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lur Unjust Tariff Law, 
 
 A Plain Statement 
 
 ABOUT 
 
 High Taxes. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY LOOMIS NELSON, 
 
 CLERK TO THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTORY LETTER 
 
 HON. J. G. CARLISLE. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 CHARLES H. WHITING, 
 
 32 BROMFIELD STREET. 
 
 1884. 
 

 
 Copyright, 
 BY GEORGE F. BABBITT. 
 
 1884. 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 C. J. PETERS AND SON, 
 
 ELECTROTYPERS AND STEREOTYPERS, 
 145 HIGH ST., BOSTON. 
 
P E E F A C E. 
 
 THIS book is intended to present the argument, as it 
 stands to-day, in favor of a reduction of existing rates of 
 duty, and of a tariff for revenue exclusively. The purpose 
 is to state fairly the present positions of the protectionists 
 and their opponents, and to show the merchant, and the 
 men who work on farms, in shops, in factories, in offices, 
 and in their studies, the evils inflicted upon the country by 
 the protective system, and the benefits which were con- 
 ferred by the low tariff which the country enjoyed between 
 1850 and 1860. 
 
 M290O57 
 
 A/ 
 
SPEAKER'S ROOM, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 WASHINGTON, D. C., July 4, 1884. 
 
 HENRY L. NELSON, Esq. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Learning that you have prepared and propose to 
 publish a volume containing a condensed statement of the arguments 
 in opposition to the protective system, and in favor of a revenue tariff, 
 I desire to say that in my opinion such a work will, on account of the 
 great importance of the subject to which it relates, be received as a 
 welcome addition to what has already been done by the public press 
 and our public men during the last few years. The question of 
 revenue reform is now engaging the earnest attention of the people 
 in every part of the country, and it is evident that the agitation must 
 go on until the inequalities of our present system of taxation shall 
 be removed, and the taxing power of the government restricted to its 
 legitimate purposes. In order to secure these results there must be 
 intelligent discussion of the whole subject in all its bearings upon the 
 industrial and commercial interests of the country, and therefore 
 every honest attempt to place within the reach of the people such 
 facts and arguments as will enable them to understand the unjust 
 operations of the existing system, and the advantages of a more 
 liberal one, should receive the approbation and encouragement of all 
 who desire to promote the welfare of those engaged in our various 
 industries at home, as well as those employed in our foreign carrying 
 trade. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 J. G. CARLISLE. 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 I. 
 
 WHAT PROTECTION MEANS. 
 
 PROTECTION in this country means a tax levied on every 
 merchant, working-man, farmer, and other consumer for the 
 benefit of certain manufacturers. 
 
 The tax is indirect ; it is paid, first, by the person who 
 buys in a foreign country goods that are on the tariff list. 
 In the end it is paid by the man who buys the goods for his 
 own use. For example, if the government collects 55 per 
 cent on a woollen coat which cost in England $10, the mer- 
 chant who buys it and brings it here must pay for it $15.50, 
 and when he sells it to the man who will wear it, he must 
 charge him the $15.50 and the profit which he must get in 
 order to pay the expenses of his store and his home and for 
 savings. The $5.50 represents, speaking roughly, the differ- 
 ence between the price paid by the American who wears the 
 coat and that paid by the Englishman who wears its mate. 
 
 There is no answer to this proposition. If the tax were 
 not added to the price paid by the consumer, then there 
 would be no " protection " about it. 
 
 This tax came to be called protective because it is sup- 
 posed to make it profitable for Americans to engage in cer- 
 tain kinds of business, which they would not engage in if 
 the law did not tax the people for their benefit. 
 
 For example : If A wants to be a woollen manufacturer, 
 he first makes up his mind that the woollens that he will 
 
 7 
 
8 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 make will be too bad and too dear for the people of this 
 country. Therefore he goes to the Congress and asks for 
 "protection." He asks that the government shall make the 
 price of foreign woollens so high that he can undersell the 
 foreign manufacturers. The result is, that if an American 
 buys the foreign woollen because he wants better cloth than 
 is made in his own country, he must pay in the average 
 57.71 per cent more than an Englishman or Frenchman 
 would be obliged to pay for it. The extra price goes to the 
 government. If he buys American woollen, he pays more 
 than it is worth, and this increased price goes to the manu- 
 facturer, in order that he may have a profitable business. 
 If the American complains because the government takes 
 away his savings to add to the savings of his neighbor the 
 manufacturer, this manufacturer and his fellows say that the 
 American is unpatriotic, because they have come to believe 
 that the government was founded for their benefit. 
 
