innocence, knows as well as town-bred folks how to turn an 
 honest penny. So, when buyers who had never been seen before 
 in those regions made their appearance, one by one, like conspira- 
 tors in opera-bouffe, all "good friends of the farmer," the farmer 
 had no wool to sell. The situation was appalling ; a revival of 
 business all around ; a great demand for woollens, and no wool. 
 When " the good friends," over-bidding one another, had succeeded 
 in raising the price of wool to a point where there was no reason- 
 able hope to obtain higher points yet, the innnocents of the rural 
 districts suddenly remembered that they had some wool ; and they 
 did sell wool — grease, sand, and all. When the final count of the 
 wool crop of that year of famine, 1880, was made, it compared 
 with previous years of plenty as follows : 
 
 (These figures are from the official Report of the Bureau of 
 Statistics.) 
 
 Fiscal year 1877 , , . lbs. wool raised, 20S, 000,000 
 
 " " 1S7S . . . . " " 211,000,000 
 
 " " 187Q . . , , " " 232,000,000 
 
 " " 18S0 . . . . " " 280,000,000 
 
 Meanwhile, buyers were sent all over the inhabited world to buy 
 wool, Asia, Africa, Australia, and South America were cleaned 
 of wool to satiate the voracious maw of the American speculator. 
 The wool merchants of London had little wool to offer, and a real 
 scarcity made itself felt, and created a feeling of great anxiety lest 
 the much-coveted fleece should not be obtainable at all. Our 
 Argonauts resold a good deal of foreign wool to the panic-stricken 
 English when the over-supply in this country began to make itself 
 felt.
 
 22 
 
 Imports of foreign wool in 1879 were . . 39,000,000 lbs. 
 
 " " 18S0 " . . 128,000,000 lbs., 
 
 in value nearly five times that of the importations of i860. 
 
 It is an ill wind which blows nobody good. The speculators, at 
 least, had no reason to find fault with a tariff for the protection of 
 our home industries. The sweet nectar of the boom in woollen 
 manufactures was not without its bitter dregs for the manufacturer, 
 however. Large prices were asked, and large prices were obtained. 
 Every spindle was put in motion, every card employed and driven 
 with all the speed that modern invention could supply. Extra 
 hands were set to work in relays. But not all the promises of the 
 commission houses (the agents of the mills) were realized. Many 
 dealers bought largely; others, mistrusting, held back, only sup- 
 plying their immediate wants ; and a great many stocks were kept 
 on hand that were made of high-priced wool, and had to be sacri- 
 ficed at a great reduction and loss to the manufacturer. 
 
 One class of woollen goods may serve as an illustration. Felt 
 goods, an article that brought 55 cents a yard in the early sum- 
 mer of 1879, was raised in the spring of 1880 to 80 and 85 cents a 
 yard. This price promised so well that manufacturers " went in 
 heavy." The storehouses were filled to overflowing to await the 
 rapid sales expected by all whom it concerned. They kept on ex- 
 pecting, but their expectations were not to be realized. In 1881 
 those very goods, kept over from the boom year, were sold — the 
 very best goods, expected to bring 85 and even 90 cents — at 50 
 and 55 cents. One manufacturing concern had a hundred thou- 
 sand yards left over, and sold them at that reduction. Just con- 
 template the havoc created by protection in this one instance. 
 The consequence was that of six felt mills in Franklin, Mass., op- 
 erating in 1S80, there are only one or two left now to tell the tale. 
 The others have either failed or gone into liquidation. In other 
 lines of woollens similar experience was made, although the con- 
 sequences were of not so pronounced a character. These spas- 
 modic changes are matters of regular occurrence. 
 
 Only a few days ago, June, 1883, an auction sale of 12,000 
 pieces of heavy woollens took place for want of regular buyers. 
 But this was only the beginning in a series of forced sales of a like
 
 23 
 
 nature that followed shortly after in quick succession. And all this 
 under a tariff for protection ! 
 
 Najioleon said ; " The world is governed three fourtlis by im- 
 agination,"
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE TARIFF RATHER DESTRUCTIVE THAN PROTECTIVE IN 
 WOOLLEN INDUSTRIES, 
 
 To many of our industries protection acts as a boomerang. In- 
 tended to crush the foreigner (the enemy of our " infant indus- 
 tries '), it enables foreign competition to undermine industries 
 protected by a tariff of a hundred per cent, or more. We begin 
 our inquiry with an article of last finish, ready for immediate use, 
 cloaks. 
 
 Cloaks have taken for the last few years the place of shawls in 
 woman's outfit. They are manufactured in large quantities and 
 are represented by millions of dollars, giving employment to thou- 
 sands of men and women in mills and workshops. Foreign-made 
 cloaks, up to the late revision, have been paying a duty of 50 
 cents a pound and 40 per cent, ad valorem. In the lower class of 
 goods this is equal to a protection of over 100 per cent. The new 
 rate is 45 cents a pound and 40 per cent, ad valorem. Yet Berlin.- 
 made cloaks are annually shipped to the United States in very 
 large quantities, excluding to that extent American-made goods, 
 protected, as just said, at those high rates. With such protection 
 one should suppose foreign competition practically impossible. 
 Considering, however, the degree of protection which all materials 
 enjoy that enter into a garment, the solution is simple enough. 
 
 I. Woollens were paying 50 cents a pound and 35 percent, ad 
 valorevi, new rate 35 cents a pound and 35 per cent, ad valorem^ 
 and goods above 80 cents a pound 35 cents and 40 per cent. As 
 this is the "poor man's government," it is natural enough that 
 the poor man is taxed heaviest. On his clothing he still pays 
 nearly double the rate of the rich man. Goods of an inferior 
 quality and value, heavily loaded with cotton, shoddy, dye-stuffs, 
 
 24
 
 etc., pay from loo to 150 per cent.; fine goods made of pure wool 
 of the finest texture pay from 60 to 80 per cent. 
 The old and new tariffs bear the following relation ; 
 
 A cheap cloth, costing in Germany or England, 
 .say 75 cts. a yd., weighing 28 oz. weight 
 duty = ...... 
 
 and ad valorem duty . . . 
 
 Old Tariff 50 cts. j New Tariff 35 cts. 
 and 35 per cent, i and 35 per cent. 
 
 87ic. 
 26| 
 
 .I3f or 152 i 
 
 6rc. 
 264- 
 
 87^01 ii6-^ 
 
 Goods of American make, corresponding in value, sold from 
 first hand at prices ranging from $1.75 to $1.90 per yard. New, 
 desirable goods, in consequence of the recent tariff enactment, are 
 offered now at about Si-S°- 
 
 New Tariff. 
 35 and 40 per cent. 
 
 2. Fine Woollens costing at the foreign place 
 of export $2 a yard, and of like weight 
 weight duty ...... 
 
 ad valorem duty = . . 
 
 $1.41 or 10^ ^ 
 
 There is still a very large discrepancy between the fine and the 
 coarse fabrics. 
 
 
 Old Tariff. 
 50 and 35 percent. 
 
 New Tariff. 
 35 and 40 per cent. 
 
 Take finer goods, Coatings, costing 12 s. or $3. 
 Weight 24 oz. = 
 ad valorem duty = , . . 
 
 75c. 
 1.05 
 
 524. 
 1.20 
 
 
 $1.80 or 60 % 
 
 $1.72! or 53 % 
 
 The finer the goods, the lower the rate of duty ; the coarser,
 
 26 
 
 the higher the rate : inviting the importation of finer cloths and 
 stimulating an over-production of coarse, unsightly, trashy goods, 
 filling the storehouses to overflowing, only to be relieved by forced 
 auction or sheriff's sales. 
 
 This proportion of burdens, laid upon the poor man's shoulders 
 by a providential government, runs through the whole list of 
 woollen goods. 
 
 3. Italian cloths, used for linings, pay the same proportion of 
 duties. 
 
 4, Trimmings, made of wool, escape the weight duty to a cer- 
 tain extent, as their weight is about balanced by what falls off the 
 material in cutting the cloth. Woollen plushes are now used 
 most extensively for cloak trimmings, linings, and cloaks. They 
 are imported in large quantities. The manufacturer who uses 
 them for his American-made goods pays at the following rates : 
 
 
 Old Rate. 
 50 and 35 per cent. 
 
 New Rate. 
 35 and 35 per cent. 
 
 A low quality of velour costs iSd. English=36c. 
 Weight, 28 ounces at 50c. = weiglit duty 
 ad valorem duty = . . . . 
 
 87ic. 
 
 I2i 
 
 6tc. 
 
 
 $1.00 or 277 ^ 
 
 73^ or 204 J? 
 
 A fine seal plush costs 20s. English = $4.80 
 Weight, 28 ounces at 50c. = 
 35 % ad valorem = . . . . 
 
 87*c. 
 
 6ic. 
 
 $1.92 
 
 
 $2.45 or 51 ^ 
 
 $2.53 or 52|- % 
 
 Silk, silk ornaments, silk laces, etc., if imported in the piece 
 have been paying 60 per cent, and are now reduced to 50 per 
 cent, ad valorem. If on cloaks, as trimmings, they only pay 40 per 
 cent, ad valorem, as their weight duty is infinitesimal in propor- 
 tion to their value. 
 
 5. Sewing by hand receives poorer wages than most other 
 work in Europe ; the lesser cost of making a garment is, therefore, 
 greatly to the advantage of the foreign manufacturer. 
 
 Under the old tariff law protection heaped heavier charges
 
 27 
 
 upon the manufacturer than were remitted to him in protecting 
 the finished goods. 
 
 " Though this be madness, yet there 's method in it." 
 
 The new tariff gives him an even chance. To illustrate I will 
 give an accounting of the manufacturing cost : 
 
 FOREIGN CLOAKS IMPORTED. 
 
 Old Tariff 50 cts. 
 and 40 per cent. 
 
 New Tariff 45 cts. 
 and 40 per cent. 
 
 a.) Cheap quality, I2 marl-cs, $3.00 = specific 
 3 pounds = ..... 
 40 % ad valorem = . 
 
 $1.50 
 1.20 
 
 $1.35 
 1.20 
 
 
 $2.70 or 90 % 
 
 $2.55 or 85^ 
 
 0.) Finequality, 5omarks,$r2.50, saraeweight 
 40 % ad valorem. ==..,, 
 
 $1.50 
 5.00 
 
 $1-35 
 5.00 
 
 
 $6.50 or ^o'fo 
 
 $6.35 or 49 fo 
 
 Now let us examine into the relative cost of these two classes 
 of cloaks, cost of component parts in Berlin, and brought to New 
 York made-up, with duty and expenses added, and New-York- 
 made cloaks and cost of component parts under both tariffs : 
 
 In this, my price-statement, a margin of profit is left to the cloak 
 maker in Berlin, but none to the American manufacturer. Most 
 of the foreign importations are consigned, and under-valuation, in 
 the finer grades especially, frequently further discriminates in 
 favor of foreign makers. 
 
 This may serve as an example of the kind of protection most of 
 our highest advanced industries obtain by "our well-balanced 
 tariff system." Were it not for the difficulty of foreign adaptation 
 to American style and fashion, this would be one of the American 
 industries for which an epitaph would soon be wanted. As it is, 
 the industry is flourishing in spite of protection. The annual pro- 
 duction of cloaks is estimated to exceed thirty millions of dollars.
 
 28 
 
 
 Manufacturer's Cost Price in 
 
 
 Berlin. 
 
 New York 
 Old Tariff. 
 
 New York. 
 New Tariff. 
 
 a) 2 yards Cloth 
 
 •J yard Satin or Silk ..... 
 Buttons and Italian Cloth 
 
 Making 
 
 Factory Expenses .... 
 
 Discount ....... 
 
 Profit 
 
 $1.50 
 25 
 15 
 35 
 15 
 15 
 45 
 
 $3.70 
 40 
 30 
 65 
 50 
 30 
 
 $3.00 
 37i 
 30 
 65 
 42i 
 30 
 
 
 
 
 
 $3.00 
 
 $5.85 
 
 $5.05 
 
 Berlin Cloaks landed in New York, old tai it? rate 
 
 $3.00 
 2.70 
 
 $3.00 
 new rate 2.55 
 
 Total 
 
 $5-70 
 
 $5-55 
 
 l>.) 2 y.-irds Cloth ..... 
 
 Silks and Fringes ..... 
 
 Buttons, etc. ..... 
 
 Making ....... 
 
 Factory Expenses .... 
 
 Discount ....... 
 
 Profit 
 
 $4.00 
 4.00 
 1. 00 
 
 1. 00 
 
 75 
 
 75 
 
 1. 00 
 
 $7-15 
 6.40 
 
 I. CO 
 
 2.00 
 
 1-75 
 1.25 
 
 $6.82 
 6.00 
 1. 00 
 2.00 
 1.50 
 
 1-25 
 
 
 
 
 
 $12.50 
 
 $19-55 
 
 $18.57 
 
 Berlin Cloaks landed in New York, old tariff rate. 
 
 §12.50 
 6.50 
 
 _ $12.50 
 new tariff 6.35 
 
 Total 
 
 $19.00 
 
 
 $18,85 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE TARIFF ON WOOL AND RAW MATERIALS THE ONLY CAUSE 
 OF OUR INABILITY TO COMPETE. 
 
 But why not reduce the tariff on woollens to relieve the cloak 
 manufacturers ? Well this is an equally simple story. The manu- 
 facturer of woollens is not much better off than the cloak maker. 
 >ee what a load he has to carry.
 
 29 
 
 (i) Raw wool has been paying lo cents a pound and ii per 
 cent, ad valorem. The shrinkage extends often to 65 per cent. 
 On scoured wool the tariff-charges were 30 cents a pound and ^-^ 
 per cent. ^^z/^ZsT^w, or three times the rate of grease wool. A 
 pound of foreign-grown wool has cost accordingly from 35 to 40 
 cents more before being used by an American spindle than it cost 
 an English spindle to spin it into yarn. 
 
 Under a general weakening of wool prices, American wools had 
 come down to within two to three cents of the full foreign price 
 inclusive of duties and charges. This has induced the Tariff 
 Commission to recommend and Congress to enact the abolition of 
 the ad-valorem tax on wool. The specific tax remains unchanged : 
 ten cents on a pound of wool grease and dirt. (To offset this 
 great sacrifice, the price limit has been reduced and all wools over 
 30 cents have to pay 12 cents a pound as against the same rate on 
 wools over 32 cents, as before. These finer grades are the wools we 
 are mostly in need of to diversify our fabrics, but are excluded under 
 this almost prohibitory measure. But the infants are very much 
 chagrined, even with this concession, at that ruinous reduction, as 
 they say, and threaten the formation of a national organization to 
 agitate a restoration of the old rates.) This reform measure leaves 
 the American wool manufacturer in his wool supply in the follow- 
 ing position toward his foreign competitor : (Table furnished 
 by Mr. James Lynch.) 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^■J? 
 
 ■9 
 
 u 
 
 3 
 
 
 ■6 
 
 c 
 .2 
 
 15W 
 
 c . 
 
 >,T3 
 
 Description. 
 
 u 
 
 0. 
 
 M 
 
 C3 
 
 a 
 
 u 
 u 
 Ii 
 
 a. 
 
 o 
 •a 
 c 
 
 3 
 •0 
 
 
 
 J30 
 
 ■3. 
 
 <D C. 
 X 
 
 3 d 
 
 hi g 
 
 Bo . 
 
 1=1 
 
 « ? 
 
 °o 
 
 *J 
 c 
 
 3 M 
 
 15 
 
 p 
 
 1)^ IS 
 
 CO C3 nj 
 
 e ** >- 
 
 i«8 
 
 u w 
 
 
 W 
 
 P^ 
 
 hJ 
 
 a, 
 
 Ph 
 
 > 
 
 < 
 
 ^ 
 
 Buenos Ayres . . . 
 
 70 
 
 .30 
 
 10 
 
 13c. 
 
 77 
 
 43^ 
 
 33i 
 
 77 
 
 Montevideo . . . . 
 
 5(3 
 
 44 
 
 10 
 
 20c. 
 
 50 
 
 4Tf- 
 
 22^- 
 
 ■^6-^ 
 
 Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 66 
 
 34 
 
 10 
 
 1 6c. 
 
 62! 
 
 46.2 
 
 29.2 
 
 63i 
 
 Port Philip .... 
 
 56 
 
 44 
 
 10 
 
 27c. 
 
 37-2 
 
 6ii 
 
 22 1 
 
 371 
 
 After this great and liberal reduction of 11 per cent, the tariff 
 remains yet 37^ to 77 per cent, ad valorem — fully equal to if not
 
 higher than the original war tax. Just think of it — 37I- to 77 per 
 cent, tax on a raw material, wool, that is imported free of duty by 
 all industrial nations, not by any means as favorably situated as we 
 are for the production of this most necessary staple. Of course, 
 the lowest grades pay the highest duties, as in all enumerations of 
 our wonderful tariff. 
 
 Foreign wools have declined in price since the war tariff was 
 imposed, so that even with this reduction the percentage is on the 
 average fully as high as it was ten years ago, as will be seen by 
 this table : 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 ] 
 
 872. 
 
 
 
 
 i832. 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 >, 
 
 
 
 
 >, 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 >, 
 
 1 3 
 •0 
 
 
 
 >> 
 
 •0 
 
 Descriptioa. 
 
 
 
 
 d 
 
 "O 
 
 !^^- 
 
 
 
 •a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■y 
 
 
 
 &s 
 
 o-t; 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 y 
 
 
 -o 
 
 
 OS a 
 
 
 •nP 
 
 ««• 
 
 
 
 
 G 
 
 
 <U V 
 
 
 
 c 0. 
 
 <uW 
 
 u 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 v 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ph 
 
 
 Ph 
 
 Ph 
 
 CU 
 
 fi-, 
 
 Ph 
 
 .c 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Vi 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A 
 
 Buenos Ayrcs 
 
 10 cts., and 
 
 \\% 
 
 16 
 
 73* 
 
 10 
 
 14 
 
 7if 
 
 f1 
 
 Peru, middling .... 
 
 " 
 
 
 30 
 
 44^ 
 
 10 
 
 22 
 
 457 
 
 "3 
 
 Eastern, Cape of Good Hope 
 
 " 
 
 
 32 
 
 42i 
 
 10 
 
 24 
 
 4it 
 
 a 
 
 Port Philip, average fleece . 
 
 12 cts., and 
 
 10 fc 
 
 34 
 
 45 
 
 10 
 
 24 
 
 4i| 
 
 After England, we are now the largest wool-consuming nation. 
 Our exclusion of foreign wools naturally throws all the advantages 
 of depressed foreign markets into the hands of the foreign, princi- 
 pally English, wool-spinner. We act as this depressing influ- 
 ence, which the foreign manufacturer is using with telling blows 
 against our own industries, despite all our efforts at protection. 
 Given free wool, the price on the other side would advance and 
 prevent our foreign competitors from ruling the markets of the 
 world, both as buyers of wools and sellers of woUens, 
 
 (2) Shoddy, woollen rags, mungo, and wool waste pay 10 cents 
 (formerly 12 cents) a pound, fully 50 per cent, of the foreign 
 price. 
 