 This system-was not always called protection. When our 
 revolution came, it was called the " colonial system." By 
 means of it Great Britain enabled those of her subjects liv- 
 ing at home to make their several branches of business pro- 
 fitable at the expense of those of her subjects who lived in 
 the colonies. The colonists were forced to trade with the 
 mother country under severe penalties. One result of Great 
 Britain's colonial system was the loss of her American col- 
 onies. 
 
 It was a universal heresy a hundred years ago, that trade 
 ought to be governed and controlled by human laws; and 
 that if, in commercial transactions, one nation was obliged 
 to pay mone} r to another nation, the first nation suffered a 
 loss. 
 
 For example : If A is a baker and B is a tailor, and A 
 buys his clothes of B, and B buys only a part or none of his 
 bread of A, A paj^s for his clothes in money. He buys the 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 9 
 
 clothes of B because he can get them cheaper of him than 
 of any other tailor, while A charges more for his bread than 
 B is \villing to pay. Does A lose because he pays money to 
 B instead of bread, selling his bread to those who are will- 
 ing to pay more for it than B? This was the old doctrine 
 about nations. Under this old doctrine it would have meant 
 a loss if we sold our raw cotton to England for more than 
 France would give, and paid money to France for silks. 
 The doctrine of protection is a survival of the old ignorance 
 and bigotry which considered it dangerous for nations to 
 have commercial relations with each other. 
 
 When we had made peace with Great Britain, John 
 Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and the other negotiators of 
 our treaties with foreign powers attempted to secure an 
 agreement for unrestrained trade; but the prejudices of the 
 day were too strong, and the attempts failed. Then some 
 of the States undertook to retaliate, for the purpose of mak- 
 ing France and Great Britain come to terms. But the sys- 
 tem did not work well, for the English ships unloaded in 
 New York instead of Boston, and laughed at the little pro- 
 tection dodge. Still it was firmly fixed in the minds of 
 most of the leading public men of a hundred years ago that 
 it would be wise for the American people if Great Britain 
 refused to permit them to sell what they raised from their 
 soil in her dear markets, and to refuse, on their part, to 
 purchase in her cheap markets. It was thus early that the 
 true wisdom of protection asserted itself. 
 
 As soon as our present constitution was adopted, the 
 agitation for protection was begun, and by that time the 
 name "Protection" was employed. 
 
 Taxing commerce and labor and agriculture is a very 
 indirect way to protect manufacturers ; but it is the way 
 it is done in this country. From the very first it was said, 
 in speeches in Congress, and in laws enacted by Congress, 
 
10 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 that the government must prevent the people of the United 
 States from trading too much, because money would be lost 
 if we bought what we needed too cheaply ; that our people 
 must not engage too extensively in agriculture, but that 
 some of those who would naturally work on the farm must 
 be induced to work in the factory, in order that there might 
 be some one to eat up what was raised by those who per- 
 sisted in remaining farmers. The idea of the protectionists 
 was that we should make all the manufactured articles that 
 we used. Therefore in 1789 a law was enacted which put 
 a tax on imported articles, in order that their price might 
 be increased so much that Americans could make similar 
 articles and sell them for no more than the artificial price 
 fixed by the government. The theory was also that the 
 farmer ought to be invited to leave his fields and move into 
 a town, because he could earn more money in a factory than 
 on his land. 
 
 This theory makes the law of nature subordinate to the 
 law of man. The result of it is that a Congress of poli- 
 ticians enact statutes for the purpose of distributing labor 
 in diverse occupations, in order that the community may 
 enjoy greater wealth. These politicians assume that they 
 know what is best for men whose lives are devoted to mak- 
 ing money ; that men cannot be trusted to take care of their 
 own interests. 
 
 At first the protectionists were very modest. They did 
 not make demands; they preferred requests. The iron 
 industries of Pennsylvania wanted a little protection for a 
 very short time, in order that American working-men might 
 be educated sufficiently to enable them to compete with the 
 English operatives. As early as 1810, Mr. Gallatin, who 
 was Secretary of the Treasury, reported that the following 
 industries were "firmly established:" iron and manufac- 
 tures of iron, manufactures of cotton, wool and flax, paper, 
 
OUK UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 11 
 
 printing-types, books, etc. But this did not prevent a 
 clamor for more protection. In fact the demands for pro- 
 tection increased the more protection was given. 
 
 For example: On manufactured cottons, not printed, 
 stained, or colored, a duty of 15 per cent was imposed by 
 the acts of 1797 and 1800; under the acts of 1804, 1807, 
 and 1808 the duty was increased to 17 per cent; the acts 
 of 1812, 1813, 1815, and 1816 further increased the rate to 
 85 per cent. This indicates the advance of protection. It 
 grew with what it fed on. 
 
 Presently the argument changed. Very early in ^ the 
 century it was announced by the protectionists that they 
 believed in taxing imports without any view of raising 
 revenue, but for the purpose of protecting manufacturers. 
 This theory means nothing less than that if, of two men 
 living in the same city, A desires to make cloth, and B 
 desires to import similar cloth, the government ought to 
 drive B out of business, by taxing what he desires to sell, 
 in order that A may conduct his manufacturing business 
 profitably. 
 
 This is substantially the present position of the protec- 
 tionists. They say that they levy a tariff tax to prevent 
 commerce, and to increase manufactures. This tax is paid 
 by the person who buys the goods. If imported goods are 
 bought, the importer adds the amount of duty paid by him 
 to the other elements of cost. If domestic goods are bought, 
 the manufacturer is enabled to charge the consumer the 
 whole tariff duty in addition to the price he would have 
 been obliged to accept if he had been forced to compete 
 with the foreign goods. 
 
 The clamor of protected interests for more taxes on the 
 people grew until 1824, when the rates of duty were in- 
 creased so that the average rate was equal to 37 per cent. 
 But even then the clamor did not cease. The manufacturers 
 
12 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 insisted that the people were not taxed enough, and that 
 more taxes must be imposed in order that those who made 
 blankets, and woollen goods, and hats, and trace-chains, and 
 iron articles of all kinds, could gain more profit. Therefore, 
 in 1828, the "tariff of abominations" was passed. Prof. 
 Sunnier says this tariff imposed an average tax of 41 per- 
 cent on the consumers of the country. 
 
 Iii 1833 reduction began, and it was a horizontal reduc- 
 tion, the law providing for a reduction of rates, every other 
 year, by one-tenth of the excess over 20 per cent until 1841, 
 and. that in 1842 no rate of duty should be greater than 20 
 per cent. 
 
 In 1842 duties were again raised. In 1846 a tariff was 
 passed that reduced duties to 25| per cent, and in 1857 the 
 duties were still further reduced to 20^ per cent. From 
 1846 the country enjoyed great prosperity. 
 
 The Merrill Tariff Act of 1861 was the beginning of a new 
 era of protection. Since that time the interests for whose 
 benefit the people have been taxed have not ceased to clamor 
 for more. The Merrill tariff lasted four months, and 
 then tariff taxes were increased. Again in 1862 the taxes 
 were raised, and again in 1864, 1865, 1866, and 1867. In 
 1870 there was a slight reduction of duties. In 1874, the 
 average rate of duties was 38 per cent. 
 
 In 1815 Mr. Clay asked for a tax of 25 per cent, saying 
 that if this bounty were granted he believed that "three 
 years would be sufficient to place our manufacturers on this 
 desirable footing" [i. e. where their goods might bo sold as 
 cheaply as similar goods were sold abroad]. 
 
 Mr. Clay is very often called " The Father of the Ameri- 
 can System." Those who make nse of this expression mean 
 that he is the originator of a system that taxes all the people 
 of the country for the benefit of a few manufacturers. Mr. 
 Clay believed that tariff taxes, like all other taxes, should be 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 13 
 
 levied for the purpose of producing revenue for the country. 
 If in doing this, he said, incidental protection can be afforded 
 to home industry, he invoked every patriot to unite in 
 effecting that object. 
 
 This is not the interpretation of the present generation of 
 descendants of this "Father of the American System." 
 Senator Frye said, in 1882, " I am a protectionist from 
 principle. If there were no public debt, no interest to pay, 
 no pension list, no army and no navy to support, I still 
 should oppose free trade and its twin sister, tariff for rev- 
 enue only, and favor protective duties." 
 
 More recently still, Mr. Russell, a member of the Ways 
 and Means Committee of the House of Representatives, 
 announced in a speech in Congress that he belonged to 
 the party of protection, and that that party would appeal 
 to the people on its tariff policy, which was that taxes 
 should be levied not only to support the government, but to 
 "protect" (support) certain private citizens who desire to 
 grow rich in the business of manufacturing, and who ask 
 the government to enable them to realize their desire by 
 compelling all their fellow-citizens to pay more for Ameri- 
 can goods than they would be obliged to pay for similar 
 foreign goods ; and to prevent certain of their fellow-citi- 
 zens from engaging in the business of importing such for- 
 eign goods. 
 
 Now, therefore, the meaning of protection is clear. It is 
 that this government shall continue to lay a tax on the 
 people for the support of the manufacturers. There were 
 50,155,783 people in this country, according to the last 
 census, and only 3,837,112 of them were engaged in the 
 work of manufacturing. When Mr. Morrill asked to have 
 duties increased, in 1861, he said that the bill was a war 
 measure. In 1864 he said again: "This is intended as a 
 war measure, a temporary measure, and we must, as such, 
 give it our support." 
 