 (3) Dyestuffs, chemicals, and other ingredients cost our manu-
 
 31 
 
 facturers fully 50 per cent, more on the average than their Eng- 
 lish competitors have to pay. 
 
 (4) Coal (bituminous) pays a duty of 75 cents a ton. This 
 precludes the New England manufacturer from using the coal of 
 the adjacent coal-fields of the British possessions, and enables the 
 Pennsylvania owner of coal mines and transportation lines to 
 charge "what the market will fetch." 
 
 {5) Heavy machinery composed of iron that pays $6.72 a ton, 
 or 60 per cent., bar-iron 75 per cent,, and steel that pays 45 per 
 cent., costs vastly more than English machinery. 
 
 The cost of factory buildings and machinery is fully double that 
 of the English mills ; interest charges, etc., consequently, more than 
 twice as high as those of the British manufacturer. 
 
 With not one half the means of circulation at her command, the 
 industrial production of England, per capita, is nearly twice that 
 of ours. 
 
 Our inflated prices, largely due to the tax on raw materials, 
 cause a constant sharp demand for money, and a consequent 
 higher rate of interest. All of which burdens add heavily to our 
 cost of production, without furthering the condition of manufact- 
 urers and laborers one iota. 
 
 It would be a moderate estimate to say, that protection adds 
 fully 75 cents to the cost of a yard of 6-4 cloaking that is now 
 sold in this market at prices ranging from $1.75 to $2. 
 
 Our woollen manufacturers could at once compete with the for- 
 eign manufacturer under a moderate tariff, of not more than 25 
 per cent., if they had not this tremendous dead weight (of taxes on 
 raw material, dyestuffs, machinery, etc.) to carry. But they cling 
 frantically to a delusion. They imagine that they would be 
 drowned without protection, and do not see that the threatening 
 waves are an hallucination of their excited brains. 
 
 Our imports in woollens in 1880 amounted to ^35,000,000, 
 about the same as in 1870. 
 
 Our production in the latter year was $173,000,000. Duty, 
 charges, and gold premiums, added to the imports, gave them (at 
 the lowest average, 65 per cent, duty, 5 per cent, charges, 15 per 
 cent, premium) a currency value of nearly $70,000,000. In other 
 words, we imported $40 worth for every $10.0 worth which we
 
 32 
 
 manufactured, at a time when we were most thoroughly protected 
 by a tariff imposed to exclude foreign woollens. 
 
 In 1882 we imported $38,000,000, adding duties and charges, 
 then this is fully equal to 30 per cent, of the extraordinary pro- 
 duction of the boom year with its largely inflated prices in wool- 
 lens and worsteds ; inclusive of all the low, mixed textiles of which 
 our mills are such prolific producers. 
 
 In fine goods we cannot compete with foreign nations in our 
 own markets, as may be gathered from the computation of specific 
 rates, given above. The consequence is, that our manufacturers 
 turn their attention almost wholly to one and the same class of 
 goods — with what results can be learned from the long list of fail- 
 ures in our v/oollen industries during the last ten years. 
 
 Even now, after two years of prosperous trade, following the 
 long depression, we are again verging on a repetition of that dis- 
 astrous period, when woollen mills were sold under the hammer 
 and went begging for buyers at one quarter their original value.' 
 
 This is what protection is doing for our woollen industry. Well 
 may protectionist apostles proclaim that " protection " reduces 
 prices. The sentence can have but one meaning, namely, that 
 protection invites an excess of capital and labor into protected 
 enterprises, and ultimately ripens thereby so keen a competition 
 that ruin follows to all concerned in these industries. At best, a 
 proceeding of a decidedly questionable morality, if this is the 
 conscious aim of our protectionists. The consumer, however, is 
 reaping small benefit from this " price-reducing character of pro- 
 tection." The tax on raw material is sufficiently high, and its 
 prices are so easily kept to their full limit, that ruin may overtake 
 the producers of articles made of these raw materials, and yet 
 no perceptible relief be given to the consumer. But even the 
 farmer is not benefited, though he is made to believe that his 
 interest is pre-eminently advanced by this wool tax. The farmer 
 and the sheep-raiser by no means represent the same interest. A 
 
 * According to a careful estimate, about 60,000 cases of American diy goods, 
 cotton and woollen goods, have been sold at public auction and at ruinous 
 prices since the opening of the fall season till September, 18S3 ; each succeeding 
 sale bringing poorer returns than the former. But they continue to be brought 
 on as the only means of relief of an over-production that has no other outlet 
 than an overburdened home market.
 
 33 
 
 correct review of the case must convince the farmer that he is 
 the loser in the game. We raised in the census year 35,000,000 
 sheep, more or less, distributed among 4,000,000 of farmers, which 
 number, evenly divided, would give each farmer nine sheep. Now 
 it is a known fact that all States whose lands become valuable on 
 account of denser settlement, decrease the number of their sheep ; 
 as sheep-culture, on a scale larger than that required for the raising 
 of mutton, becomes unprofitable with the development of agri- 
 culture. Wool then is considered an incidental profit only. 
 
 The large wool-growers use the millions of farmers who produce 
 little wool simply as cat's-paws to get their chestnuts out of the fire. 
 The burdens which every farmer has to carry as a consumer of 
 woollen goods, are at least four times as high as the amount he 
 would get more for his wool, if all sheep raised in the United 
 States were equally divided among each and every farmer. They 
 would get nine sheep each. These nine sheep give about fifty-five 
 pounds of raw wool, which, at a protection of ten cents, gives him 
 ^5.50 protection. His clothing and woollen wear for himself and 
 family cost him an average of fully $50, which $50 is about twice 
 what he would need under free wool. Consequently, in woollen 
 goods alone he has to pay a tax of $25 from his earnings, while his 
 imaginary earnings from sheep-raising average only $5.50. I do 
 not add to this calculation the high price of his tools, of his 
 machinery, his agricultural implements, and household utensils, 
 which are equally enhanced in price by this obnoxious system of 
 tariff legislation. 
 
 The wool clip of the United States, taking the highest estimate, 
 is about 250,000,000 pounds, raw. Averaging the whole, high and 
 low grades, at 30 cents a pound, will give us an aggregate of S75>" 
 000,000. Our woollen industry — manufacturers' value — is ^26-j,- 
 000,000. Ready-made clothing, woollen shirts, cloaks, etc., 
 manufactured out of these goods, amount now to fully ^250,- 
 ooo,coo. We have, therefore, industries amounting in the aggre- 
 gate to over ^500,000,000, whose very existence is based on this 
 raw material and its liberal supply at reasonable and stable prices. 
 The woollen industries employ 167,000 persons ; the ready-made 
 clothing and other kindred industries fully 250,000. Manufactur- 
 ing interests of over ^500,000,000 and the daily bread of nearly
 
 34 
 
 half a million ' of working people depend upon this staple. A tax 
 of ten cents a pound on raw wool amounts for this large clip to 
 only ^25,000,000. To pay a bounty of ten cents a pound to the 
 sheep-raiser, admit wool and its substitutes free, and take this 
 disturbing element — tax on wool — out of our manufacturing in- 
 dustries and commercial relations, would be less of a national 
 waste than the present system. A tax on raw materials is not 
 like a tax on finished goods. A tax on raw materials is equal to 
 its own amount, plus the usual percentage of gross profit, multi- 
 plied by the number of procedures through which it has to pass 
 until it reaches the consumer in the finished state. A protection 
 of $25,000,000 on wool keeps swelling and swelling at each inter- 
 mediate stage until it reaches the consumer, and may be called 
 nearer a hundred million of dollars when it goes into consumption 
 in its most finished state, without any adequate advantage to 
 manufacturer, workingman, or consumer. I do not see why all 
 these interests should be sacrificed to the maker of the raw 
 material. His plant is the free soil of the prairie and the genial 
 sky of the United States. The manufacturer is differently situ- 
 ated. He has large interests at stake. He cannot stop his works 
 at will. Very frequently the existence of a whole village depends 
 on one mill, A stoppage of work is like the failing of crops in 
 agricultural districts. If protracted, the organization will have to 
 disband, the workmen will have to find other employments out- 
 side of their wonted circle, or they and their dependents would 
 perish from starvation. The manufacturer, on the other hand, 
 if he permitted their migration, would find himself without hands 
 if reviving demand should call for the renewed activity of his 
 factory. Hence he often keeps his mill going at a great loss. 
 All these considerations are foreign to the wool-grower. His 
 help is easily replaced. His machinery is not eaten by rust. He 
 can easily keep his product within the limits of demand without 
 injurious effects to any one. Why then consider protection for 
 him any more necessary than for the beef-raiser, the pork-raiser, 
 the grower of corn, wheat, and cotton, and for all the cultivators 
 of our free soil ? 
 
 ' Counting three dependents to one wage earner, they represent a population 
 of two millions.
 
 35 
 
 Therefore, if any aid were needed, I should invoke it for the 
 manufaciurer and his help, but not for the raw nialerial. 
 
 Protection of industries and taxes on raw materials cannot co- 
 exist. Taxes on raw material inevitably lead to decay of manu- 
 facturing industries. Either one or the other has to give way. 
 There is no choice, no alternative. If our industries are to lead 
 an active, healthy life, then all and every tax from raw materials 
 has to be taken off the statute-book. No scaling-down-horizontal- 
 reduction will do. The beginning must be made at the bottom 
 of the structure. When once introduced this reform will work 
 wonders. Our manufacturers will then show in a very brief time 
 how easily they can compete with Europe. They will learn that 
 the lowest rates are more protective than the present " protective 
 system."
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE TARIFF ON STEEL RAILS A FURTHER ILLUSTRATION OF THE 
 EFFECTS OF PROTECTION. ALSO A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE 
 GREAT SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS BY THE COMBINED 
 BRITISH CAPITALIST, 
 
 Protectionists, in arguing their case, remind one of the hare of 
 Baron Munchausen, who eluded all the attempts of that famous 
 hunter to hunt him down. Finally, the Baron discovered that the 
 hare had two sets of legs — one set below, like all honest quadru- 
 peds, and another set on his back. When he got tired on his or- 
 dinary legs he turned over and continued the run on his spare 
 legs. 
 
 One argument of the protectionists is, that protection is needed 
 for the protection of our working classes and manufacturers. When 
 pressed with the rejoinder that the rise in the prices of all com- 
 modities counterbalances the advantages of higher wages, then 
 they put themselves on their spare legs and point with pride to the 
 influence of the tariff to reduce prices. Absurd as this argument 
 may appear, it is, nevertheless, used altogether too frequently 
 not to call for refutation. If the tariff acts in this way, then why 
 have a tariff ? If protectionists admit that its principal function 
 is not performed — viz., the function of maintaining prices and their 
 necessary consequence — high wages, — then the sooner we abolish 
 it the better for all concerned. 
 
 The protectionists simply give up their case as hopeless when 
 they bring this evidence into court. Prices, of course, have been 
 cheapened, as shown before. They are in. all industries cheaper 
 than during the springtide of protection. Prices always work tow- 
 ard a common level — cost of production plus a moderate profit. 
 They do it the more quickly the more influences are at work to 
 stimulate over-production ; and a protective tariff is such an influ- 
 ence. Prices, however, can never reach a true level, that of for- 
 
 36
 
 37 
 
 eign competition, while raw materials are protected. Our prices 
 may become low enough to ruin all manufacturers, and still be 
 higher than those at which foreign manufacturers can work at a 
 profit and export their surplus.' 
 
 The injurious influence of a high tariff is further visible in the 
 fluctuations of prices. At times of great demand prices are apt to 
 be raised to the highest rates which the tariff allows, to be reduced 
 again at times of stagnation to a correspondingly low figure. When 
 patent rights exclude home competition, prices, of course, can be 
 more easily maintained up to the importing price. Steel rails and 
 all steel made on the Bessemer process are manufactured by a great 
 monopoly. 
 
 The right to manufacture Bessemer steel in the United States is 
 owned and exercised by "The Bessemer Steel Company, Limited," 
 which is a consolidation of former organizations and owners of 
 various patents, both foreign and American, including the Besse- 
 mer and Kelley patents. Although the Bessemer patent has run 
 out, still all later improvements and inventions governing this pro- 
 cess, and protected by patents, have been bought and are now 
 owned by this same company. Under the above monopoly 
 thirteen works were running and two additional ones were erected 
 in 1881. The monopolists owning these patents were, by virtue 
 of this ownership, enabled to get all that the tariff allowed them to 
 take — that is, the price of the foreign article plus duty and charges 
 for railroad and ocean freight, commission charges, and inland 
 transportation, which I compute as, on the average, ^7 a ton. The 
 duty, a specific duty, up to July ist, 18S3, — $28 a ton ; conse- 
 quently, after fifteen years of its existence, was thrice as high as at 
 the time when the tariff charge was enacted, the prices of foreign 
 rails having come down to about a third of their original cost. Our 
 prices simply had to follow English prices in their decline. Our 
 steel men did not do any thing more than yield to the inevitable. 
 
 Let us compare prices and find out what the tariff has done in 
 this instance : 186S — American rails, currency, $158. English 
 rails, gold, $61.50 ; duty $28 ; charges and freight, $7 ; gold pre- 
 mium, 40 per cent.; currency price, $135. 
 
 'y^// industrial nations, whether of a free-trade or protective character, admit 
 raw materials free of duty. This sorry distinction is left wholly to the people 
 of the United States. See Appendix I. 
 
 43297S
 
 38 
 
 Here we have a larger discrepancy than in later years. Steel 
 rails in that year were not produced in large quantities — 2,500 
 tons. The price of $158 is, therefore, largely illusory, especially 
 as the price of an article that fluctuates so largely as steel rails 
 cannot be given with any degree of accuracy, and where one price, 
 the English, may have been noted at one period and the American 
 at another period of the year. But they come close enough to 
 show the relative bearing to one another. 
 
 American Steel Rails. 
 
 
 English Steel Rails. 
 
 
 
 Currency. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Freight. 
 
 Gold 
 Premium 
 per cent. 
 
 Currency 
 Price 
 
 1S69 
 IS70 
 1871 
 
 1872 
 
 1873 
 1874 
 
 1875 
 1876 
 1877 
 
 1878 
 
 1879 
 1880 
 
 
 
 
 $132 00 
 
 106 75 
 
 102 50 
 
 112 00 
 
 120 00 
 
 94 00 
 
 63 75 
 
 59 25 
 
 45 50 
 
 42 25 
 
 48 25 
 
 67 50 
 
 $55 00 
 51 00 
 55 00 
 
 67 00 
 80 00 
 
 68 75 
 44 28 
 32 00 
 29 00 
 25 00 
 25 00 
 35 00 
 
 $23 
 28 
 28 
 28 
 
 28 
 28 
 28 
 28 
 28 
 
 23 
 
 28 
 28 
 
 $7 
 7 
 7 
 7 
 7 
 7 
 7 
 7 
 7 
 7 
 7 
 7 
 
 •33 
 • 15 
 .12 
 .10 
 
 .8 
 
 $120 
 
 99 
 102 
 112 
 123 
 no 
 
 85 
 70 
 66 
 60 
 60 
 70 
 
 Now compare supply and demand of corresponding years : 
 
 
 Home Production. 
 
 Imported Rails. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Miles of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Railroads 
 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Steel Rails. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Steel. 
 
 Built. 
 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 
 i863 
 
 459,500 
 
 2,500 
 
 163,000 
 
 2,979 
 
 1869 
 
 
 
 
 584,000 
 
 7,200 
 
 313,000 
 
 4-615 
 
 1870 
 
 
 
 
 586,000 
 
 34,000 
 
 399,000 
 
 6,070 
 
 1871 
 
 
 
 
 737,500 
 
 38,200 
 
 566,000 
 
 7,379 
 
 1872 
 
 
 
 
 906,000 
 
 94,000 
 
 381,000 
 
 150,000 
 
 5,878 
 
 1873 
 
 
 
 
 761,000 
 
 129,000 
 
 99,000 
 
 160,000 
 
 4,107 
 
 1874 
 
 
 
 
 584,000 
 
 145,000 
 
 8,000 
 
 100,000 
 
 2,105 
 
 1875 
 
 
 
 
 502,000 
 
 291,000 
 
 1,000 
 
 18,000 
 
 1,712 
 
 1S76 
 
 
 
 
 467,000 
 
 412,000 
 
 287 
 
 
 2,712 
 
 1877 
 
 
 
 
 333,000 
 
 432,000 
 
 
 
 2,281 
 
 1878 
 
 
 
 
 323.000 
 
 550,000 
 
 
 
 2,687 
 
 1879 
 
 
 
 
 420,000 
 
 683,000 
 
 ig.ooo 
 
 25,000 
 
 4,721 
 
 1880 
 
 
 
 
 494,000 
 
 954,000 
 
 132,000 
 
 158.000 
 
 7,174
 
 39 
 
 From 1S69 to 1873 railroad building had assumed proportions 
 far in excess of any thing previously experienced. Neither our 
 iron nor steel works, then in their infancy, were able to satisfy the 
 enormous demand. From 1S69 to 1873 we built 28,000 miles of 
 our roads, against 9,000 miles for the preceding five years and 
 6,000 miles for the five years from 1859 to 1S63. In the five years 
 following 1873 — ^^"^s panic year — railroad building was reduced to 
 a little over 11,000 miles. The demand from 1869 to 1S73 drew 
 increasingly from foreign supply. We imported 2,000,000 tons of 
 iron and steel rails and manufactured 3,850,000 tons. During 
 this period, when we had a supply of near 6,coo,oco tons, the 
 price of the home product was kept up to the price of the foreign 
 article, plus import duty and charges. For the five years after the 
 panic our importations only amounted to 118,000 tons of steel rails 
 and 9,000 to;is of iron rails ; total, 127,000 tons. And this im- 
 portation took place during tbe first two years of the period. Dur- 
 ing the succeeding three years importations entirely ceased. 
 
 The demand was 60 per cent, less than through the previous 
 period. This and increasing means of supply by the home 
 plant caused a corresponding reduction in prices, irrespective of 
 foreign prices. In view of such facts it is rather startling to meet 
 frequently with statements of which the following may serve as an 
 example : 
 
 " Prior to the manufacture of Bessemer steel in this country, the 
 lowest price at which steel rails could be imported was $150 per 
 ton. At that price American manufacturers knew that they could 
 profitably compete with the world, and, accordingly, enterprising 
 proprietors of American iron-works invested very large sums of 
 money in the purchase of patents under which alone such rails 
 could be produced. But when they came to put the rails upon 
 the market they were met with the best quality of British rails at 
 $120 per ton. Their capital was invested, and so their first sales 
 were at the latter price. Their foreign rivals, with an enormous 
 combination of capital, knew the value of the American market, 
 and determined to retain it, and offered the rails at ^100. Ameri- 
 can manufacturers, with all their science and mechanical skill, 
 could not overcome this competition of the combined iron-masters 
 of Great Britain, and hence it was deemed absolutely necessary to
 
 4° 
 
 invoke the protection of the government to the labor and enter- 
 prise of its citizens, who were yet in the infancy of this new pro- 
 duction." 
 