14 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 In 1870 a number of those who now adopt the position 
 laid down by the leading men of their party, that protection 
 is right for the sake of protection, advocated a repeal of the 
 war duties. Among these advocates of a freer trade were 
 the late President Garfield and Senator Allison. About 
 this time there was a reaction against the high tariff rates. 
 The high rates were imposed in 1864, "as a necessary offset 
 to internal revenue duties and as a temporary war tariff." 
 Since the war four fifths of the internal taxes have been 
 repealed, and still the duties remain as high as they ever 
 were. Mr. Merrill said in 1870 : " Protection has here no 
 legitimate claims, and it may be taken off whenever direct 
 taxes are repealed and less revenue is desired." Two years 
 before Mr. N. P. Banks, then a member of the Committee 
 on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives, 
 thought that the time had come when the duties must be 
 taken off. Many New England manufacturers agreed with 
 htm, and they prepared a scheme of reduction in which 
 they stated what their business could stand. Mr. Banks 
 stated, on the floor of the House, that the manufacturers 
 consented to a reduction of from 23 to 25 per cent. 
 
 But the reduction was not made. On the contrary, duties 
 were increased, and three or four years ago there was 
 another popular clamor for the lowering of tariff taxes. 
 This time the country was given a commission, and revision 
 was put off a year. The Commission reported that the best 
 conservative business interests of the country demanded a 
 reduction of duties of from 20 to 25 per cent. Congress 
 passed a bill that reduced duties from 5 to 6 per cent, and 
 now when the attempt is made to effect a reduction that 
 shall fully satisfy the best conservative opinion of the 
 country, the protectionists announce that they are in favor 
 of maintaining the existing high rates, and of a tariff for the 
 sake of the protection it affords. It is significant that they 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 15 
 
 betray a consciousness of the growing weakness of their 
 cause by a change of opinion as to the beneficiaries of their 
 system. Formerly protection was for the purpose of build- 
 ing up manufactures ; now they profess it is for keeping up 
 the wages of American laborers. 
 
 From all that has been said it will be seen that there have 
 been substantially two periods when the protective senti- 
 ment prevailed in Congress. The first was during the early 
 days of the government, and the appeal was for the building 
 up of manufactures. The second began with the war, and 
 during this period a high protective tariff was fastened on 
 the country for the purpose of raising a revenue made 
 necessarily large by the demands of the war. The average 
 duty before the revision was 40.52 per cent; the revision 
 made it 38.14 per cent, according to a calculation made 
 by the Bureau of Statistics. 
 
 From time to time this high tariff has been attacked, but 
 from one cause or another it has escaped. After 1873 the 
 protectionists begged that Congress should not disturb 
 them while trade was depressed ; in 1882 the plea was that 
 business was too prosperous to permit of the "agitation of 
 the tariff question." But the attack this time was in earn- 
 est, and the protectionists resorted to the commission 
 scheme, under which a revision was made. Now that this 
 revision is known to be unsatisfactory, and that protection 
 must fight for existence, the position of its advocates is 
 boldly announced. They are for protection for the sake of 
 protection. They appeal to the country on the proposition 
 that it is right to tax the people on an average about 40 per 
 cent on every article in the long list of the tariff law, in 
 order that certain manufacturers may add that 40 per cent 
 to the price of their products. 
 
16 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 II. 
 
 WHAT IS "A TARIFF FOR REVENUE ONLY"? 
 
 THEKE is no doubt that a large part of the revenues of 
 tliis country must continue to be raised from tariff duties. 
 No one denies this, and no one desires to repeal all tariff 
 taxes, unless it be some impracticable person whose desires 
 and whose influence are in inverse ratio. The public men 
 who are falsely called "free traders," believe that the sys- 
 tem of tariff taxation should be changed gradually; that 
 taxes should be at once reduced, but that the reduction 
 should be made in such a way that no industry should un- 
 necessarily suffer. If John Smith, for example, has invested 
 $100,000 in a manufacturing business because the law pro- 
 mises to give him support and profit, no one desires to take 
 his prop away suddenly. He will have plenty of time to 
 look about for something say, more enterprise and a larger 
 market to take the place of the taxes which have hitherto 
 been imposed upon the people for his benefit. 
 