 The very reverse took place. The gold price of steel rails in 
 England ran from $55 in 1869 and S51 in 1870 to $80 in 1873, 
 and our prices were raised to the same level, adding duty and 
 charges. When the demand had slackened, our steel-masters 
 reduced their prices to half-way between the foreign price at the 
 works, and that with the duty and charges added, wisely consid- 
 ering that half a loaf is better than no bread at all. Conse- 
 quently, it was not that the 'combined capital of England" 
 stepped forth to assault our "struggling infant industry," but that 
 that very ogre John Bull took good care to get all he could for 
 his wares, and by no action of his were our great beneficiaries 
 prevented from raising theirs accordingly, from, say $100 gold in 
 1S69 and $92 gold in 1870 to $102 gold in 1872 and $112 gold in 
 1S73. After the collapse of 1873 that same wicked Britisher and 
 combined capitalist did not reduce the price of his rails to a 
 point sufficiently low to allow them to be imported and to com- 
 pete with ours, but he kept up his price, and even then, after our 
 demand had ceased, he took all he could get from his other cus- 
 tomers, and a very sharp decline took place only then when these 
 other customers had also been forced by collapses and crashes to 
 forego railroad building for a while. 
 
 When in 1879 railroad building had taken a new great start, 
 then the same John Bull raised the price of his merchandise from 
 ^25 to ^35, and our poor struggling steel men followed in his 
 wake, and the price of their goods was raised from $48 to ^67 and 
 ^70, and for a brief period even to ^90 — the full pound of flesh the 
 tariff allowed them to take.' These are the facts lying behind that 
 great conspiracy of the "combined iron-masters of Great Britain " 
 that plays so important a part in the argument for protection of 
 our "infant industries." Alas for human ingratitude ! Twice in 
 the course of a decade our arch-enemy had an opportunity to kill 
 and destroy our " infant "; or at least to stunt its growth, by keep- 
 ing British prices down to the low figures that were ruling in Eng- 
 land, before the American booms had set in. But with singular 
 * The close adaptation of American prices to English prices at times of great
 
 41 
 
 generosity and self-restraint, characteristic of his noble quaUties of 
 mind, the Briton forbore to make use of this golden opportunity 
 to rid himself of a rival, and gave instead, free vent to his virtuous 
 impulse of making all the money he could out of the revival of 
 trade, " Truly," as Ernest Renan says of the Jews, "this is the 
 way things always go : if one v/orks for humanity, one may be sure 
 to be robbed first and then to be kicked in the bargain." ' 
 
 This is about the only industry to which protection proved of 
 enormous benefit. Their monopoly enabled the Bessemer-steel- 
 makers to regulate the supply so as to make the tariff pay them 
 all it promised, and it must be said that they made good use of 
 their opportunity. The Vulcan Steel Works at St. Louis are 
 reported to have received 1^400,000 during the hard times from 
 the combination as a bonus for not running their works. It is 
 not mentioned that the workingmen received any wages during 
 that time of enforced idleness. When we shall be informed on 
 good authority that they were paid their share out of that common 
 fund, then I will score one in favor of protection. 
 
 While rails in 1880 had within a year risen from $42 to $90, the 
 present price, September, 1883, is $38.'^ This decline is not at all 
 
 demand, can best be followed up by reviewing the monthly quotations of both 
 during the boom : 
 
 1879. 
 
 October 2 
 October 23 
 November 13 , 
 December i 
 
 January i 
 February 5 
 March 4 . 
 April I 
 May 6 . 
 June 10 
 July I . 
 
 American 
 Steel Rails. 
 
 English Rails in New York. 
 
 P50 00 
 50 00 
 60 00 
 63 00 — 66 00 
 
 70 00 — 72 50 
 85 00 — 90 00 
 70 00 — 81 00 
 76 00 — 80 00 
 6s 00 ^ — 70 00 
 58 00 — 60 00 
 58 00 — 60 00 
 
 $23 to 25 
 24 to 27 
 24 to 27 
 32 to 37 
 
 5° to 55 
 46 to 50 
 46 to 50 
 
 38 
 
 30 
 28 
 
 Duty, 
 etc. 
 
 Full 
 Price. 
 
 85 — 90 
 
 (From the Iron Age). 
 
 * " C est toujours ainsi que les choses se passent : quand on travaille pour 
 r humanite, on est sur d' etre vole et, par dessus le marche, d' etre battu." 
 ' Some Sales are reported as low as $35.00,
 
 42 
 
 due to any concerted action of our hereditary foes on the other side 
 of the Atlantic Ocean. Enghsh rails are now about ^5, or round 
 $25. Under the old tariff, they would have cost nearly ^60, to be 
 laid down at American competing points, and would cost from ^48 
 to $50 under the revised tariff. The increased output of vastly 
 augmented plant, lured into existence by colossal profits, has 
 brought prices to this tumble, and some mills that had spread too 
 much were exposed to failure and ruin. Thousands of working- 
 men are consigned to their homes to cogitate over the insufficiency 
 of tariffs to provide bread for their families, when mills have to 
 shut down for want of markets for their goods.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE AUTOCRATS OF THE TREASURY MAKE DECISIONS THAT 
 ARE PLEASING TO THE INFANTS. THE LATTER PACK COI\I- 
 MISSIONS WITH THEIR OWN MEN, AND CONGRESSIONAL COM- 
 MITTEES ACT AS THEIR PLIANT TOOLS. BUT THERE IS 
 MANY A SLIP BETWEEN THE CUP AND THE LIP. ALSO AN 
 ACCOUNT OF A DIVISION OF PROFITS BETWEEN THE INFANTS 
 AND THEIR WORKMEN. 
 
 In the preceding chapter I have shown what the tariff compels 
 the country to pay for steel rails, in e.Kcess of natural prices, to a 
 gigantic monopoly, under favorable circumstances. Bad as the 
 indictment stands for the tariff, worse remains to be told. The 
 famous Bloom question is an illustration of what the country has 
 to expect yet from this instance in class-legislation. 
 
 When the tariff was framed, the Bessemer process was hardly 
 known in this country. It was just about being introduced in 
 very feeble attempts. The English works were far behind what 
 the industry became later on. The cheapening influence of the 
 new process had not made very great strides, and prices were still 
 very high. Taking ^80 as a fair average price for English Besse- 
 mer rails, then $28 is just 35 ^ex cent, ad valorem. Farther on, 
 the tariff acts from 1865 to 1870 all enumerate as follows (based 
 on the value of crucible steel) : Steel in ingots, bars, coils, and 
 sheets, if valued at 7 cents or less per pound, duty aj^f cents per 
 pound, which is about 35 per cent.; if above 7 cents, and not 
 more than 11 cents per pound, duty 3 cents per pound, averaging 
 again 35 per cent.; valued above 11 cents per pound, duty 3^ 
 cents and 10 per cent., equal to about the same rate in the mean- 
 ing of the law ; in any other form not otherwise provided, 30 per 
 cent.; and manufactures of steel, not otherwise provided for, 45 
 per cent. 
 
 I have been trying to be very exact in this statement, because 
 
 43
 
 44 
 
 I wish to impress on the reader's mind that, although the duty on 
 steel is a specific one, yet it is apparent from the figures given in 
 the act that it was never meant to be more than from 30 to 35 per 
 cent, ad valorem on steel in its cruder forms and 45 per cent, on 
 manufactures of steel. As a rule tariff laws are not enacted on 
 hypothetical cases that may arise, but are based on facts and 
 figures as they do exist and as they are known to the commercial 
 world. The tariff was not meant in this instance to be any thing 
 more than 30 per cent., or at the utmost 35 per cent. Manufactures 
 of iron, including machinery, are rated at 35 per cent., and manu- 
 factures of steel, including machinery and tools wherein steel is 
 used, are rated at 45 pel cent., ad valorem. Wherever an ad-valorem 
 duty is mentioned in the various acts, machinery and tools, with 
 all the skill and labor required for their production, are taxed 45 
 percent, against crude steel at 30 per cent. 
 
 Judge French, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, in a Treasury 
 decision on appeal says : 
 
 "The intent of the law of 1864, regulating the duties on iron 
 and steel, seems to have been to impose a duty of thirty to fifty 
 per cent, upon the coarser articles of steel, although the reduction 
 in value of steel, consequent, in part, upon improved processes 
 of manufacture, has greatly changed the symmetry of the original 
 act. The decisions of the department from 1867 to the present 
 time have regarded steel blooms as subject to the duties imposed 
 upon manufactures of steel, and upon the faith of these decisions 
 parties have entered into large business transactions ; and the 
 department is still of opinion that this classification is correct, 
 and therefore adheres to such decision." 
 
 All this must be conclusive evidence that no higher rate of 
 duties on steel in its cruder stages of manufacture was contem- 
 plated by the framers of tlie law than 30 per cent. 
 
 Had the duty been an ad-valorem duty — equal to the rate as 
 levied when the Bessemer steel process was really in its infancy, 
 /. ^., 30 per cent. — then the tariff would have been on 
 
 Railroad bars . 
 
 . $7 00 
 
 instead of 
 
 . $28 00 
 
 InfTots 
 
 6 00 
 
 instead of 
 
 50 00 
 
 Billets . 
 
 7 50 
 
 instead of 
 
 50 00 
 
 Bars 
 
 9 00 
 
 instead of 
 
 50 00
 
 45 
 
 Now, not all stages of steel manufacture are mentioned in the 
 tariff. Steel blooms are not so enumerated. They are the first 
 stage of progress from the ingot. They egter into all sorts of 
 manufactures from a rail to a machine. According to the tariff 
 act they could not come under any different classing than at the 
 rate of 30 per cent or 45 per cent. The latter rate was the one 
 assessed for a number of years. An importing firm opened the 
 way for the importation of steel blooms by making inquiry at the 
 department before they engaged in the importation. They were 
 informed that that was the rate of duty under the ruling of the 
 Treasury Department. The first and subsequent importations 
 were passed and continued to be passed at that rate (45 percent.) 
 for several years, from 1S79 to iSSi. With the upstart of busi- 
 ness in 1879 so large a demand in rails sprang up that the Besse- 
 mer mills could aot produce the steel so fast as they could roll it 
 into rails, and they were using foreign steel in addition to their 
 own product, and they took the blooms at that rate of duty. 
 Soon, however, they desired a new deal. They were willing 
 enough to have blooms that had the required dimensions for rails 
 entered as blooms, at 45 per cent., but wanted all smaller sizes, 
 from five inches down, appraised as bars, or at a rale of 200 per 
 cent. The same Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Judge 
 French in a very accommodating spirit consented to the mudest 
 request, and gave a decision in distinct contradiction of his former 
 ruhng, in which he had said : 
 
 " Blooms may be of various qualities and shapes, accordir.g to 
 the purposes for which they are intended. If intended for the 
 manufacture of small articles, as tools and cutlery, the bloom may 
 be small, and is then reheated and further rolled and hammered 
 and cut into pieces of convenient size for handling, known as 
 billets,'" 
 
 So 'blooms may be of various qualities and shapes according 
 to the purposes for which they are intended," and be blooms still 
 and pay 45 per cent. Yet on the 5th of October, 1881, in a letter 
 of instruction to the Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, Assist- 
 ant Secretary French confirms the decision of the Collector, classi- 
 fying 3/2 in. blooms as steel in bars dutiable at 2^ cents a pound. 
 This new decision was not very advantageous to the Treasury of
 
 46 
 
 the United States, Judge French must have been aware of the 
 consequence of such a decision, as he says in his decision of 1879 : 
 " But this duty " (mentioning then a much smaller one — 1}{ cents) 
 " would be prohibitory, and should not be adopted, unless the 
 demands of the law imperatively require it." The law did not 
 require any such distinction. The majesty of the law was not 
 offended by calling blooms what they were christened — blooms. 
 Why these sudden pangs of conscience ? 
 
 The importers, not satisfied with this discrimination, appealed 
 to Judge Folger. He relieved blooms down to five inches only, 
 stating that he could not, under the law, reverse former decisions 
 of the Treasury Department, but admitted that all blooms ought 
 to be passed at 30 per centum, at which rate he would have all 
 blooms classified if he were not prevented from doing so by the 
 erroneous decisions of his predecessors. 
 
 Now, gentle reader^ you will begin to see the purport and mean- 
 ing of those innocent-looking measures, known as the McKinley 
 bill of 18S2, and the Tariff Commission bill of that year (which 
 was simply a second and more comprehensive attempt of the rings 
 to rush their measures through Congress), with their proviso that all 
 unclassified raw materials and crude manufactures shall pay the 
 highest rates levied on the specified articles. 
 The McKinley bill read as follows : 
 
 "Be it, etc., enacted that Title 33 of the Revised Statutes be 
 amended by adding to Schedule E of said title, the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
 " Provided that on all iron and steel and on all manufactures, 
 wares, vessels, and articles of iron or steel, or of which such 
 metals or either of them shall be the component part or material 
 of chief value, whether wholly or partially manufactured, there 
 shall be levied, collected, and paid no less rate of duty than the duty 
 or rate of duty imposed upon said goods, or upon any part or mate- 
 rial of said goods, in any of the forms in which it or they last ex- 
 isted prior to their passing into the form or article on which the 
 duty is to be levied. 
 
 " This act shall not apply to nor in any manner affect the arti- 
 cles specifically enumerated in this title by their commercial desig- 
 nation, but shall only apply to the articles designated in this title
 
 47 
 
 as manufactures of steel or of which steel shall be a component 
 part not otherwise provided for ; steel in any form not otherwise 
 provided for ; manufactures, articles, vessels, and wares not other- 
 wise provided for of iron, or of which iron shall be the component 
 material of chief value ; metals unmanufactured not otherwise pro- 
 vided for ; and castings of iron not otherwise provided for." 
 
 In plain English, the meaning of the bill was this : " That all 
 articles designated in this title as manufactures of steel, or of 
 which steel shall be a component part, not otherwise provided for, 
 — steel in any form not otherwise provided for " — shall hereafter 
 pay a tax of loo to 200 per cent, to the Bessemer-steel-makers, in- 
 stead of the 30 per cent, that was originally laid on steel. 
 
 The Tariff Commission, in obedience to the commands of the 
 steel interest, was prepared to admit all blooms not less than 5 
 inches square at 6-10 of one cent a pound, or ^13.44 a ton, at 
 present value equal to a duty of 64 per cent. This size can only 
 be used by railmakers. Under present conditions this rate would 
 be as prohibitory as if tlie rate were $50. The railmakers all make 
 their own steel. All other sizes used by our manufacturing indus- 
 tries the Commission had classified as follows : " Steel ingots, 
 cogged ingots, blooms, etc., etc." (here follows a long list of 
 enumerations), " less than 5 inches, valued at 5 cents a pound or 
 less, 2 cents per pound ; valued above 5 cents and not above 9 
 cents per pound, 2^ cents per pound ; valued at above 9 cents, 
 ^% cents per pound." For Bessemer steel in ingots, bars, blooms, 
 billets, etc., there are no such valuations. The Commissioners 
 might as well have said "a dollar or less." Instead of 5 cents a 
 pound or $112 a ton, the values are as follows (in smaller sizes 
 there may be a difference of a few dollars a ton) : 
 
 Value. 
 Bessemer Ingots .......... $20 
 
 Blooms ........... 21 
 
 Billets 23 
 
 TARIFF, PROPOSED BY THE COMMISSION, 
 
 On Bessemer Ingots $44 40, equal to, ad valorem, . . 222 per cent. 
 
 Blooms 44 40, " '* ... 211 percent. 
 
 Billets 44 40, " " ... 193 per cent.
 
 48 
 
 In order to make no more mistakes, like the one that opened 
 the door to the entry of blooms at a low rate, the steel interest 
 further ordained as follows : 
 
 " Provided, that all metal produced from iron or its ores, which 
 is cast and malleable, of whatever description or form, without 
 regard to the percentage of carbon contained therein, whether 
 produced by cementation, or converted, cast, or made from iron 
 or its ores, by the crucible, Bessemer, pneumatic, Thomas Gil- 
 christ, basic, Siemens-Martin, or open-hearth process, or by the 
 equivalent of either, or by the combination of two or more of the 
 processes or their equivalents, or by any fusion or other process 
 which produces from iron or its ores a metal either granular or 
 fibrous in structure, which is cast and malleable, excepting what 
 is known as malleable iron castings, shall be classed and denomi- 
 nated as steel." 
 
 " Steel in any form, not specially enumerated or provided for in 
 this act, three cents per pound," $67.20 per ton. The old tariff 
 says : " Steel in any other form not otherwise provided for, 30 
 per centum ad valorem''' Thirty per centum on steel not classi- 
 fied raised to 300 per cent.! 
 
 The enactment of this marvellously audacious scheme would 
 have ruined all the manufacturers of steel manufactures, machin- 
 ery, tools, and implements, and made of the Bessemer men one 
 great consolidated monopoly, second only to the Standard Oil 
 Company, The tariff on " manufactures, articles, or wares, com- 
 posed wholly or in part of iron, steel, etc., was to be 45 per cent, 
 ad valorem " against 200 per cent, on steel. The steel ring knew 
 that this scheme could not have been carried without the aid of 
 some other powerful combination in Congress. Such a combina- 
 tion was in fact standing ready in close phalanx to renew the old 
 alliance. The wool-growers were equally desirous to push for 
 more "government subsidy." The bargain found expression in 
 the proposition of the Commission for a slight reduction in the 
 wool schedule, as mentioned in one of the foregoing chapters, 
 but a doubling of rates in washed wools of class No. II and 
 No. Ill, and a classification of cow's hair, hitherto free, as wool, 
 and the levying of corresponding duties. This was the sop to 
 " the farmer. "
 
 49 
 
 The guardians of the interests of the people, the House of 
 Representatives, or rather, the Committee of Ways and Means, 
 under the leadership of Mr. Kelley, made haste to prepare a bill 
 containing all the above enumerated iron-clad provisions. They 
 were all framed by the rings of iron and steel men or their 
 representatives. Vigorous opposition was made in the Senate. 
 Under the able leadership of Mr. Beck, from Kentucky, the scheme 
 was defeated. The new law makes 45 per cent, the rate for all 
 forms of steel under 4 cents a pound. This is virtually more tlian 
 the old law intended it to be. (The courts have meanwhile de- 
 cided that 30 per cent, was to be the rate for all blooms imported 
 under appeal.) Considering, however, that the new and definite 
 rate of 45 per cent, solves the long-pending uncertainty, our manu- 
 facturers may well be pleased in having escaped the greater 
 danger, at least for the time being. 
 