 The end to be reached by revenue reform is very clear. 
 If a new start were to be made, those who are revenue re- 
 formers would object to any protective duties. What that 
 means is this : They would advocate rates that would yield 
 the amount of revenue needed by the government. Every 
 tariff tax is of course a burden on commerce. If the aver- 
 age rate were what it was under the tariff of 1789, 8J 
 per cent, the manufacturer in this country would have 
 just that much advantage over his French or English 
 competitor. Mr. Russell, of Massachusetts, says that there 
 is no such thing as incidental protection ; that all protection 
 that is not actually contemplated by the law is simply acci- 
 dental. This is the necessary position of all protectionists 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 17 
 
 who favor the present high rate of duty. In insisting on 
 its maintenance they must demand protection for the sake 
 of protection. We know what the protectionists' idea of 
 protection is. It is to keep up taxes to the highest point 
 procurable from Congress. Therefore they oppose every 
 attempt at reduction, no matter how little the proposed 
 decrease of taxation may be. They certainly would not be 
 satisfied witli a tax just sufficient to meet the expenditures 
 of the government, although tax or no tax the manufac- 
 turer in this country is protected against his European com- 
 petitor by three thousand miles of ocean carriage, the cost 
 of which the importer must add to the price of his goods. 
 Therefore the manufacturer of this country has always some 
 protection against the foreigner. No duty can be collected 
 that does not raise the price somewhat. But what the 
 revenue reformer would insist on, were the whole question to 
 come before him as original, i. e., if the country were about 
 to begin to make a tariff law, would be that the taxes, tariff 
 as well as direct, should be levied for public purposes ex- 
 clusively. 
 
 Now, however, the question presented is different. The 
 protective tariff laws that have been enacted under one 
 pretext or another since 1860 have induced men to invest 
 money in manufacturing enterprises. These men, or many 
 of them, have already suffered serious losses by reason of 
 the very law for the continuance of which they beg ; but 
 there is no doubt that many manufacturers would be finan- 
 cially ruined by the sudden and entire removal of the pro- 
 tective prop. Therefore no one proposes to take away alto- 
 gether, and at once, what they receive from the people, 
 because it has been given to them by the representatives of 
 the people, who were, it is true, filled with the vague and 
 unwholesome doctrine of protection, but who, nevertheless, 
 were really the representatives, and whose action had been 
 
18 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 indorsed by the voters, so far as their retention in Con- 
 gress, for many prominent reasons, can be considered an 
 indorsement of a dogma that has not been made prominent 
 at all. 
 
 The action of the protective system is almost invariable. 
 Men of large capital invest in a "business. It may be in 
 manufacturing, or it may be in wool-growing. They find 
 either that they cannot make the business pay at all, or that 
 it does not pay as great an interest as they think ought to 
 be returned to them from their investment. They go to 
 Congress for assistance. Sometimes they send agents bear- 
 ing petitions ; sometimes they secure the election to Con- 
 gress of some one or two of their own number. Finally 
 they obtain protection, and they are enabled to add to the 
 price of the articles which they manufacture or grow from 
 10 to 100 per cent. The result is that, for a time, the busi- 
 ness becomes enormously profitable, and a large number of 
 other people engage in it. Some of these people have little 
 capital. In the course of time comes the natural end of an 
 unduly profitable business, of a disproportionately stimulated 
 trade. If the business is wool-growing, too many farmers 
 raise sheep ; if it be manufacturing, too many mills are 
 built. The result can be foreseen by everyone except 
 those whose money is invested, and they are blinded by the 
 statute book, in which is printed the promise that the govern- 
 ment will provide them with profits out of the pockets of 
 the people. The market becomes glutted with wool, or 
 with the products of the mills, and the price falls. It con- 
 tinues to fall because there is no demand for the goods, 
 which cannot be sent abroad to seek a foreign market, as 
 the general system of protection has increased the cost of 
 production so much that competition with foreign products 
 in their own markets, is out of the question. Then the small 
 farmers or manufacturers fail, while the capitalists close their 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 19 
 
 mills, or lock up their wool and wait. While they are 
 waiting their laborers go without employment, and the 
 farmer who raises produce suffers again because the work- 
 ing-men have no money with which to pay for the food 
 needed by them and their families. 
 
 For example : A and B buy 10,000 sheep and determine 
 to grow wool. This is in 1860, before the wool tariff was 
 enacted. They do not make as much money as they think 
 they ought to make, and they get a tax of from 5 to 25 per 
 cent levied on their fellow citizens in order that their busi- 
 ness may be rendered profitable. The tax is levied on 
 foreign wools and increases their price, so that the price 
 on American wool may be also increased. The increase 
 makes the business profitable, and the farmer neighbors of 
 A and B, who are not so rich as the wool-growers, deter- 
 mine that they will embark in the business into which the 
 government has entered as a partner. So they buy 50 or 
 100 sheep each and greatly increase the aggregate number. 
 This is all supposed to occur in a very simple -and small 
 country. Soon there is more wool in the market town than 
 the people want. The poorer farmers cannot afford to re- 
 main without the money which they had expected to 
 receive from their crops. They therefore sell for what 
 they can get and are ruined. In the meantime A and B 
 are waiting and refusing to sell their wool. They are re- 
 warded in the end by receiving a high price for their pro- 
 duct, their poorer contemporaries having been driven out of 
 competition, and the demand for wool having revived. But, 
 in the meantime, the whole company, rich and poor, pros- 
 perous and bankrupted, go to the government for more 
 "protection," and the government kindly levies another tax 
 on the people for the benefit of those who persist in raising 
 sheep for their wool, when they ought to be growing grass 
 or grain. 
 