 But even under this new tariff law manufacturers of finished 
 goods in the iron and steel line, machinery, tools, hardware, etc., 
 are in about the same condition in which manufacturers of 
 woollen goods, cloaks, etc., find themselves. Their condition 
 would be greatly improved by absolute free trade. They are 
 protected by a tariff of 45 per cent., but have to pay the following 
 tariff advances on English prices : 
 
 On ore, 75 cents a ton,' equal to 30 per cent. 
 
 Pig-iron pays $5.72, or about 60 per cent. 
 
 Bar-iron pays according to size, from $17 to $24.64 a ton, or 
 equal to ad-valorem rates of 60 to 75 per cent. 
 
 Sheet-iron, $24.64 to $33.60 a ton, or equal to ad-valorem rates 
 of 62I- to 75 per cent. 
 
 ' This is an advance over the rale of the old tariff, which was 20 per cent. 
 The new tariff law raises this to 75 cents to please Mr. Mahone and a few 
 wealthy mine-owners. 
 
 It is quite a phenomenon, that the more our infants mature, the more tliey 
 need the protecting nurse. 
 
 THE AVERAGE INVOICE VALUE OF FORErCN ORE WAS IN 
 
 1872 §2 oS, duty 20 per cent., 41^ cents. 
 
 1873 2 25, " " 45 " 
 
 1875 2 57, '' " SiJ " 
 
 1S73 2 14, "43 
 
 1882 2 86, " " 57 " 
 
 Forty-one and three-fourth cents was sufficient in 1872 to protect the great 
 industrial skill required in ore-digging. Ten years later, under an advance of 
 foreign ore prices, 57 cents did not protect, and the duty had to be raised to 
 75 cents. According to the census, nearly two tons of ore were used in the 
 making of a ton of pig-iron, equal to a charge of $1.50 on a ton, instead of 
 $1.14 on the price of 1882, and 83 cents on tliat of 1872. *
 
 so 
 
 Hoop-iron, ^22.40 to $31.36 a ton, or equal to ad-valorem rates 
 of 65 to 85 per cent. 
 
 Copper in plates, bars, Chili pigs, etc., 4 cents a pound, or 
 $89.60 a ton, equal to ad-valorem rate of about 30 per cent. 
 
 Copper, rolled plates, 35 per cent. 
 
 Steel, of all kinds and in any form of less value than 4 cents a 
 pound, 45 per cent. 
 
 The reader will see at a glance how much more the manu- 
 facturer of metal goods has to pay in mostly all instances for his 
 materials than he gets back in the tariff on manufactures. All 
 of these discriminations against him he has to ov^ercome by 
 superior methods and greater efficiency of labor. 
 
 The steel makers are dissatisfied, and will try again undoubt- 
 edly. I wish them good-speed, and strength to their elbows. 
 Reforms are usually accelerated more by the unmeasured de- 
 mands and arrogant presumptions of those enjoying privileges 
 and monopolies than by preachings and appeals to the suffering, 
 apathetic victims. 
 
 How well tiie United States Government has been caring for 
 these "infants," however, in the past, may be seen from this state- 
 ment of one year's business : 
 
 The Bulletin of the American Iron and Steel Association of 
 January, 1880, says : 
 
 "In the following table we give the prices at Philadelphia and 
 in Pennsylvania of various iron and steel products on the ist of 
 January, 1879, and the ist of January, 1880, with the percentage 
 of increase in the intervening year. The prices are fair average 
 prices : " 
 
 ARTICLES. 
 
 Jan. I, 
 1879. 
 
 Jan 
 
 
 1800. 
 
 $35 
 
 00 
 
 71 
 
 68 
 
 70 
 
 00 
 
 57 
 
 00 
 
 4 
 
 25 
 
 36 
 
 00 
 
 34 
 
 00 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 of 
 Increase. 
 
 No. I anthracite foundry pig-iron in Philadelphia 
 
 Best relined bar-iron in Philadelphia . 
 
 Bessemer-steel rails at works in Philadelphia 
 
 Best iron rails in Philadelphia 
 
 Cut nails hy the keg in Philadelphia . 
 
 Old iron rails in Philadelphia 
 
 No. I wrought scrap in Philadelphia . 
 
 I17 00 
 
 42 56 
 
 42 00 
 
 34 00 
 
 2 10 
 
 19 00 
 
 20 00 
 
 106 
 
 63 
 
 67 
 
 63 
 
 102 
 
 89
 
 51 
 
 Assuming that this increase was realized for the product of the 
 mills for the year (from July i, 1S79, to June 30, 18S0), then the 
 profits must have been enormous, as may be seen by multiplying 
 the product by the extra price realized over that of 1879. I 
 know very well that the iron and steel men will say that those 
 prices were not realized all through. But considering the 
 enormous demand that followed, and continued increasingly 
 even, we may allow ourselves to believe that that year's product 
 did not fall much short of those prices. Tlie Bulletin goes on 
 to say : 
 
 " But the most remarkable fact in connection with the history 
 of the American iron trade of 1879 remains to be stated. Not- 
 withstanding all the activity that has been mentioned, the demand 
 for pig-iron, iron and steel rails, and iron ore was not met, and 
 many orders have been carried over to the new year which con- 
 sumers sought in vain to have filled in 1879." 
 
 It is safe, therefore, to say that the " boom " which animated 
 the iron trade during the whole of the fiscal year of 18S0 (the 
 census year) gave the iron and steel mills all the tariff allowed 
 them to charge in excess of the foreign price and freight. 
 
 PRODUCT OF MILLS. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Profit 
 Guaranteed 
 by Tariff. 
 
 Pig iron. ..... 
 
 Bar and rod iron 
 
 Plate and sheet iron .... 
 
 Iron rails .... 
 
 Other products .... 
 
 Steel rails, etc. .... 
 
 Steel bars, etc. .... 
 
 3,780,000 
 808,000 
 532,000 
 467,000 
 540,000 
 741,000 
 242,000 
 
 7 
 22 40 
 3360 
 1568 
 22 40 
 28 00 
 5000 
 
 $25,500,000 
 18,000,000 
 18,000,000 
 7,500,000 
 12,000,000 
 21,000,000 
 12,000,000 
 
 
 $114,000,000 
 
 This is what the tariff did for the iron and steel men 
 
 in the year of the boom .... $114,000,000 
 The wages of 140,978 workingmen were . . 55,476,000 
 
 Even allowing for the toll iron and steel manufacturers had to 
 pay to the pig-iron men, it can be safely maintained that to all of
 
 52 
 
 those poor stipendiaries and claimants a tariff for the protection of 
 the American workingman proved to be something more than a 
 mere catchword. Of course the medal has a reverse, the same as 
 in the woollen line, over-supply making itself felt as soon as the 
 demand slackens. The iron and steel men, however, had a better 
 opportunity to feather their nests. They had prepared for a rainy 
 day. It is only the workingman who again fared as the Indian 
 did. Said the white hunter : " Here is crow for you and turkey 
 for me, and here is turkey for me and crow for you."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 IN WHICH IT IS SHOWN THAT WE ARE SUPERIOR TO ALL NATIONS 
 IN MANUFATURING SKILL AND PHYSICAL ABILITY. 
 
 I here rest ray case, so far as "protection of our industries" is 
 concerned, and beg the kind reader to follow me through the 
 chapter : "We are a young nation, and as such cannot compete 
 with the older nations of Europe." This chapter will have no 
 ponderous figures to be worked through. It will be pleasant 
 writing and reading ; for who does not wish to hear from his most 
 formidable rival the acknowledgment of his superiority wherever 
 the intellect is called to play in subduing the inertness of matter ? 
 Let me simply quote unimpeachable authorities : 
 
 The Parliament of Great Britain in February, 1750, appointed 
 a commission whose chairman, after a few days of deliberation, 
 brought in a bill which permitted American iron in its rudest form 
 to be imported duty free ; but, now that the nailers in the colonies 
 could afford spikes and large nails cheaper than the English, it 
 forbade the smiths of America to erect any mill for slitting or 
 rollmg iron, or any plating-forge to work with a tilt-hammer, or 
 any furnace for making steel. The House divided on the pro- 
 posal that every slitting mill in America should be abolished. 
 The clause failed by a majority of only twenty-two ; but an im- 
 mediate return was required of every mill already existing, and 
 the number was never to be increased." (George Bancroft, 
 quoted in Mr. Swank's Report on Iron and Steel.) 
 
 This policy was continued by Great Britain up to the time of 
 the War of Independence. It shows what an exalted opinion 
 England had more than a hundred years ago of America and her 
 industries. I may be told in reply that this does not apply to 
 these times, with their thousand-fold increased and improved 
 appliances. Well we have kept pretty well up to the times. An 
 American will never stand back if you only give him a chance. 
 
 53
 
 54 
 
 I will quote from most recent authorities. The E7!ginecr, of 
 London, of the 7th of January, 1881, says : 
 
 " The United States iron-masters are beating us by 100 per cent, 
 in the output from their plant. With one pair of converters they 
 can do as much and more than we can do with two pairs ; and, 
 while our blast furnaces turn out 4S0 tons of pig per week, theirs, 
 much smaller, give as much as 1,100 tons a week. In the rail 
 mills, and bar and steel mills, matters are in much the same con- 
 dition. If we are asked to what is this superiority due, we reply 
 that it is to be traced, to some extent, to better organization, and 
 in others to better plant. In the Bessemer works, for example, 
 the drill of the men employed is perfect, and a converter is never 
 stopped for days while being lined-up and rebottomed. 
 
 " In the United States, for a long time back, the moment a 
 converter is burned out it is taken away, and a new one is put in 
 its place. The operation requires, we understand, about half an 
 hour at the most. In how many English steel works is the same 
 plan pursued ? A great deal of the blast-furnace plant of Great 
 Britain is antiquated, and the sooner it is replaced with more 
 modern plant the better." 
 
 This and similar quotations are contained in Mr. Swank's 
 report to the Census Bureau, consequently approved by him. He 
 himself, the Secretary of the Iron and Steel Association of Amer- 
 ica, consequently unimpeachable protectionist authority, makes 
 the following statements as to the efficiency of American iron- and 
 steel-makers : 
 
 '* Although this country cannot produce iron and steel as 
 cheaply as European countries which possess the advantages of 
 cheap labor and proximity of raw materials, it is not excelled by 
 any other country in the skill which it displays, or the mechanical 
 and scientific economies which it practises in any branch of their 
 manufactures, while in certain leading branches it has displayed 
 superior skill and shown superior aptitude for economical improve- 
 ments. Our blast-furnace practice is the best in the world. 
 
 " The excellent quality of our pig-iron is universally conceded. 
 Our Bessemer-steel practice is also the best in the world. We 
 produce much more Bessemer-steel rails in a given time by a 
 given amount of machinery, technically termed a plant, than any 
 of our European rivals.
 
 55 
 
 " All of our leading iron and steel works, and indeed many of 
 our small works, are now supplied with systematic chemical 
 investigations by their own chemists, who are often men of 
 eminence in their profession. The managers of our blast furnaces, 
 rolling-mills, and steel-works, are themselves frequently well-edu- 
 cated chemists, metallurgists, geologists, or mechanical engineers, 
 and sometimes all of these combined. Our rapid progress in in- 
 preasing our production of iron and steel is not merely the result 
 of good fortune or the possession of unlimited natural resources, 
 but is largely due to the possession of accurate technical knowl- 
 edge by our iron-masters, and by those who are in charge of their 
 works, combined with the characteristic American dash which all 
 the world has learned to respect and to admire." 
 
 What is said here of iron and steel manufacture may be said of 
 most of our leading industries. As to cotton goods. State Depart- 
 ment Report No. 12, "Commercial Relations of the United 
 States," page 98, says : 
 
 " Undoubtedly, the inequalities in the wages of English and 
 American operatives are more than equalized by the greatei 
 efficiency of the latter and their longer hours of labor. If this 
 should prove to be a fact in practice, as it seems to be proven 
 from official statistics, it would be a very important element in 
 the establishment of our ability to compete with England for our 
 share of the cotton-goods trade of the world." 
 
 The report of the Chief of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics 
 of Labor, Mr. Carroll D. Wright, shows that all the testi- 
 mony he has taken and published in Public Document No. 15 
 establishes that our mills have higher speed and better organization 
 than the English mills, and that more goods are turned out in ten 
 hours than formerly in eleven. Says one spinner : " Speed is an ab- 
 solute science in Fall River, and what the superintendents and 
 overseers do not know about it, you may rest assured is not worth 
 knowing." Another : " When we used to run eleven hours we got 
 off 100 pounds less than we do now with ten hours." And still 
 another : " I have been nine years in Fall River, and have never 
 worked anywhere else, except in England, where we worked at 
 high speed, but not to the extent practised here." 
 
 The silk industry has found its development in this country
 
 56 
 
 later than any of the above mentioned. Hear what the Secretary 
 of the Silk Association of America says about this industry : 
 
 " Our manufacturers have been obliged, on the contrary, to con- 
 centrate the work, so as to keep every portion of it under direct 
 supervision. In several of our larger silk-mills all the different 
 processes referred to are conducted beneath a single roof, so that 
 the raw silk becomes finished goods under the eye of the manu- 
 facturer. In some instances these mills have within their walls 
 rooms provided with all tools and machinery for their own repair- 
 ing and carpentering work ; a few make nearly all their machines. 
 There is a marked disposition to try improvements in this country, 
 and it is the general experience that the very best machinery, 
 though at first far more costly, is in the end decidedly the cheap- 
 est. It seems evident, however, that the division of the processes 
 between three or four separate establishments [speaking of Euro- 
 pean methods] — throwsters, dyers, weavers, and probably finishers 
 — must imply an added cost in a profit to each. The American 
 system is largely a consequence of substituting machinery for 
 manual labor. The work of the power-loom is definite and posi- 
 tive ; it is not liable to defects such as happen to hand-made 
 goods if the weaver's hand is unsteady in throwing the shuttle, or 
 if he is careless in using the number of picks required by the 
 patterns." 
 
 From all sides we hear anxious inquiries about the stoppage of 
 demand from America, where one line after another of foreign silks 
 is supplanted by the products of American power-looms. American 
 silk machinery is exported to districts where the industry has had 
 a home for generations. If we are still crowded from our own 
 markets by foreign, excessively taxed silks, it is not so much on 
 account of higher labor rates, but because our protected industries 
 neglect to follow up the progress of foreign industries in manipu- 
 lation and the use of substitute materials. 
 
 China-grass under special treatment presents characteristics 
 scarcely inferior to silk. If mixed with silk the best judges of 
 silks are often misled. 
 
 The consular reports to the State Department and American 
 trade journals * have called attention to the extensive use of substi- 
 
 ' The New York Dry Goods Bulletin has very systematically followed up all 
 the recent developments of the new industry.
 
 57 
 
 tutes m silks and woollens in European countries. ITere very little 
 progress has been made in investigation and application. It is 
 not foreign to all our manufacturers, however, and I am told that 
 those using it are doing so with great profit to themselves, while 
 others complain of their inability to compete with foreign makes. 
 
 It is evident from this that the tariff, that great providential 
 power, cannot guarantee success and protection against the for- 
 eigner if our manufacturers do not use their brain power against 
 him. They surely have always a great stock of this commodity in 
 store when it is to be used to hunt down their own countrymen 
 and competitors, in which warfare they use the scalping-knife in 
 true Modoc fashion. 
 
 Regarding the character of our help and wages as affecting 
 prices, I will conclude the introduction of authorities with ex- 
 tracts from the statement of Mr. Joseph D. Weeks, Expert and 
 Special Agent of the Census, made to Mr. Joseph Nimmo, Chief 
 of the Bureau of Statistics, Washington, D. C, May 22, 1SS2 : 
 
 " I do not mean to say that, man for man, naturally the Amer- 
 ican workingman in the iron mills is better than the Englishman. 
 I simply mean to say that he is willing to work more and harder, 
 and consequently turns out a great deal more product. For ex- 
 ample, a case in question has just come to my notice. The iron- 
 workers in the north of England have just made a demand for 7^ 
 per cent, advance, and for what they term 'prize money,' this 
 prize money being what we would call extra for over-time and holi- 
 days, or an extra price paid for working at unusual times, at night 
 or Sunday. Now, they claim that Monday should be regarded as 
 a holiday, and refuse to work Monday unless they are paid an ex- 
 tra price for doing so. If they should work Monday they would 
 probably turn out as much as any other day ; but by their system 
 of working, Monday being regarded as a holiday and Saturday as 
 a half-holiday, they lose more time than the American does ; con- 
 sequently their effectiveness is less. It does not affect the gen- 
 eral statement, however, if the word 'effectiveness' is properly 
 construed. We also say * while wages per ton in many cases are 
 nearly the same, the earnings per diem are fully twice as much,' 
 with the same consideration that this does not mean a day that 
 an American would work as hard as he could, but per day for a
 
 58 
 
 number of consecutive days, say for six months. There is no 
 trouble about that statement either." 
 
 All of the above testimony ought to be sufficient to prove that 
 we have reached maturity, that our industries have passed the 
 stage of infancy, and that the people of the United States may 
 justly demand to be treated by their law-makers with the consid- 
 eration which is due to full-grown rational men — beings endowed 
 with reason.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONTAINS A VERY USEFUL COMPARISON BETWEEN AMERICAN 
 AND EUROPEAN METHODS OF PRODUCTION. 
 
 Unnecessary stress is usually laid upon the higher or lower rate 
 of wages ruling in this or in that country. As an argument in tariff 
 agitation, it is of no value whatsoever. It is certain that wages are 
 not gauged by protective legislation, but by demand and supply ; 
 or, in other words, the general opportunities of the country, which, 
 in their turn, determine the general mode of living. Wherever these 
 agencies are of the highest, there wages are highest. Wherever 
 they are highest, there production is the highest and products are 
 cheapest. Apparently a paradox, but it is true nevertheless. 
 
 High wages foster invention, and that country has ever done 
 most in this realm of thought whose people are used to a higher 
 mode of living. Buckle's theory of the principal causes that influ- 
 ence civilization, viz., food, soil, climate, and the general aspect of 
 nature, is fully corroborated in its application to industrial devel- 
 opment. 
 
 Food, soil, climate, and the general aspect of nature are more 
 potent in determining the relative conditions of nations in the 
 v/orld's contest for supremacy than all the enactments of pater- 
 nal governments. Nay, more ; wherever they favor a nation pre- 
 eminently above others they are potent enough to overcome many 
 of the injuries which the stupidity of law-makers has heaped upon 
 a people for generations. No country possesses all these natural 
 advantages to a greater extent than the United States. Unlimited 
 in their food supply, the people of the United States owe it solely 
 to the above-mentioned quality of their legislators if there is want 
 in the midst of abundance; but, on the v.'hole, no better-fed people 
 exists than ours. Scratch the soil and it brings forth fruit, unma- 
 nured and with far less labor than elsewhere. Indeed we have not 
 arrived even at the beginning of a rational system of agriculture. 
 