20 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 This is the old and familiar story of protective tariffs. It 
 is recognized as familiar by all who are acquainted with the 
 subject. The revenue reformers believe tfcat not only has 
 the government no right to tax the people for the benefit of 
 private persons, but that business fostered in this artificial 
 way has an unnatural growth. It may reach prosperity, as 
 many of our manufacturing concerns have attained a solid 
 basis, but the advance is through disaster, the loss of capital, 
 the crushing out of many men who are unable to stand the 
 ups and downs of an unnatural growth and expansion of 
 business, and the destruction of other legitimate enterprises. 
 Under the first laws there are commercial disasters, but such 
 disasters in a " protected " country are not only the more 
 numerous, but the more difficult to recover from. 
 
 It is for the sake of preventing the crushing out of well- 
 established industries, as well as of those that are still strug- 
 gling for existence, that revenue reformers are desirous of 
 reaching their end slowly. They are not dealing with an 
 original question, but they are applying a remedy to a body 
 politic that is, economically, very ill. They believe that a 
 wholesome system of taxation confines the revenue to the 
 needs of the government. They are strongly opposed to a 
 system that puts a tax on foreign goods into the treasury, 
 and at the same time permits a private citizen to levy 
 another tax for his own benefit on his own product. They 
 propose to give the country such a system in the end ; but 
 they propose to reach that end conservatively and with the 
 least possible injury to existing interests. 
 
 The revenue reformers begin by asserting that the exist- 
 ing rates of duty are too high; not merely that they are 
 protective. They say that many of them are prohibitory, so 
 that no revenue is derived from them. The protectionists 
 will answer, if they are honest in their assertions in favor of 
 their system, that they are glad of this ; that they want 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 21 
 
 foreign goods kept out of our markets entirely, so that our 
 own citizens may make whatever we need, no matter what 
 may be the cost to the consumer. 
 
 For example: Suppose that A and B are alone in the 
 world. A makes clothes rapidly and well, and B is a farmer 
 and produces food. Naturally, one would suppose that A 
 would make B's clothes and take B's food products in 
 exchange, but they are too wise to obey the laws of 
 nature, so they adopt the policy of protection. A proposes 
 to raise all he wants to eat himself as well as to make all the 
 clothes he wears, and B insists on doing likewise. Now if 
 A made clothes for both, and B raised food for both, each 
 man would work a rational number of hours every day, and 
 the two might have a good deal of leisure which they might 
 spend in pleasure or intellectual improvement, as they 
 chose. This leisure is wealth; for what more can wealth 
 bring to its possessors ? As it is, however, they have en- 
 slaved themselves. When they get through their work in 
 the fields, they cannot sit down to rest ; they must go to 
 work to make clothes for themselves. 
 
 But to return. The revenue reformers say that the rates of 
 the present tariff are too high for any purpose, protective or 
 otherwise. They say that the tax levied by the government 
 for the benefit of manufacturers gives to some of the favored 
 class an unduly great profit. They are assisted by the law 
 not only to exist, but to attain an enormous prosperity at 
 the expense of people who do not desire any benefit from 
 their existence, but upon whom they rest as a burden. 
 
 This is the immediate proposition before the country. 
 The question is not, Shall we have free trade? No one 
 wants that now or ever, if by free trade is meant the repeal 
 of all customs duties. The question is, Shall we begin the 
 work of establishing a rational system of taxation, by cutting 
 down the rates that are confessed, even by protectionists, to 
 
22 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 be too high. The manufacturers themselves confessed it in 
 1868, through their spokesman in the House of Representa- 
 tives, Mr. N. P. Banks. The senators and representatives 
 who are now in favor of maintaining the present rates con- 
 fessed it in 1870 in Congress. The whole body of protec- 
 tionists confessed it when they voted for the bill creating a 
 tariff commission. And that commission confessed it in the 
 following language : 
 
 "Early in its deliberations the commission became convinced that 
 a substantial reduction of tariff duties is demanded, not by a mere 
 indiscriminate popular clamor, but by the best conservative opinion 
 of the country, including that which has in former times been most 
 strenuous for the preservation of our national industrial defences. . . . 
 "The average reduction in rates, including that from the enlarge- 
 ment of the free list arid the abolition of the duties on charges and 
 commissions, at which the commission has arrived, is not less, on 
 the average, than 20 per cent, and it is the opinion of the commission 
 that the reduction will reach 25 per cent." 
 