 59
 
 6o 
 
 Climate ? The very air throughout the widest stretch of the land 
 invites to vigorous activity. The veriest clod imported from the 
 Old World takes hold of his hoe, his axe, his hammer, or his chisel, 
 in a way entirely new to him, as soon as the strangeness of the thing 
 has worn ofif ; and I doubt whether it is any thing else than the nerve 
 that is imparted by the climate that makes such good Americans of 
 such raw material in so short a time. The general aspect of nat- 
 ure is certainly all that can be required. And with all these nat- 
 ural advantages so liberally supplied to us, can it be that we require 
 protection ? Protection against those who are weaker than we ? 
 The young, the healthy, the strong, against the old, the sick, the 
 weak, soldier-ridden, and oppressed peoples of Europe ? The very 
 thought is an absurdity. 
 
 The application of labor-saving machinery driven by steam and 
 other elementary power, has wrought a revolution in economics, 
 which fact has not yet been sufificiently recognized by our law- 
 makers. Where labor is degraded to the lowest possible level, the 
 introduction of these agencies is hardly ever thought of. Thelow- 
 ness of wages makes it possible to dispense with the putting up of 
 high-cost plant, buildings, and machinery, and the consequent in- 
 terest charges and expenses. Contrariwise, labor can never be so 
 poorly paid where a large number of workmen are collected under 
 one roof or in one town. They can combine, and do combine to re- 
 sist reduction in wages. Manufacturers, possessors of large fixed 
 capital, if they can see ever so slight a profit in running their mill, 
 will hesitate to run the risk of a strike. This is not so with those 
 industries where the work is divided all over the towns and the 
 country districts among a great number of small masters and work- 
 people. The so-called house-industries of Germany and other 
 countries, despite incredibly low wages, find themselves frequently 
 crowded from their markets by American competition, and by the 
 fruit of high-cost organization. To illustrate : The manufacture 
 of slates has been an old-established industry in Thuringia, and is 
 one of the hardest, unhealthiest, and most poorly paid occupations. 
 The family composes the workshop. Women — wife and daugh- 
 ters — carry the stone from the quarry to the shop in loads of from 
 ICG to 125 pounds. In winter, while so burdened, the steam rises 
 from them visibly ; panting as they do for breath, you hear them
 
 6i 
 
 at a distance. To take a short rest from their exertion, they sit 
 down in the snow, and most of them are troubled with lung 
 diseases, and die an early death. The men are equally hard at 
 work, equally exposed in cold, draughty huts. Besides, they inhale 
 the dust and leady coloring matter ; and Avith all this slaving the 
 C077ibined tiioxi^ and toiling do not realize more than a few marks, 
 or fifty cents a day. They use the old methods and tools of a 
 hundred years ago. Now they complain of harder times yet ; 
 America, formerly a very great market for their hand-made slates, 
 has not only ceased to buy, but with her machine-made slates, 
 superior in make and finish and beauty, is beginning to compete 
 seriously with them in their home market, Germany. 
 
 There are villages in the Taunus, within an hour's walk from 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main, a city noted for having more millionnaires 
 within its walls than any other city of the world, considering its size, 
 where nail-making is one of the long-developed home industries. 
 A strong nail-maker can earn about 1.25 mark, or 30 cents, by a day's 
 work of twelve hours. Wire-making yields to an equally industrious 
 worker T.35 to 1.65 mark (32I to 40 cents). Of course women 
 and children are equally pressed to work — children only part of 
 their time. Filet work, knitting or embroidering work, yields to 
 an expert hand about 50 to 55 pfennige, or 12 to 14 cents. Chil- 
 dren of the tenderest age are kept steadily at work, from early 
 dawn and often till midnight, with only such intermissions as 
 school-time and the satisfaction of bodily wants compel. Some, 
 if ever so steady at their filet-needles, do not earn more than 25 
 pfennige, or 6 cents, as a long day's wages. The family may be 
 called happy whose average daily income during the year does 
 not fall below 2 marks, or fifty cents, a day. Working hours are 
 from 5 A.M. to 7 P.M., winter and summer alike. The nail-maker 
 carries his own goods to market, the same as his ancestors did 
 hundreds of years ago. 
 
 I have before me a statement of the earnings of a large family, 
 composed of father, mother, two sons, — the father's helpers in 
 nail-making, — and three daughters, — filet work and knitting — 
 six workers (not counting the mother), earning all told about 1,400 
 marks, or ^350. Deducting Sundays, which, however, does not re- 
 lieve the girls entirely, and counting only 300 work days, brings
 
 62 
 
 The father's' earnings at 40 cents 
 " 2 sons' " " 25 " each 
 " 3 daughters' " " 10 " 
 
 $120 
 
 150 
 90 
 
 S360 
 
 From the reports of the factory inspectors it appears that the 
 handloom weavers' earnings are even below those of the Taunus 
 nail-makers. The yearly income of a weaver in the Silesian 
 mountain districts is not above three hundred marks, or ^75. A 
 patch of land to grow potatoes is all he has to help him in bridg- 
 ing over the abyss of misery that lies hidden beneath such scanty 
 earnings, and a year of misgrowth often means starvation and 
 death to him and his family. 
 
 Compared to such low earnings, those of the nail-makers of the 
 Black Country of England may be called liberal pay. Yet they are 
 low enough compared to the wages of factory hands. I take my 
 figures from a recent letter written in the protectionist interest to 
 the Ne7iJ York Tribuju. It says : 
 
 "An expert nailer, working steadily from Monday morning to 
 Friday night [5 days, against the 6 overworked days of the Ger- 
 man nail-maker], can only make two and a half bundles of iron 
 rods into nails, for which he gets 6s. 7|-d. per bundle, or, for his 
 week's work, i6s. 8d., exactly four dollars. Now his wife, 
 by working every moment of her spare time and late into the 
 night — neglecting her wretched little children — can make a bundle 
 of commoner nails, for which she is paid 3s. id., and the little half- 
 starved, stunted girl of twelve, with her brown arms and steady, 
 unerring aim, will hammer out half a bundle, is. 6-ki. Total 
 earnings of an industrious and hard-working family, three at the 
 forge, for the entire week : 
 
 
 English 
 Money. 
 
 United 
 
 States 
 
 Money. 
 
 Father 
 
 Mother ........ 
 
 Daughter 
 
 l6s. 8d. 
 3s. id. 
 IS. 7id. 
 
 $4 00 
 74 
 39 
 
 Total gross earnings of the family per week 
 
 21S. 4^d. 
 
 $5 13
 
 ^3 
 
 "But out of this pittance must come 3d. for carriage of iron 
 from the ' fogger's ' and returning tlie nails, is. for the smithy 
 fire, and 3d. for the wear of tools. Net earning, $4.77 per week 
 — the united earnings of three industrious, sober persons." 
 
 The results of the different methods are significant. In the 
 Taunus, near Frankfort, the raw material in a thousand horseshoe 
 nails — 
 
 No. 8 costs 35 cents ; wages, 32J ; percentage of wages to material, qj 
 " 6 " 26 " " 26 ; " " " " 100 
 
 or an average of 96^ % 
 
 Nail-making in the United States consumes in raw material, 
 exclusive of fuel, ^2,800,000. The wages of the 2,900 per- 
 sons employed amounts to $1,255,000, or $410 for each hand ; 
 or, at 300 days, i 36^ cents a day. Thus, in the American 
 method, labor constitutes only 31^3 per cent, of nail-making, ex- 
 clusive of profits, and yields i 367-3 cents to the workman, while 
 tlie house industry requires 50 per cent, of the product (also ex- 
 cluding profits) for a day's wages of barely 30 cents. The result 
 is : — 
 
 American method, nails, 100; material, 6S|; labor, 31 1; wages, $1 36 J-. 
 German " " 100; " 51; " 49; " 30. 
 
 Though the earnings of an American are 4^ times higher tlian 
 those of his German fellow-workman, yet his wages compose only 
 31/^ per cent, of the product, while under the German method 
 they are 49 per cent, of the product. In other words, the labor- 
 cost in American-made goods is about 35 per cent, less, while the 
 earnings of the laborer are 350 per cent, more, than under the old 
 methods. 
 
 In English manufactures — like the hosiery, knit-goods, some 
 woollen and silk industries — we find the same rule prevailing, 
 lower wages and earnings wherever the hand-loom and knitting- 
 frame give employment to small masters in their own houses and 
 homes. But such a system of work hardly exists in America, and 
 where it does exist, it is being rapidly extinguished by the power- 
 mill — which, in turn, not only offers serious competition to Ger-
 
 64 
 
 many and England, but is duly recognized by them as their great 
 impending danger. 
 
 Now, I do not wish the reader to suppose that these low earn- 
 ings of those engaged in house-industries are of recent date. The 
 English and German statements, even previous to 1845, paint 
 blacker yet. It is not my task at present to write a history of 
 white slavery in the present century, but simply to point out the 
 utter invalidity of such irrelevant comparisons as our protection- 
 ist agitators are in the habit of exhibiting, — comparisons of 
 things that are as dissimilar as the moon and a green cheese. 
 
 But even where the product of our power-machinery meets their 
 power-mill product the same holds good. 
 
 It costs less in New England and Pennsylvania to spin and 
 weave a pound of cotton into cloth than in Old England, though 
 the weekly earnings of our people are higher. This statement is 
 best supported by a reference to the annual consumption of 
 pounds of cotton by each hand employed in the industry in the 
 leading countries : 
 
 United Slates 
 Great Britain 
 Germany 
 
 Pounds cot- 
 ton used. 
 
 750,343,000 
 
 1,471,357.000 
 
 300,000,000 
 
 Number 
 hands em- 
 ployed. 
 
 172.544 
 482,903 
 250,000 
 
 Pounds 
 consumed 
 per hand 
 employed. 
 
 4.337 
 3,253 
 1,200 
 
 (The same relationship exists in other branches, and in the ap- 
 plication of steam- and other power-engines.)' 
 
 This advantage on our side is more than lost by the taxes and in- 
 terest charges on the high cost of the plant and mill, the high 
 cost of coal and other materials, all heavily taxed, which, all com- 
 bined, outweigh by nearly two cents on the pound the saving in 
 the cost of labor before alluded to. English hands, on the other 
 side, in fifty-six hours, earn on the average about one-fourth more 
 than French mill-hands in seventy-two hours. Yet the cost of the 
 manufacture of a kilogram of cotton yarn is 9.6 cents in England 
 against 15.6 in France. The items are as follow : 
 
 ■For 1S75 the steam-engines used in the various industries of England are 
 given at 936,405 horse power. For 1880 the steam-engines used in the various 
 industries of the United States are given at 2,185,458.
 
 65 
 
 
 France. 
 
 England. 
 
 Labor ......... 
 
 Expenses ........ 
 
 Interest, etc 
 
 0.054 
 0.056 
 0.046 
 
 0.156 
 
 0.043 
 0.022 
 0.031 
 
 
 0.096 
 
 Italy stands worse yet in the scale. I could bring forward simi- 
 lar statistical proof against the other nations 1 have spoken of, but 
 it would be only a repetition of items. But why go across the 
 ocean ? We find the same conditions and results in our own 
 country. 
 
 I have made a classification of the yearly earnings of our cot- 
 ton and woollen operatives in the different sections of the coun- 
 try. In woollens they are as follows : 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 . $335 
 
 New York . , 
 
 Maine 
 
 . 320 
 
 New Hampshire 
 
 Massachusetts . 
 
 . 320 
 
 Vermont . 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 
 . 300 
 
 Indiana 
 
 New Jersey 
 
 . 300 
 
 Ohio . 
 
 In cotton industries they are as follows : 
 
 Maine . . ) 
 
 
 New York . 
 
 New Hampshire V 
 
 . $255 
 
 South Carolina 
 
 New Jersey . ) 
 
 
 Maryland , 
 
 Massachu.setts . 
 
 . 251 
 
 Georgia 
 
 Rhode Island 
 
 . 250 
 
 Tennessee . 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 
 . 250 
 
 Alabama . 
 
 Ohio . 
 
 . 250 
 
 Virginia 
 
 Connecticut 
 
 . 242 
 
 North Carolina 
 
 2S0 
 270 
 230 
 196 
 
 $218 
 190 
 iS3 
 180 
 160 
 160 
 150 
 135 
 
 If cheap, or rather low-priced, labor determines superiority in 
 productive capacity, why does not the South drive the New Eng- 
 land and Middle States from the field and flood us with cheap 
 fabrics ? Why does not the West, New York, or New Jersey super- 
 sede Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts in woollens ? But 
 take our own city, with its varied manufacturing enterprises, most 
 of which have little if any protection against Europe, and none 
 against our inland competing cities. Most of the materials that 
 enter into New York's industries are so highly protected, that this 
 tax in many cases outweighs even the very high tax on the finished
 
 66 
 
 goods. Still New York manufactures more goods than the New 
 England States, if we except Massachusetts. Our manufactures 
 are ^470,000,000, or nearly ten per cent, of all the manufacturing 
 industries of the whole country. Most of them are goods of the 
 highest finish, in which New York is the leading centre. New York 
 pays the highest wages. In comparison with Philadelphia wages, I 
 find in nearly fifty items differences ranging from twenty-five to 
 fifty per cent, in the yearly earnings of New York's working classes 
 above those of Philadelphia, And still Ne-.v York manages to get 
 along, and exceeds Philadelphia's annual production of ^324,000,- 
 000 by $150,000,000, or nearly 50 per cent. 
 
 The highest wage-earners make the best goods ; and while these 
 always find a ready market, the cheap stuff of so many of our 
 mills is, as at present, a drug in the market, breeding ruin all 
 around. 
 
 I believe after the testimony introduced, that I need not fear 
 contradiction when I state that our mode of manufacture is not only 
 fully equal, but in most instances superior, to that of the most 
 advanced commercial nations of the globe. I can therefore ad- 
 vance a few closing remarks in reference to that great protection- 
 ist argument : American labor must be protected against the starva- 
 tion wages of Europe. In view of the fact that all our protected 
 industries are making the most extensive use of free trade in labor, 
 this point seems rather frivolous. Yet greatest stress is laid by 
 our orators upon this very point. Not only on the Fourth of July, 
 but on all other state occasions ; at all political performances, 
 wherever and whenever the Honorable the member from Bun- 
 combe finds a fit opportunity, there and then great show is made 
 of his solicitude for the protection of American labor. The Com- 
 missioner of Labor of the State of Massachusetts some years ago 
 commented on the displacement of one class of labor in factories 
 by another. This process has continued to this day, the cheaper 
 always replacing the dearer labor ; the American, the English, the 
 German, the Irish, the French Canadian, and finally the Scandi- 
 navian, all in turn making sacrifice to the corporation. In other 
 words, competition for the cheapest mode of production is so 
 keen that manufacturers are always endeavoring to replace labor 
 that has become accustomed to American life and mode of living
 
 67 
 
 by labor that has been trained to a cheaper standard. All nation- 
 alities and races, however, share alike in the endeavor to improve 
 their condition, to strive for the highest Avages ruling in the 
 country, and to maintain the standard of living once gained. So 
 uncontrovertible a truth is this, that hardly any thing need be 
 said in its support. Yet so brilliant an illustration has come 
 to my notice that I cannot refrain from mentioning it. A Chinese 
 shoe manufacturing firm in San Francisco, employing Chinese 
 laborers, gave their workmen their daily meals at the factory, for 
 which they were charged 50 cents a day. After a time the men 
 demanded that their meals be furnished gratis whenever work 
 should be slack and they earn no wages. This the firm refused to 
 their countrymen and the Chinese struck work. White men, new 
 arrivals, were put in their places, ready to work for wages which 
 the despised Mongolians had refused to accept. I merely bring 
 this in as evidence that wages are not gauged in this country on 
 sentimental principles, as our protectionists would have us believe, 
 but that, protected or not protected, our manufacturers try to ob- 
 tain the cheapest labor wherever they can get it, which endeavor 
 the workingman will resist as long as possible, and if unsuccessful 
 he will always strive to regain his former standard of living when- 
 ever opportunity favors him. The high-wages standard can be 
 maintained without detriment to manufactures, as is shown above, 
 and besides is of a great advantage in another direction. 
 
 The laborer is the great consumer of commodities ; consequently 
 well-paid labor sustains business prosperity. If the workingman 
 does not earn fair wages, every thing comes to a standstill. Hence 
 the cutting-down process eventually recoils on those who are the 
 innocent or guilty cause of it. Nor even does the high-wage 
 country suffer from the low wages of competing countries. The 
 poor, wretched linen-weavers of Silesia — a class of whom it can 
 hardly be said that any one of them has ever had a full square 
 meal of butcher's meat, and among whom hunger-typhus (typhus 
 caused by starvation) is a calamity of frequent recurrence — earn 
 about half of the not over-paid weavers of Belfast. Yet the mar- 
 kets of unprotected England are only flooded to the extent of 
 ;!^2o,ooo of German linen a year. One of our best authorities in 
 political economy, Mr. Edward Atkinson, stated the case very
 
 68 
 
 forcibly in a letter to Mr. Nimmo, the Chief of the Bureau of 
 Statistics at Washington. I cannot do better than close this 
 chapter by quoting his remarks bearing on this point : 
 
 *' Further, the use of machinery, and the cost of the production 
 of such machinery, depend upon the intelligence, manual skill, 
 and physical ability of the operative who directs it. Most of the 
 work being done by the piece, the operative who earns the highest 
 wages working on piece-work produces cloth at the lowest cost. 
 
 " When all these elements are taken into consideration, I think 
 it follows that any one who attempts to gauge the cost of produc- 
 tion by comparison of wages will most likely be misled ; and if it 
 is assumed that the lowest cost of production will be found where 
 the wages are lowest, he will be sure to be misled, as that rule 
 would lead to the expectation of finding the lowest cost of cotton 
 fabrics in the factories of India ; next in the factories of Ger- 
 many ; next, perhaps, of France ; and last, perhaps, of England ; 
 the upward sequence of wages being substantially according to 
 the order named. 
 
 "We have about 175,000 persons in our cotton factories, of 
 whom about 160,000 v/orkfor the home market. By comparing the 
 product of the hand-carders, spinners, and weavers who were at 
 Atlanta, I gauged their capacity, and I found that if we still de- 
 pended on that method, about 16,000,000 of our population would 
 be needed to make our present supply in place of 160,000 now at 
 work. 
 
 " The capacity of an operative directing our modern automatic 
 machinery being one hundred-fold that of an operative working 
 the hand-card, wheel, and hand-loom ; assuming that our adult 
 faculty operatives earn about one dollar a day each, it follows that 
 the successful competitor on hand-worked machinery would need 
 to work at one cent a day in order to compete. 
 
 " Apply this rule to the Chinese, the largest body of people 
 using cotton in the world, and mostly clothed by hand-made 
 goods. It will be apparent that it would be fallacious to compute 
 or to infer a low cost of manufacture because Chinese wages are 
 low. If we then take the two extremes of the operatives working 
 by hand on machinery in China, and the operative directing mod- 
 ern machinery in Lowell, we find that in Lowell, where the high 
 relative wages are paid, the low relative cost is to be found.
 