 The revenue reformers say that the revision was a sham. 
 In his closing speech on the motion to strike out the enact- 
 ing clause of his bill, Mr. Morrison exposed the jugglery of 
 the report of the conference committee, which was passed 
 by both Houses of Congress, and is now the law. He 
 said : 
 
 " Out of one of the rates fixed or clauses made in the last tariff bill 
 by the gentleman from Ohio and his associates, experts who have made 
 all the tariffs since 1860, I am told 15,000 protests have already come 
 and 15,000 lawsuits may follow. So it would appear that there is 
 something defective, more or less imperfect, in all tariff bills. And 
 dread confusion haunts the gentleman from Ohio because the duty on 
 grindstones is to be lowered. He came confused from yonder con- 
 ference-room, where he was a member of the conference committee, 
 to the confusion of all taxpayers. The office and duty of a conference 
 is to adjust the difference between the two disagreeing Houses. This 
 House had decided that bar-iron of the middle class was to pay 820 
 a ton; the Senate that it was to pay $20.16 a ton. The gentlemen of 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 23 
 
 the conference, including the gentleman from Ohio, reconciled this 
 difference how ? By raising bar-iron above both House and Senate 
 to $22.40 a ton. The Tariff Commission, at the end of its deliberations, 
 reported that the tariff on iron ore should be 50 cents a ton. The 
 Senate said that it should be 50 cents a ton. The. House said it should 
 be 50 cents a ton. Gentlemen of the conference committee, including 
 the gentleman from Ohio, neither indolent nor wanting in capacity 
 of a kind, reconciled the agreement of the House, Senate, and Tariff 
 Commission into a disagreement, where there was none, and made the 
 duty on ore 75 cents a ton. The gentlemen of the conference did a 
 similar service for the great corporation of corporations, the Iron and 
 Steel Association, by giving it a tax of $17 on steel rails, which the 
 House fixed at 15 and the Senate at $15.68 per ton. In all this there 
 is no confession of want of capacity, but an exhibition of it which 
 commends itself to the gentleman from Ohio. It is such an exhibition 
 of talent and special fitness as in Ohio would be a breach of public 
 trust and drive him from an honorable profession. Here it is states- 
 manship. It gives bounty to corporations and royalty to mine-owners. 
 It adds to the burdens of the people, who are mocked with the pre- 
 tence that it protects labor. The more of such evidences of capacity 
 as were exhibited in that conference, of which the gentleman from 
 Ohio was a distinguished member, that might be shown in this hori- 
 zontal bill, the more infamous it would be, and the less support it 
 ought to have. These gentlemen who come here from Iowa, Wiscon- 
 sin, and Michigan, pledged to abate something from taxes taken from 
 the people to go into a treasury already full, come as the representatives 
 of a people who believe the Tariff Commission scheme was a sham and 
 a cheat, devised to maintain and not to reduce taxes. And now they 
 are here, and the chief financial officer of the government tells them 
 (whether it is a cheat or not) that this scheme has not reduced taxes 
 as it was promised they should be reduced as all advocates of the 
 commission plan promised they should be reduced. 
 
 The average rate of duty under the old law was 40.52 per 
 cent ; under the present law it is about 38.14. If the re- 
 vised law had really reduced the rates as much as the com- 
 mission recommended, the average rate would now be 30.39. 
 This was the rate admitted to be just by every protectionist 
 who favored the commission's report, and not one friend 
 of the protected interests was heard to protest against the 
 
24 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 measure. It would be interesting to know how many men 
 in the country, and who, were acquainted with the fact that 
 the revised law would not reduce taxation. This, however, 
 is now certain, that when they know that taxation has not 
 been reduced to the point which they admitted to be just, 
 they refuse to consent to a further reduction which would 
 make taxation more nearly what was promised in the names 
 both of the Tariff Commission and of the Ways and Means 
 bills in the Forty-seventh Congress. For it should be recol- 
 lected that the Ways and Means Committee of the present 
 Congress reported a bill to the House of Representatives 
 which proposed to carry out the promises made in the last 
 Congress ; but the average rate of the Morrison bill was 31.17 
 per cent, almost one per cent more than the rate admitted 
 to be high enough by the protectionists only a year before. 
 
 The revenue reformers say that when a man buys a dol- 
 lar's worth of cotton goods, 40 to 56 cents of it is too much 
 to pay to the government ; that when a woman buys woollen 
 stuff for a dress, 68 cents is too much to give the govern- 
 ment ; that 50 cents is too much to pay on every dollar's 
 worth of sugar that goes into family consumption. The 
 protectionists insist that these high taxes shall be main- 
 tained. This is the present status of the controversy. The 
 revenue reformers say that the government ought to begin 
 the reduction of tariff taxation ; the protectionists say that 
 the present taxes ought to be maintained. 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 25 
 
 III. 
 