 69 
 
 " Hence follows this rule : Other things being equal, high wages 
 coupled with loiv cost a>-e the necessary result of the most intelligent 
 application of machinery to the arts, provided the education of the 
 operative keeps pace zvith the improvement of the machinery. 
 
 " This fundamental principle must be comprehended in order 
 that any valuable deductions may be made from wages ; and before 
 the true cost of any fabric can be determined, the other things 
 which are not equal must De ascertained."
 
 CHAPTER XI, 
 
 IN WHICH THE WORKINGMAN IS REMINDED THAT NOT ALL IS 
 GOLD THAT GLITTERS. 
 
 We need not fear foreign competition, even if our labor be 
 better paid than labor is paid in Europe, were we to go to work 
 at once and reform the tariff, first, by freeing raw materials, and 
 secondly, by reducing correspondingly all duties on manufactured 
 goods. In order, however, to convince all sincere friends of the 
 workingman that the latter is not protected by the tariff, I will 
 show what his earnings are in reality, what they are in excess of 
 his former earnings under a low tariff, and, finally, how far he is 
 ahead of the best-paid European labor — the English — his principal 
 rival. Thus it will be seen what amount of duty would have to 
 be levied to protect his interests, and that these could be well 
 taken care of under a revenue tariff. 
 
 A most essential feature in the estimate of wages is the cost of 
 living. To compute wages by the dollar sign is as erroneous and 
 as difficult as to calculate the Copernican from the Ptolemaic 
 system ; a changeable value to pay for a fixed value. A change- 
 able value — buying more in one country than in another — 
 changeable as to time in the same country — is not a true measure 
 for a fixed value, that of the working day or of the cost of living 
 of the laborer. This change in the value of the dollar (or any 
 other money) causes the perturbations of which our present strikes 
 are the logical outgrowth. The value of our own dollar during 
 the various periods of protection, taking as a basis i860 and pro- 
 ceeding to our present time, has been compiled by Mr. Carroll D. 
 Wright : 
 
 70
 
 71 
 
 WHAT ONE DOLLAR COULD BUY IN 
 
 
 
 i860. 
 
 1872. 
 
 1878. 
 
 i83i. 
 
 Flour, supcifi;ij . 
 
 lbs. 
 
 25-64 
 
 18. iS 
 
 22.72 
 
 19.76 
 
 Codfish .... 
 
 " 
 
 T8.87 
 
 12.20 
 
 16.67 
 
 13-33 
 
 Beans ..... 
 
 " 
 
 12.66 
 
 10.52 
 
 12.05 
 
 7-54 
 
 Coffee ..... 
 
 " 
 
 4-36 
 
 2-35 
 
 3-77 
 
 3-47 
 
 Sugar ..... 
 
 " 
 
 9.70 
 
 8.33 
 
 10.00 
 
 9-og 
 
 Soap ..... 
 
 " 
 
 11.49 
 
 12.50 
 
 12.34 
 
 14.81 
 
 Beef, roasting 
 
 " 
 
 9.1S 
 
 5.26 
 
 694 
 
 5.83 
 
 " soup .... 
 
 " 
 
 20.83 
 
 13-33 
 
 1S.S6 
 
 18.18 
 
 " corned 
 
 " 
 
 15-33 
 
 9 52 
 
 12 34 
 
 9-75 
 
 Veal, hindquarters 
 
 " 
 
 9.18 
 
 5.S5 
 
 6-53 
 
 6.34 
 
 Mutton, forequarters . 
 
 " 
 
 13-51 
 
 g.So 
 
 9 70 
 
 8. 82 
 
 Hams ..... 
 
 " 
 
 7-75 
 
 7.41 
 
 8.07 
 
 6.55 
 
 Potatoes . . . . b 
 
 ushels 
 
 1.67 
 
 0.97 
 
 1.03 
 
 0.79 
 
 Milk 
 
 quarts 
 
 21.27 
 
 12.50 
 
 18. 86 
 
 16.66 
 
 Coal 
 
 . lbs. 
 
 312.00 
 
 217.00 
 
 310.00 
 
 255-00 
 
 Shirting, ^-4 
 
 yards 
 
 10.S7 
 
 7.69 
 
 13-33 
 
 11.42 
 
 Sheeliiii; .... 
 
 " 
 
 9-34 
 
 7.14 
 
 II. II 
 
 930 
 
 Rent, four-room tenement . 
 
 days 
 
 6-75 
 
 2.03 
 
 5-40 
 
 3-75 
 
 Board, men .... 
 
 " 
 
 2.51 
 
 1.24 
 
 1.67 
 
 1-47 
 
 " women 
 
 
 392 
 
 I.S7 
 
 2.63 
 
 2-33 
 
 The money value is changed here all through the list, and the 
 dollar does not buy the same amount of goods, board, or rent at 
 any two of the periods. 
 
 Cotton goods are about the only things not changed. All otiier 
 commodities, but soap, rose in price between i860 and 1881. Rent 
 and board about 40 per cent.; potatoes over 50 per cent.; other 
 victuals from 20 to 40 per centum. The average of prices is 
 fully one third above the one of the low-tariff period previous 
 to the war. 
 
 Now poor business presses down prices, and wages are reduced. 
 Good times raise prices, but wages are seldom raised with the rise 
 of the price of commodities. In most cases their rise has to be 
 forced : consequently less consumption ensues and strikes follow 
 in order to regain the former standard of living, i860 is a year of 
 a low tariff ; in 186 1, prices are beginning to rise greatly in conse- 
 quence of tariff charges. Sec the result in consumption per capita ;
 
 72 
 
 
 Tea. 
 
 Coffee. 
 
 Sugar 
 
 Cereals. 
 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Pounds. 
 
 Pounds 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 jS5o 
 
 0.84 
 
 5.8 
 
 29.6 
 
 38.68 
 
 i86r 
 
 0.52 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 22.2 
 
 
 1862 
 
 0.71 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 29- 5 
 
 26.42 
 
 i86t 
 
 0.80 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 18.9 
 
 21.21 
 
 JS64' 
 
 1.04 
 
 .3 
 
 7 
 
 19.4 
 
 25-34 
 
 1S65 
 
 0.48 
 
 
 8 
 
 16.8 
 
 31-43 
 
 1S66 
 
 1. 16 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 27.6 
 
 3h.67 
 
 Tlie slightest change in the value of money falls most severely 
 on the poorer classes. A rise in prices pinches them to that ex- 
 tent that they at once are compelled to reduce their daily rations 
 in tea, coffee, sugar, and bread. These few figures tell more than 
 volumes of argument against the fallacy of the attempt to raise 
 the workingman's condition by raising prices through tariff legis- 
 lation. By the use of such arguments cruel deception is practised. 
 
 In justice I will say that in regard to wage matters, " infants " do 
 not differ very materially from " adults." Both as a rule resist a 
 rise in wages so long as compatible with their interests. " Infant" 
 industries, however, are more tenacious, as a rule, in resisting just 
 demands for a rise in wages. The only really protected industries 
 are those of raw materials and crude manufactures. The finer- 
 finish and skill-requiring industries are unprotected, as the taxed 
 material, as a rule, is so high, that all protection-device disappears 
 before the great cost of materials; consequently, by a queer 
 misnomer invented by the sophists of protection, the crude manu- 
 factures more than a hundred years old — industries as old as the 
 settlement of any country, ore-digging, metal-smelting, wool-shear- 
 ing,^ and kindred skilful manipulations — are the infants of the 
 
 ^ 1S64 shows heavy importations on account of new duties laid on tea, which, 
 however, are balanced by the lighter imports of 1S65. The two years have to be 
 averaged on this account to give a correct estimate of per capita consumption. 
 
 ^ As to the kind of labor employed in sheep-raising an expert correspondent 
 to one of our daily papers, gives the following graphic description from one of 
 the far Western sheep-ranges : The business of herding sheep is the most 
 monotonous known. I can imagine no more mind-destroying occupation. It 
 is fit only for greasers, men who are below their dogs in intelligence. It is 
 seldom an American engages in sheep herding. When hard up and unable to 
 obtain other work they wisely prefer the penitentiary and its mild excitement to 
 prowling over a desert after a flock of stupid sheep, and they are right. I have 
 seen sheep herders in Southern Colorado sit for hours on a rock or under a sage
 
 73 
 
 nation, while all the newer and naore developed industries remain 
 unnoticed. The gray-headed infants will remain infants and 
 plead for all the assistance requisite to tender years so long as 
 the nation remains simple-minded enough to be mystified by such 
 shallow pretence and mimicry. 
 
 A repression in the standard of living through a rise m prices of 
 commodities, caused by tariff legislation, inflation of currency or 
 similar causes, is more lasting and more dangerous than one caused 
 by reduction through the process of cutting down in wages. The 
 latter is a known, visible quantity, often resisted to the bitter end. 
 If they have to yield, the workmen usually regain their lost ground 
 at the first return of a demand for labor. The former, however, is 
 a subtle poison, eating into every morsel of food and every shred 
 of clothing, narrowing the rooms in which they live and thus 
 poisoning the air which they breathe. They do not observe this 
 slowly creeping process of decomposition. The money value of 
 their wages is the same, even somewhat higher than before — but 
 alas ! — how are they, in their untutored minds, to explain to 
 themselves the cause of the insufficiency, the decline, of their 
 purchasing power. Years of suffering and strife only bring back 
 the former standard. This can be seen from a glance at prices 
 and wages of pig-iron from 1863 to 1865, when manufacturers' 
 profits were enormously high and wages could hardly buy bread 
 enough to fill the hungry stomachs. 
 
 The bureau of statistics is authority for the following figures : 
 
 YEAR. 
 
 Cost of 
 Pig-iron. 
 
 Sales 
 Price. 
 
 Cost ot 
 
 Labor 
 
 Per Ton. 
 
 1863 ..... 
 
 1864 . 
 
 1865 ..... 
 
 $1653 
 20 q7 
 32 21 
 
 $33 00 
 45 00 
 60 00 
 
 $207 
 285 
 4 56 
 
 Will any one be surprised that the consumption of the most in- 
 dispensable necessities of life had within these years to undergo 
 so marked a decrease as shown above ? 
 
 brush looking at a flock of sheep, or slowly walking to and fro in the dust rising 
 behind the animals as they fed over the prairie. These men led a life of such 
 irritating monotony that a nervous American, forced to do the work, would have 
 swallowed one of the banana-like cactuses growing on the plains, in his mad 
 desire to break the direful monotony.
 
 74 
 
 The rapid rise in the price of commodities and the very slow 
 and inadequate rise in wages are sufficient explanation. 
 
 Consequently, any legislation tending to raise prices above their 
 normal standard is oppression practised on the people, of whom 
 more than nine tenths are either workingmen, small farmers, or 
 people of small incomes. 
 
 The tax on raw materials in wool, iron, coal, dye-stuffs, etc., 
 especially increases the prices of manufactures disproportion- 
 ately, consequently makes the workingman's dollar less valuable. 
 This may be seen from the following table. Take a pound of 
 scoured wool, for instance, and follow it up until it goes into the 
 possession of the workingman. 
 
 UNDER FREE RAW MATERIAL. 
 
 
 
 
 
 •0 
 
 
 ■^ • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^■Ji 
 
 >, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -5 C3 
 
 
 ■c a 
 
 
 
 Different Processes. 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■a 
 
 ^^ 
 
 
 *j 
 
 
 
 >. 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 'E-S 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 «3 
 
 ■J 
 
 ■a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 d 
 
 j= 
 
 si 
 
 
 
 tH 
 
 
 O 
 
 P 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 U 
 
 t-i 
 
 Ph 
 
 Ch 
 
 a Scoured wool 
 
 $o 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 $0 50 
 
 b Wool-dealers' profit 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 $0 05 
 
 55 
 
 c Cloth price and duties 
 
 55 
 
 
 $0 25 
 
 $0 25 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 I 30 
 
 d Selling expenses and charges 
 
 I 30 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 I 42 
 
 ^Clothing manufacturer 
 
 I 42 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 2S 
 
 I 70 
 
 /Clothing dealer . 
 
 I 70 
 
 
 • • 
 
 • • 
 
 
 
 4- 
 
 2 12 
 
 UNDER OUR NEW TARIFF ON RAW MATERIALS. 
 
 a Scoured wool 
 
 l> Wool-dealers' profits 
 
 c Cloth price and duties 
 
 </ Selling expenses and charges- 
 
 e Clothing manufacturer 
 
 y Clothing dealer , 
 
 $0 50 
 
 80 
 90 
 
 2 00 
 2 20 
 2 65 
 
 30 
 
 25 
 
 25 
 
 10 
 
 " 10 
 
 10 
 40 
 20 
 
 45 
 65 
 
 90 
 
 2 00 
 2 20 
 
 2 65 
 
 3 30 
 
 I have allowed under both systems the same percentage of 
 profits to the manufacturers and dealers, and still under protection 
 the workingman has to pay out of his wages for every pound of
 
 wool and other protected raw materials, necessary in the process 
 of turning the wool into cloth, even under the revised tariff, $r.i8 
 more than if raw materials were not taxed. The fifty cents' worth 
 of wool and tw-enty-five cents' worth of chemicals, coal, etc., cost 
 him $1.93 instead of seventy-five cents, the original price ; all 0:1 
 account of the various charges and profits on the tax which the raw 
 material has to bear in its various stages of manufacture until it 
 goes on the workingman's back as a coat. In other words, the 
 tariff charges of forty cents have grown to $1.18, — an increase 
 of seventy-eight cents, in this wonderful process of the tariff 
 to cheapen prices by means of a tax on the raw material. 
 
 Prices were fully twenty-five per cent, higher on the average in 
 1880 than in i860, while living expenses on the whole — onaccount 
 of higher prices of commodities and of greater additions to life's 
 necessities — were fully thirty-five per cent, advanced. 
 
 Let us examine what were the earnings of our v/orking classes 
 in i860 and what they were in 1880 in our most important indus- 
 tries. I compute them from the respective census reports by 
 dividing the whole number of persons employed during the year 
 by the total amount of wages paid. The earnings are for the 
 year per head : 
 
 
 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 
 1S60. 
 
 rSSo. 
 
 Increase. 
 
 Woollen and worsted goods .... 
 
 $234 
 
 $300 
 
 23 
 
 Iron and steel ..... 
 
 355 
 
 390 
 
 10 
 
 Cotton ....... 
 
 200 
 
 246 
 
 23 
 
 Machinery ...... 
 
 390 
 
 450 
 
 15 
 
 Paper-making ...... 
 
 252 
 
 360 
 
 40 
 
 Boots and shoes ..... 
 
 250 
 
 370 
 
 43 
 
 Furniture ...... 
 
 330 
 
 400 
 
 20 
 
 Sole leather ...... 
 
 310 
 
 400 
 
 28 
 
 Glass ... ... 
 
 330 
 
 375 
 
 15 
 
 Jewelry ...... 
 
 435 
 
 500 
 
 15 
 
 Saddlery and harness ..... 
 
 350 
 
 380 
 
 9 
 
 Sash and doors . ... . . 
 
 371 
 
 400 
 
 8 
 
 Iron and steel, which, we are told, need so large a protection to 
 keep foreign competition off our shores, though protected by dis- 
 tance, in the shape of charges for transportation, etc., at the rate
 
 of from $5 to $7 respectively a ton, have only ten per cent, more 
 to give to the workingman in 1S80 — a year of unexampled pros- 
 perity — than in i860. 
 
 Machinery gaveonly fifteen per cent., which is about the average 
 of increase in the various lines named above, except in boots and 
 shoes and clothing, where the average increase is forty-eight percent, 
 owing in great part undoubtedly to the introduction of machinery 
 in place of low-priced hand work, and not to the tariff, as in both 
 instances there is virtually no protection, since the materials were 
 as highly taxed as the finished article. 
 
 Considering the smaller purchasing power of the dollar, the 
 workingman received absolutely less wages in the iron and steel 
 mills in 18S0 than in i860. In 1880 the tariff was from fifty to 
 two hundred per cent. ; in i860 twelve per cent, on steel, and 
 twenty-four per cent, on iron. 
 
 We have seen above what a good thing the tariff gave to the 
 iron men in 1880, and yet the value of the earnings of their work- 
 ingmen was considerably less than under the low tariff of i860. 
 ]\Iany of the above enumerated industries did not fare much bet- 
 ter. Coal-mining does not, — also one of the " infants," protected 
 by seventy-five cents a ton, or more than fifty per cent, on the cost 
 of production. 
 
 In 1880 there were employed : 
 
 Above ground 
 Below ground 
 
 Men. 
 
 15.564 
 36,952 
 
 Hoys under 
 16 years. 
 
 11,921 
 
 3,802 
 
 Nearly one fourth of all employed were children. Compared to 
 1870, the case stood as follows : 
 
 
 J 8 70. 
 
 1880. 
 
 Prop, of 
 Inc. p. ct. 
 
 Men 
 
 Boys under i6 
 
 43,800 
 9,000 
 
 52,500 
 15.700 
 
 20 
 
 73
 
 77 
 
 Parents, in order to make both ends meet, had to send their 
 children into the mines — thirty per cent, of all employed in 1880 
 against twenty per cent, in 1870. The output in 1870 was fifteen 
 and a half million tons of anthracite coal, against twenty-seven 
 and a half million tons in 18S0. Yet the amount paid in wages 
 was $1,218,000 less in 1880 than in 1870. The tariff for pro- 
 tection of American labor did not prevent the pinching that this 
 decline in wages entailed on our hardest-worked population. 
 What a useful thing an accommodating phrase sometimes proves 
 to be ! The earnings of an adult miner in the boom year were 
 $359.08 ; the average of all labor employed in coal mines, $318.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 COMPARING AMERICAN WAGES WITH ENGLISH WAGES, AND SHOW- 
 ING HOW SMALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE PAY, AND HOW 
 SMALL A TARIFF WOULD BE NEEDED TO PROTECT AMERICAN 
 LABOR, IF RAW MATERIALS WERE FREE. 
 
 The superiority of our means of production' being acknowl- 
 edged, little remains to be said to demonstrate that our industries 
 need no protection to enable them to compete successfully with 
 Europe, provided they share the advantages that Europe, — /. <?., 
 England, Germany, etc. — possesses ; namely, free raw materials. 
 Our exports in cotton goods are sufficient evidence of this. The 
 same may be said of articles where the skill of the workman, the 
 inventive genius of the American, comes into action. In fact, 
 wherever the value of the work bears a very high relation to the 
 value of the raw material, there we can freely compete with for- 
 eign nations. It is so in the case of machinery, tools, implements 
 of all sorts made of iron and steel. Though they are made of 
 materials taxed more heavily than the finished goods, yet the su- 
 periority of American workmanship is able to overcome these 
 burdens. Wherever labor largely preponderates in the combined 
 value of labor and materials, there we excel. Of course, in heavy 
 goods, requiring little skill and labor, whose value lies chiefly in 
 the materia], competition is altogether out of the question. This 
 alone ought to prove conclusively that tliougli we pay in most 
 fields better wages than even the English — and they pay the 
 highest wages in Europe, — we still make goods that can fully 
 compete with theirs. 
 
 V/e may consider, therefore, a protective tariff, such as we 
 enjoy, as an absolute superfluity that does not benefit the working- 
 man (on the contrary, does him harm in lessening the value of his 
 wages), cripples the manufacturer in narrowing his field of opera- 
 tion, and most completely annihilates our foreign commerce. And 
 manufactures cannot prosper without the aid of commerce. 
 
 78
 
 79 
 
 oome people, however, after all that has been said of the rela- 
 tive cheapness of our work, may still be in doubt as far as our 
 competitive capacity in regard to England is concerned ; — the 
 country which in Europe pays the highest wages and makes the 
 cheapest goods. To dispel such doubts I will compare the rates 
 paid here with those paid in Europe in the principal industries : 
 
 I. Cotton Goods — Mr. Carroll D. Wright states the average 
 weekly wages in Lancashire and Massachusetts : 
 
 
 Lancashire. 
 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Difference. 
 
 Of weavers ..... 
 Of mule spinners .... 
 
 $5 23 
 7 8o 
 
 $5 64 
 
 10 CQ 
 
 $15 73 
 
 $0 36 
 2 29 
 
 
 813 08 
 
 $2 65 
 
 Considering this to be a iaii average of differences paid to the 
 various employees of the cotton mills in the respective countries, 
 then we pay our operatives just 20 per cent, more than the Eng- 
 lish pay. And the English pay about 50 per cent, more than the 
 Germans pay their operatives, and yet we are exporters of cotton 
 goods to both Germany ' and England. The figures of Mr. Wright 
 find contradiction from various quarters, Mr. J. Chase, member 
 of Congress from Rhode Island, himself a cotton manufacturer, 
 places the difference as high as 62 per cent. 
 
 According to the last Census, however, the average wages for 
 all cotton mill-hands are $246 for the year, or $4.73 aweck,^ which 
 would imply earnings below those given by Mr. Wright. It is 
 doubtful whether our cotton-goods operatives earn more than the 
 English. Granting, however, for argument's sake, that they earn 
 25 per cent, more, then this surplus of earnings is more than 
 balanced by longer working hours — 60 hours constituting a week 
 in Massachusetts (other States, having no legal limitation, work 
 
 ' This we are able to do, notwithstanding Germany's tariff of 40 marks or $10 
 on the hundred-weight of cotton goods. lOO lbs. German weight equals no 
 lbs. American. 
 
 * Where the annual average of earnings in any specified industry is given, it 
 must be borne in mind, that this includes high and low wages, salaries of clerks, 
 etc., which reduces the individual earnings of the largest proportion of workers 
 to a sum materially below the average.
 
 8o 
 
 longer hours yet), against 54 to 56 hours in England, and by- 
 higher speed and greater perfection of our productive methods. 
 But let us waive all the advantages derived from these points and 
 take 20 per cent, as representing the proportion of wages to the 
 product of the cotton mills, then a tariff of 5 per cent, on cotton 
 piece-goods would cover the whole difference in the earnings of 
 our operatives. The old tariff taxed cotton goods 35 per cent. 
 where ad-valo?-em rates were imposed. The new tariff raised this 
 to 40 per cent.^ Specific rates were reduced somewhat, but not 
 sufficiently to compensate for the great decline in the price of 
 cotton that has taken place since 1S65. Unbleached, from 5 cents 
 to 4 cents per square yard! Bleached, from 5|- to 5 cents ! on goods 
 counting over 200 threads to the square inch. These comprise 
 all fine goods such as nainsooks, mulls, lawns, etc., which are 
 largely used by American manufacturers of lace goods and 
 trimmings, who in most instances have to pay more for duties on 
 their materials than on the finished goods of their respective 
 branches. 
 
 2. Iron and Steel — {a) Pig-iron : Mr. Joseph D. Weeks, of 
 Pittsburgh, one of our best experts, gives the price paid for labor 
 in Pittsburgh to make a ton of pig-iron : 
 
 Labor on mining ore for ton of pig-iron @ $1.40 = $2 38 
 " " " coal and making coke necessary 
 
 for ton of pig-iron . . . i 25 
 
 " " " limestone .... 30 
 
 " at furnace . . . . , . i 25 
 
 85 18 
 
 In Cleveland, England, $3.17 is paid, against $5.18 in Pitts- 
 burgh. This leaves $2.01 more pay for all the workingmen that 
 are employed in raising the ore, the coal, and the limestone and 
 making the iron. To offset this, in addition to the transportation 
 expenses, commission charges, etc., of from ^5 to $6 on a ton of 
 pig-iron, the tariff gives $6. 72, which is a total of $12 to $13 protec- 
 tion. The rulingprice in England of pig-iron was last year, 1882, 
 
 ' This includes cotton velvets, embroideries, laces, etc., which are all raised 
 from 35 to 40 per cent.
 
 8i 
 
 48s. to 50s., or say, in round figures, 9^2 ; the price of American 
 pig No. I about ^25. Now the price for Cleveland (English) 
 pig is 40s. to 43s. For American pig in Pittsburgh $i8 to 
 $20 for No. 2, and ^21 to $22 for No. i. (d) Steel rails and other 
 steel, bars, rods, etc.: Product, 983,039 tons, at an outlay for wages 
 of $4,930,009, or $5.oii- for each ton produced. This is what the 
 American workingman gets. Protection on rails, now $17, against 
 the former, $28. According to Leone Levi, the English statistician, 
 and Mr. Edward Young, the former Chief of our Bureau of Statis- 
 tics, the average wages in English steel works were about 32s. or 
 about $8 a week for skilled labor, or $1.35 a day, and 21s. aAveek for 
 unskilled labor, or 87 cents a day. This gives the American steel- 
 worker 73 per cent, more than his English brother gets. This, how- 
 ever, is offset, as shown before, by our better and quicker methods of 
 manufacture. But granting, for argument's sake, even 50 per cent. 
 more as cost of labor in this country, then this would add to the 
 cost of a ton of American steel the magnificent sum of ^1.67 for 
 wages as against $28 or $17, respectively of protection for the mill- 
 owners. Protection that is granted by freight and other charges 
 on the imported stuff ought not to be lost sight of in this instance 
 either. 
 
 "3. Leather — upper leather and calfskin manufacture — Tanner's 
 wages — Eastern and Western cities of the United States, $10 to 
 $11 per week. Curriers' wages — Eastern and Western cities of 
 the United States, $14 to $15 per v/eek. In country towns of the 
 United States, ^2 to $3 a week less. Morocco leather — Tanners' 
 wages — New York, ^12 a week ; Philadelphia, $12 a week ; Wil- 
 mington, Del., $10 a week ; Lynn, Mass., ^10 a week. 
 
 " Morocco finishing by machinery — Wages of finishers — New 
 York, $13 to ^14 per week ; Philadelphia, $13 to $14 per week ; 
 Lynn, Mass., $11 to $12 per week. 
 
 "Sole-leather tanners — In the country towns of the United 
 States, $1.25 per day ; in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Louisville, Cin- 
 cinnati, and Chicago, $9 to $10.50 per week, ten hours a day ; in 
 London, England, $8.50 to $9.50 per week, nine hours a day's 
 work ; in the country towns of England and in Scotland, $6 a week, 
 nine hours a day's work ; in Germany, 80 cents to $1 a day, ten
 
 hours a day's work ; in French provinces, ^5 lo $5 50 a week ; 
 in Paris (France), $1 a day. 
 
 " Sole-leather curriers — In country towns of the United States, 
 ^r.50 to $1.60 a day, ten hours a day ; in London, England, ^10 
 to $13 a week, nine hours a day; in the country towns of Eng- 
 land and in Scotland, $7 to $7.50 'a week ; in Leeds, England, 
 East India tanned skins, $6.50 to $7.50 a week ; in Germany, ^i 
 fo $1.15 a day, ten hours a day ; in the provinces of France, ^5 
 to $6 a week ; in Paris, $9 a week." 
 
 The above is an abstract of a report made by the Shoe and 
 Leather Reporter to Mr. Nimmo, The correctness of the list is 
 confirmed by twelve business firms in the line. It will be seen that 
 the wages, considerably higher than iu Germany and France, are 
 not much above the average wages paid in England : for tanning 
 say 12^2 per cent.; while curriers get about 30 per cent. more. 
 As the American, however, has ten working hours against the 
 Englishman's nine hours, the surplus added to the cost of produc- 
 tion on account of higher wages is reduced in tanning to a mini- 
 mum — less than 5 per cent.; in currying to about 15 per cent. 
 
 As wages determine only a correspondingly small part of the 
 value of the whole product, it is evident that this industry can 
 afford to do without the paternal care of the Government. We 
 are heavy exporters of leather. Flides are not protected. The 
 lord of the prairie, the aristocratic ox, under a democratic form of 
 government does not enjoy the protection that is extended to his 
 j)lebeian cousin, the sheep. 
 
 4. Silk goods — The difference in wages varies largely between 
 the different European countries — England, Germany, France, and 
 Switzerland. A statement of wages and earnings would give a 
 very inadequate idea. The various modes of operation have to 
 be taken into consideration. The greater efficiency of the 
 workers, and the application of most improved machinery, to a 
 large extent obliterate the influence of higher earnings on cost 
 of product. Americans earn from G^ to 75 per cent, more than 
 the English ; perhaps 100 per cent, more than German operatives. 
 The acknowledged superiority of our working methods reduces the 
 difference materially : 50 per cent., as an addition of cost, would 
 be a very high estimate. Many of our silks are produced in New
 
 83 
 
 Jersey, whose product in iSSo was $13,850,000 (cost) ; of this 
 there was paid in wages $4,177,000, or 30 per cent.; 50 per cent, 
 of 30 per cent, is equal to 15 per cent. All the protection needed 
 to protect the workingman is 15 per cent. A tariff of 50 per cent, 
 is certainly excessive, in view of the enjoyment of free raw silk. 
 A tariff of 30 per cent., with free materials, would give ample pro- 
 tection to the silk manufacturer. It is doubtful whether the 
 present rate of protection amounts to much more than that, con- 
 sidering the latitude under-valuation and smuggling enjoyed under 
 the former tariff. The reduction to 50 per cent, still gives ample 
 opportunities for these practices. 
 
 5. Woollens — From the report of the United States Consul at 
 Leeds the following may be taken as ruling prices in 187S, the 
 week having 54 working-hours against not less than Go hours in 
 America : 
 
 Wool-sorters per week . 
 Scourers and dyers per weuk 
 Spinners per week 
 Weavers, men, per week 
 Weavers, women, per week 
 Pressers per week 
 Laborers per week 
 
 ^6 24 to $6 72 
 
 4 80 to 5 75 
 7 70 to 9 69 
 6 00 to 8 40 
 
 3 60 to 4 So 
 
 5 75 to 6 72 
 
 4 32 to 5 25 
 
 Considering the difference in time, I doubt whether our woollen 
 mills pay much more in wages for a given piece of work than the 
 English. $4.50 to $6.00 for women and $6.00 to $9.00 for men 
 are fair average wages of operatives in American woollen mills. 
 Still we have a specific and an ad-valorem duty to pay on woollens, 
 averaging fully 60 per cent, even after the reduction. 
 
 Now, I ask any candid manufacturer whether his " infant " in- 
 dustry would not be fully protected with a tariff of 25 per cent., 
 plain and simple, if he had wool and other raw materials free of 
 duty? With free raw materials he could build up an export trade 
 and thereby give more steady employment to his help. 
 
 6. Coal, anthracite — In 1880 we mined 27,433,000 tons, and 
 paid in wages $21,680,000, or 79 cents a ton. 
 
 Coal, bituminous — Product, 40,311,000 tons ; wages, $30,707,- 
 000, or 76 cents on the average a ton, Pennsylvania producing 
 18,000,000 tons, at a cost of only 64 cents a ton for wages.
 
 I leave the intelligent reader to determine for himself whether 
 a protective tariff of 75 cents is required to secure to the v.'orking- 
 man 64 cents in wages. 
 
 The average wages of miners in Scotland are four shillings a day. 
 
 These examples must suffice. If I have not succeeded, from 
 statistics introduced, in proving the absurdity of the claim of 
 protectionists — 
 
 (i) That we cannot compete with Europe, provided we have 
 free raw materials ; 
 
 (2) That the tariff protects our working people ; and 
 
 (3) That the tariff protects our industries ; then no amount of 
 argument will prove it. 
 
 The remedy for all evils lies in the hands of the voters. Like 
 voters, like law-makers. It will not do to shift the blame on other 
 shoulders. This is a free government, and the cure for all abuses 
 must come from the people. No question is so important with 
 respect to the welfare of a people as the question of taxation. 
 The equitable adjustment of taxes is the foundation of universal 
 prosperity. Unequal taxation enriches the few and impoverishes 
 the millions. Nothing stands in the way to prevent Congress 
 from entering into an immediate settlement of this most important 
 question. 
 
 Why, then, dig in the sepulchres of the past for dry bones 
 and dead issues ? 
 
 The old political feuds are settled. We stand before a new 
 era. The solution of economic questions is demanded by the 
 rising generation, a generation which has lost the meaning even 
 of the old catchwords. 
 
 Besides, we have turned a page in our history. We have 
 become a great manufacturing nation. The narrow confines in 
 which the tariff encircles us must give way before the all-over- 
 powering energy of a young nation. A thorough revision of 
 the tariff upon the basis of free raw materials has become an 
 urgent necessity for the preservation of our vast manufacturing 
 industries.
 
 EXPLANATORY REMARKS TO TABLES. 
 
 Appendix I shows the tariffs of Great Britain, Canada, 
 Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands, and the United States, 
 so far as they refer to manufacturing industries, and to raw 
 materials used in the respective industries. I also give a state- 
 ment of imports and exports coming under these headings, both 
 in the aggregate and per capita of population of each country. 
 It will be seen that, excepting the United States, all import their 
 raw materials free of duty, whether they possess rich mines, as 
 England, Germany, and Belgium, or whether they are large sheep- 
 raisers themselves, such as England and Germany. The result of 
 this policy is, that they all do a large exporting trade in manufact- 
 uring products, regardless of respective policies of free trade or 
 protection in manufacturing industries ; England under free trade 
 doing the largest share of exports, and per capita almost the 
 smallest of imports, in merchandise, which she admits free of duty, 
 while all other nations impose duties more or less heavy on them. 
 The United States, with highest import duties, are the heaviest 
 importers of manufactured goods, so heavily taxed that the duties 
 are more than double those of any of the other protecting nations. 
 Her exports are almost nil, for the simple reason that America is 
 the only country which taxes raw materials, as will be seen from 
 the tables. 
 
 The Netherlands are heavy importers of manufactured goods ; 
 among her imports of textiles, yarns form a very heavy item. 
 They have no mines, and metals are therefore a very important 
 class of imports. The Netherlands have a largely developed 
 commerce, while manufacturing industries are behind those of 
 adjacent countries. This in spite of the lowness of wages and the 
 lower standard of life of their working-classes, to which fact I call 
 special attention in support of the position taken in Chapter X, 
 
 85
 
 86 
 
 The foreign commerce in the principal manufactures, textiles 
 and metal goods, of the different nations, shows : 
 
 COUNTRIES. 
 
 Imports. 
 
 Exports. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Per 
 Head. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Per 
 Head. 
 
 1. England , 
 
 2. Germany 
 
 3. France 
 
 4. Netherlands . 
 
 5. United States . 
 
 $148,000,000. 
 
 57,000,000. 
 
 83,500,000. 
 
 69,750,000. 
 
 212,500,000. 
 
 $4 22 
 
 1 27 
 
 2 24 
 17 44 
 
 4 II 
 
 $804,000,000. 
 284,000,000. 
 182,600,000. 
 
 49,200,000. 
 
 44,800,000. 
 
 $22 94 
 
 6 31 
 
 4 91 
 
 12 30 
 
 86 
 
 It will be seen that the imports of the United States in manu- 
 factures which they endeavor so strongly to exclude by abnormally 
 high duties, exceed those of Germany, France, and the Nether- 
 lands combined, or those of England and Germany, while their 
 exports do not even reach those of the Netherlands with barely 
 one tenth of the population of the United States. If we except 
 cotton goods, machinery, arms, tools, and the like, the total is less 
 than ten millions, or seven cents per capita. 
 
 The percentage of labor and material in these metal goods is as 
 follov/s : 
 
 ARTICLES. 
 
 Agricultural implements 
 
 Cutlery . 
 
 Fire-aims . . . 
 
 Sewing-machines 
 
 Foundiy produce, machinery 
 
 Labor. 
 
 Material. 
 
 33 % 
 49 % 
 60 % 
 
 492- ^ 
 40 % 
 
 67 % 
 51 % 
 40 % 
 50* % 
 60 % 
 
 The relation of labor to material in the iron and steel industries, 
 pig-iron, bar iron, rails, etc., is 22 ^ labor, and 78 ^ material; 
 a convincing proof that it is the cost of the material and not the 
 labor cost that stands in our way and causes a state of affairs 
 which must bring a blush to our face, when we compare the 
 eighty-six cents of our exports with ^22.94 of England, and the 
 three millions of American tonnage with the twenty millions of 
 Enghsh tonnage, illustrative of the decay of our foreign commerce.^ 
 ^ See Note on page 88.
 
 87 
 
 In specific tariff rates the averages are given wherever the rates 
 differ largely on various subdivisions of the same class of goods. 
 
 The exports of free trade of England in manufactures are more 
 than five times as large as her imports in the same classes, and 
 exceed by far the combined exports of all other commercial 
 nations, including the United States. In general merchandise, 
 however, her imports are largely in excess of her exports. This 
 large excess of English imports over exports is frequently com- 
 mented upon by protectionists as a sign of future calamity. In 
 1880, it amounted to about ^600,000,000. This excess shows, on 
 the contrary, the wealth and great financial strength of England, 
 and is practically- a national profit made up as follows : 
 
 Freightage to and from foreign countries in the sum of . $215,000,000 
 
 Interest on foreign investments .... 265,000,000 
 
 Ships sold ....... 7,000,000 
 
 Commissions on foreign trade . -. . . 80,000,000 
 
 Interest on foreign trade ..... 23,000,000 
 
 Total ...... $590,000,000 
 
 Appendix II shows the revenue systems of the commercial 
 nations named. The United States derive their income solely 
 from excise- and customs-duties, which bear heaviest on the 
 working-classes as consumers of their entire income. All other 
 nations obtain large sums from income- and stamp-taxes, that 
 come mostly from accumulated property. 
 
 In Appendix III I place the old and the nev/ (1883) tariffs 
 of the United States side by side. The two tariffs are necessarily 
 represented only in the most important classes. As I found it im- 
 possible to go into the details and subdivisions of each branch, 
 the work is necessarily incomplete. It is, however, sufficient to 
 show the entire inadequacy of the so-called " tariff reform " as a 
 measure of relief to our industries. Some items of duties are 
 largely raised, as, for instance, all-wool dress goods, for which a 
 new classification has been created, to "encourage" the making 
 of cashmeres. But the increase of duty, this patent medicine for 
 all ills of American growth, does not cover the defects of Ameri- 
 can wools, which so far have not produced the soft textures of the 
 French article.
 
 88 
 
 Appendix IV shows the ad-valorem equivalent of specific 
 duties at different periods under changing prices. While foreign 
 prices in iron, steel, and in raw wool have declined, the specific 
 rates have remained, consequently the percentage of duties, even 
 after the revision of 1883, is heavier than it was twelve years 
 ago. 
 
 Note. — In i860 our foreign commerce amounted to §762,000,000, of which 
 were carried in American bottoms $507,000,000, or 66,1, ^n^ foreign l)otto?ns 
 255,000,000, or 34f?. 
 
 In i83o our commerce had risen to $1,589,000,000, of which were carried in 
 American Iwttoiiis $280,000,000, or 17'?, 3.\\d foreign bottoms 1,309,000,000, or Z^'/c. 
 In 1870 we carried yet §352.000,000 in American ships. The great expansion 
 of our foreign commerce benefited foreign shipping only. Within twenty 
 years our foreign trade rose from eight and a quarter to eighteen million tons, or 
 120';^ ; and while our share of these eight and a quarter million tons was six 
 millions, or 70^^ of tonnage in i860, the same had declined in 1880 to so low a 
 level that of eighteen millions our share was only three and two-fifth millions, 
 cr iq%.
 
 Appendix I.— Showing the tariffs of ilie principal commercial nations, so far as they relate to manufactures and raw materials, imports and exports of manufactures in the aggregate and per capita. Values in American dollars. 
 
 N.AMES OF ARTICLES. 
 
 . Ckrat Britaik and Ikslanu, 
 
 Imports. 
 
 
 S 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 ^ 
 
 < 
 
 if. 
 
 Raw Materials. 
 
 1, Hemp, (lax. jule, 
 
 2. Wool, grease 
 
 5. Dyeslufis 
 
 6. Cliemicals 
 
 7. Vcgelahle?, gums. 
 
 8. Glass, stones, tla) 
 
 17. Woollen goods 
 
 18. Silk goods . 
 
 19. Jule and linen 
 
 SI. Leather goods 
 
 Impot 
 Expo, 
 
 \ 7.50". 
 , 37-50 
 
 $284,000,000 6.31 
 
 "f GIas< 
 
 "\ 5 S 
 
 
 $,,000,000 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 5.< 
 
 ■ 5 
 
 3,400,000 
 3,000,000 
 
 0. 
 
 5 
 
 14,000.000 
 
 3- 
 
 5 
 
 500,000 
 
 
 5 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 
 5 
 
 250,000 
 $69,750,000 
 
 -T^ 
 
 ' Machines lor agriculture and iniLiiufaci 
 
 60 
 
 $9,200,000 
 
 
 601075 
 
 ' 33,000,000 
 
 .1 
 
 45 
 
 20,000,000 
 
 
 45 
 45 
 
 2,000.000 
 
 3.000.000 
 
 400.000 
 
 
 35 10 50 
 
 34.400.000 
 
 .1 
 
 SO to 85 
 
 38,000,000 
 
 
 50 
 
 39,000,000 
 
 
 35 
 
 23.500.000 
 
 
 10 to 35 
 
 5.000.000 
 5. 000.000 
 
 $212,500,000 
 
 ~ 
 
 
 • Irtdudiog t 
 
 =- 
 
 ,004 
 
 ■0. 
 
 .004 
 
 12, 
 
 ,04 
 
 IS- 
 
 ,44 
 
 M- 
 
 ,014 
 
 'S. 
 
 •25 
 
 16, 
 
 .008 
 
 ■7. 
 
 
 18, 
 
 ,014 
 
 ■9- 
 
 .046 
 
 20, 
 
 ,023 
 
 21. 
 
 ,86 
 
 
 ?\
 
 Appendix II. — Showing how the nations named in Appendix I 
 
 raise their revenues. 1882. .000 omitted. 
 
 ^ 
 
 a 
 1 
 
 >. 
 
 
 ■a 
 c 
 
 3 
 
 Classes of Net Income. 
 
 
 
 S 
 
 
 u 
 
 a 
 
 el 
 
 V 
 
 ■0 
 12 
 
 I. Customs .... 
 
 $95,000 
 
 $46,000 
 
 $63 ,000 
 
 $2,000 
 
 $195,000 
 
 2. Excise .... 
 
 135,000 
 
 38,000 190,000 
 
 14,000 
 
 130,000 
 
 3. Stamp tax 
 
 60,000 
 
 4,900 140,000 
 
 9,000 
 
 
 4. Land tax .... 
 
 5,000 
 
 "10,000 
 
 
 
 5. House duty 
 
 8,500 
 
 
 
 
 
 6. Income tax, etc. 
 
 50,000 
 
 
 '90,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 
 7. Post-office 
 
 13,600 
 
 ) 
 
 22,000 
 
 1.750 
 
 *2,IOO 
 
 8, Telegraph 
 
 4,900 
 
 y 5.100 
 
 5,000 
 
 400 
 
 
 9. Crown lands, interest, etc. 
 
 8,500 
 
 
 
 700 
 
 1,000 
 
 10. Miscellaneous . 
 
 20,000 
 
 10,500 
 
 20,000 
 
 3,000 
 
 13,000 
 
 /I. Railroads 
 
 
 3,100 
 
 
 Soo 
 
 ^4,000 
 
 12. Contribution of States 
 
 
 25,000 
 
 
 
 
 13. Extraordinary . 
 
 
 12,000 
 
 
 
 
 14. National hanks 
 
 
 
 
 
 7,100 
 
 
 $396,500 
 
 $144,600 
 
 $540,100 
 
 $41,650 
 
 $352,200 
 
 ' State tax. 
 
 ■* Excess of income 
 
 ' Forests. 
 
 ^ All direct taxes included. 
 ' Pacific R. R. reimbursements.
 
 Appendix III. — The old and the new tariff rates of the most 
 important articles of manufactures and of raw materials 
 belonging thereto. 
 
 
 Tariff of 187 
 
 0. 
 
 Tariff of 1883. 
 
 ARTICLES. 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 — « 
 
 20 
 
 
 S 
 
 lJ 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 a 
 
 ^.2 
 
 
 c. 
 
 <2 
 
 ^l 
 
 
 (/) 
 
 K* 
 
 
 
 w 
 
 t-- 
 
 
 
 Schedule A — Chemicals. 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 
 Glue, beeswax 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Soap, sponges 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Sumac, ammonia . 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Cement, cobalt 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 
 Turpentine, spirits of . gal. 
 
 •30 
 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Extracts of indigo 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 Soap . . . .lb. 
 
 IC. 
 
 + 30 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Mineral waters 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 Coal-tar colors . .lb. 
 
 •50 
 
 + 35 
 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 Logwood and other dyewood 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 extracts .... 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 Colors and paints . 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 Preparations of essential oils. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 etc 
 
 Most 
 
 y speci 
 
 fie. 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 All crude barks, etc., or min- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 erals ..... 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 Free. 
 
 Advanced or prepared 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 Other chemicals paid specific 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 rates, varying and too ex- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 tended for classification 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 here . . . .lb. 
 
 
 
 
 I to IOC 
 
 
 
 Schedule B. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Brown earthenware 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 China, porcelain, etc. . 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 All other earthenware . 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 55 
 
 Stoneware above ten-gallon 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 capacity .... 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Tiles . . . : . 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 Bricks 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Bottles 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Cut-glass bottles . 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 Other glass .... 
 
 3 to 50 
 
 
 
 3 to 50c.] 
 
 
 " silvered 
 
 4 to 60 
 
 
 
 4 to 60c. 
 
 
 
 Schedule C^MetaU.. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Iron ore . . . ton 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 75c. 
 
 
 27J 
 
 Pig-iron . , . " 
 
 $7 00 
 
 i 
 
 i 66| 
 
 $6 72 
 
 
 64
 
 Appendix III. — Continued. 
 
 
 Tariff of 187 
 
 0. 
 
 Tariff of 1883. 
 
 ARTICLES. 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 §0 
 
 
 '0 
 
 a 
 in 
 
 
 
 
 "0 
 
 0. 
 
 C/3 
 
 <3. 
 
 Hi 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 r 22.40 
 
 \ ^° 
 ( 33-60 
 
 
 f 80 
 
 ( 17,60 
 
 
 i" 
 
 Bar and other iron . ton 
 
 
 to 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 f 33-60 
 
 
 Steel rails .... 
 
 28.00 
 
 
 108 
 
 17.00 
 
 
 65 
 
 " blooms 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 " n. 0. p. 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 Iron manufactures 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 Steel " ... 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 Copper ore . . .lb. 
 
 3c. 
 
 
 
 2|c. 
 
 
 
 " pigs or bars 
 
 5c. 
 
 
 
 4c. 
 
 
 
 " manufactures , 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 Gold 
 
 
 1 
 
 35 to 
 40 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 Silver " . . 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 Cutlery .... 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 Schedule I — Cotton Goods. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Woven fabrics, not exceeding 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 200 threads to square inch : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Unbleached square yard 
 
 5c. 
 
 
 
 3c- 
 
 
 
 Bleached . . " " 
 
 5ic. 
 
 
 
 40. 
 
 
 
 Dyed . . " 
 
 5ic. 
 
 -|-20 
 
 
 5c. 
 
 
 
 Valued over 16 cents . 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 
 " "8c. unbleached 
 
 [ 
 
 
 
 
 
 !- 
 
 " " IOC. bleached . 
 
 
 
 
 
 *' " 13c. dyed 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 ) 
 
 Exceeding 200 threads to 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 square inch : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Unbleached square yard 
 
 5c. 
 
 
 
 4c. 
 
 
 
 Bleached . . " " 
 
 5ic. 
 
 
 
 5c. 
 
 
 
 Dyed . . " 
 
 5|c. 
 
 + 20 
 
 
 6c. 
 
 
 
 Shirts, drawers, stocking nar- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 rowed on frames 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Cotton velvets 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Laces and embroideries 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Spool cotton, dozen 100-yard 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 spools .... 
 
 6c. 
 
 + 30 
 
 
 7c. 
 
 
 
 Schedule J — Hemp, Jute, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 and Flax. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Flax straw . . . ton 
 
 $5 00 
 
 
 
 $5 00 
 
 
 
 " not hackled . 
 
 20 00 
 
 
 
 20 00 
 
 
 
 " hackled, etc. 
 
 40 00 
 
 
 
 40 00 
 

 
 Appendix III. — Continued. 
 
 Tariff of 1870. 
 
 ARTICLES. 
 
 <2. 
 
 Tariff of 1883. 
 
 Hemp and jute, same in both 
 
 taritTs. 
 Linen, brown and bleached . 
 
 Over 30c. square yard 
 Thread for carpets, etc. , at 
 
 24c. or less 
 
 Over 24c. . 
 
 Other 
 Grass cloth . 
 Burlaps 
 
 Schedule K — Wool and 
 Woollens. 
 
 Wool under 30c. 
 
 " over 30c. 
 
 " under 32c. 
 
 " over 32c. 
 Shoddy, rags, waste, etc. lb 
 
 Woollen cloth, shawls . " 
 
 Above 80c. 
 
 IOC. 
 I2C. 
 I2C. 
 
 50c. 
 
 50C. 
 
 + 11 
 + 10 
 
 35 
 
 + 35 
 
 Varying rate ac- 
 
 Flannels, blankets, hats, knit 1 ,. ^ -r- \ 
 
 J ^ both specinc and 
 
 goods . . , \ _ r 
 
 Cotton warp dress goods : 
 Under 20c. sq. yard, sq. yd. 
 Above " " " 
 
 All wool dress goods : 
 
 Under 20c. sq. yard, sq. yd. 
 
 j Above " " " 
 
 \ (Say 30 cents.) 
 
 Clothing, ready-made . lb. 
 
 Cloaks, dolmans, etc. . " 
 
 Schedule L — Silk. 
 
 Raw silk 
 
 ad valorem, 
 averaging 
 
 6c. 
 
 8c. 
 
 6c. 
 8c. 
 
 50c. 
 
 50c. 
 
 Free. 
 
 + 35 
 + 40 
 
 + 35 
 
 + 35 
 
 + 40 
 + 40 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 30 
 35 
 40 
 30 
 35 
 
 75 
 to 
 150 
 50 
 to 
 75 
 
 95 
 
 65 
 
 78 
 
 65 
 60 
 
 IOC. 
 I2C. 
 
 IOC. 
 
 35c. 
 35c. 
 
 + 35 
 + 40 
 
 averaging 
 
 5c. 
 7c. 
 
 9c. 
 9c. 
 
 40c. 
 45c. 
 
 Free. 
 
 + 35 
 + 40 
 
 + 40 
 + 40 
 
 :+35 
 
 i 
 + 40
 
 Appendix III. — Continued. 
 
 
 
 Tariff of 1870. 
 
 Tariff of i88^. 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ARTICLES. 
 
 
 
 
 c 
 
 1^ 
 
 
 
 E 
 
 lJ 
 
 
 
 <2. 
 
 ^l 
 
 u 
 u 
 
 a 
 
 <2. 
 
 «(£ 
 
 
 (/3 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 tfi 
 
 > 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 
 
 'i 
 
 
 Thrown silk .... 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Sewing silk, etc. . 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 Silk goods .... 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 Schedule M — Books, Papers. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Books, printed 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 " blank 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 Printing paper 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 Paper manufactures, n. o. p. . 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 Paper boxes .... 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 Paper hangings, etc. 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 Paper pulp .... 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 Schedule N— Sundries. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Leather, bend, sole, etc. 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 Calfskin, tanned, dressed, etc. 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 Leather, manufactures . 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 Paintings .... 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 Statuary 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 ID 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 Papier-mache 
 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 Umbrellas . 
 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 silk 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 Coal . 
 
 ton 
 
 75c. 
 
 
 
 75c. 
 
 
 50 
 
 Feathers 
 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 Gloves . 
 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 Hatter's plush 
 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 2?
 
 Appendix IV. — Showing the ad-valorem percentage of specific rates on values of iron, steel rails, and 
 wool, at or near the time of the imposition of the old tariff, previous to its revision and under 
 the new tariff. 
 
 
 
 Old TarlB. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 New Tariff 
 
 1 
 
 i-4. 
 
 
 
 
 .RTICLKS. 
 
 
 if 
 
 
 ARTICLES. 
 
 si 
 
 Si 
 
 S§ 
 
 P 
 
 Pi 
 
 
 
 
 
 < 
 
 Q 
 
 
 
 
 1 < 
 
 Q 
 
 
 Schedule C. 
 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 % 
 
 Cleveland, (England) pig-i 
 
 on, 1871 
 
 1872 
 
 une, 1SS3 
 
 813 50 
 26 00 
 10 50 
 
 $7 00 
 
 52 
 
 27 
 66f 
 
 + 23 
 
 Cleveland pig-iror 
 
 , July, 1883 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ..J 
 
 $10 50 
 
 $6 72 
 
 64 
 
 + 23 
 
 
 Scotch pig-iron 
 
 1871 
 . 1872 
 
 15 50 
 27 50 
 
 \°s, 
 
 45 
 24 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■■.'.■ J 
 
 «ne, 1SS3 
 
 14 50 
 
 7 00 
 
 52 
 
 + 15 
 
 Scotch pig-iron. 
 
 July, 1883 
 
 14 50 
 
 6 72 
 
 46 
 
 + 2 
 
 — 12 
 
 Welsh bar iron ' . 
 
 . 1871 
 1872 
 
 37 50 
 60 00 
 
 22 40 
 22 40 
 
 60 
 
 37i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . ' . J 
 
 une, 1883 
 
 27 50 
 
 22 40 
 
 80 
 
 + 33 J 
 
 Welsh bar iron.' 
 
 July, 1883 
 
 27 00 
 
 17 6c 
 
 65 
 
 + 9 
 
 —19 
 
 Sleel_ rails. 
 
 i87r 
 . 1872 
 
 55 00 
 67 00 
 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 
 55 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 '■ •'■'■'; 
 
 «ne. 1S83 
 
 25 00 
 
 28 00 
 
 108 
 
 + 96 
 
 English steel rails 
 
 July, 1883 
 
 25 00 
 
 17 00 
 
 68 
 
 + 24 
 
 —37 
 
 Schedule K— Woe 
 
 L. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Australian 
 
 1872, lb. 
 
 1874. •■ 
 ■876. •• 
 1878, " 
 l38o. •■ 
 
 32 
 
 28 
 
 22 
 26 
 
 ] 'InV' 
 ( II J 
 
 47 
 48 
 56i 
 49 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1882. ■■ 
 
 24 
 
 " 
 
 52 
 
 + 24 
 
 Australian 
 
 July, 1883 
 
 23 
 
 10 
 
 43l 
 
 + 31 
 
 -164 
 
 Cape . . . 
 
 1S72, ■■ 
 
 34 
 
 ) and 
 
 ( ID« 
 
 45J 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1874, " 
 
 31 
 
 ! and 
 
 431 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1876. ■■ 
 
 28 
 
 47 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1S78, ■■ 
 
 21 
 
 
 56 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1880. ■■ 
 
 24 
 
 
 52 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1882, ■■ 
 
 24 
 
 
 52 
 
 + 16 
 
 Cape 
 
 July, 1S83 
 
 23 
 
 10 
 
 43i 
 
 
 -I6i 
 
 Peru, middling . 
 
 1872, ■' 
 
 30 
 
 11 
 
 44J 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1874, " 
 
 28 
 
 47 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1876, ■■ 
 
 28} 
 
 
 48 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1878. •• 
 
 '9 
 
 
 64 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1S80, ■■ 
 
 23 
 
 
 55 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1882, " 
 
 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1883, " 
 
 ■9 
 
 " 
 
 64 
 
 + 45 
 
 Pern, middling. 
 
 July, 18S3 
 
 '9 
 
 10 
 
 53 
 
 + 20 
 
 -17 
 
 English, Lincoln Hogs, 
 
 1872. •■ 
 1874. •■ 
 
 56 
 46* 
 
 ■< and 
 ( 10^ 
 
 \ and 
 
 31 
 36 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ( 10 *g 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1876, ■■ 
 
 38 
 
 " 
 
 42 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1878, ■■ 
 
 28 
 
 1 ' and" 
 
 47 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1B80, " 
 
 27 
 
 ( 11^ % 
 
 48 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1882, ■• 
 
 26 
 
 
 49 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1883, •• 
 
 21 
 
 
 58 +84 j English wool. 
 
 July, 1883 
 
 21 
 
 I0J48 
 
 + 36 
 
 -10 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
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