 SOME OF THE EVILS OF THE PRESENT TARIFF 
 
 THE present tariff law was enacted March 3, 1883. The 
 pretence was that it was not only a revision of the law as it 
 then stood, but a reform in the direction of lower duties. 
 This is not true, as the statement of a few facts will show. 
 In the first place, as already shown, the average rate of duty 
 collected under the old law was 40.52 per cent ; under the 
 present law it is 38.14 per cent. 
 
 Most of the articles consumed by those who are not rich 
 are taxed more heavily under the new than under the old 
 law. And some of this increased taxation was very cun- 
 ningly devised. 
 
 For example : The rate on the coarsest kinds of plain 
 cottons, worth a little more than 12 cents a yard, was re- 
 duced from 39.91 per cent to 19.95 per cent; on these goods 
 bleached, the rate was reduced from 48.81 to 31.07 per cent; 
 if dyed, colored, stained, painted, or printed, the rate was 
 reduced from 47.24 to 28.05. These prints are worth about 
 16 cents a square yard. On prints of a little higher 
 quality, worth a little more than 16 cents, the rate was re- 
 duced from 56.19 per cent to 30.88 per cent. Of the prints 
 of the first kind there were imported in 1883 only 390,906 
 square yards. Most of the goods of tHis quality which are 
 consumed here are manufactured in this country. But when 
 cotton goods that make the best wear of the poorer people 
 are reached, there is an increase of rate from 35 to 40 per 
 cent. Of prints that are worth more than 20 cents a square 
 yard, there were imported, in 1883, 4,841,664 yards. All 
 the laces that are used by people who are not rich are of 
 cotton, and on these and embroideries, insertings, trimmings, 
 
26 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 lace window curtains, cotton damask, hemmed handkerchiefs, 
 and cotton velvet, the rate was increased by the revised law 
 from 35 to 40 per cent. By a change in the schedules 
 which may or may not have been understood by the manu- 
 facturers, the duties on certain grades of cotton goods were 
 greatly increased from the old ad valorem rate of 35 per 
 cent. The rate on black crinoline lining, for example, was 
 increased to an average of 111 per cent; and that on tarla- 
 tans to an average of 103 per cent. On one grade of linings 
 the rate is as high as 148 per cent, and on one grade of 
 tarlatan it reaches 153 per cent. 
 
 The rate on dress goods made in part of wool, valued at 
 more than 20 cents a square yard, was reduced from 8 cents 
 and 40 per cent to 7 cents and 40 per cent ; this changed 
 the ad valorem rate from 68.45 to 64.89 per cent. Therefore 
 if the wife of a farmer or working-man now desires to pur- 
 chase a dress of stuff partly wool, worth in England 25 cents 
 a yard, she must pay in this country 42 cents ; the 17 cents 
 going as a tax to the government or as a bounty to the 
 manufacturer. But it is well known that the best wear of 
 people who are not rich is " all-wool " goods. The rate of 
 duty on these goods was increased by the revision from 8 
 cents and 40 per cent to 9 cents and 40 per cent. No one 
 can tell how much this increased the ad valorem rate, for it 
 stopped importations. A person who buys American all- 
 wool dress goods, like those which could be bought abroad 
 for 40 cents a yard, must pay at least 62 cents a yard for 
 them in this country. 
 
 In the metal schedule there are many curiosities. Cast- 
 iron vessels, plates, stove plates, andirons, sadirons, tailors' 
 irons, hatters' irons, and castings of iron, used to pay a rate 
 of duty of 32.64 per cent; under the revised and reformed 
 law the rate is 104.01 per cent. 
 
 The crockery trade sells painted and printed earthen and 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 27 
 
 stone ware, which is very cheap, and is used by the poorest 
 people in the country. Some of this crockery is so cheap 
 that it is made for the southern negro trade. Every one 
 lias seen the children's plates, with an alphabet around the 
 rim, and a picture in the centre. This picture is first 
 printed and then painted, the painting being very rude, and 
 done in the crudest way by women and children. Forty 
 per cent on this class of work was not enough for these 
 revisers, who thought that the conservative opinion of the 
 country demanded lower duties ; so they increased the rate 
 to 60 per cent, and classified this coarse ware with china, 
 porcelain, parian and bisque, that was ornamented. Plain 
 china, porcelain, parian, and bisque, which can be afforded 
 by the rich only, pays a lower duty and bounty than the 
 stone cups of the poor, and even plain white stone ware 
 pays as much as plain white porcelain. And yet the country 
 is assured by men who are generally considered honest that 
 the present tariff is for the benefit of American working- 
 men. 
 
 So much for the pretended reform made by the revision. 
 There are other features of the law that are interesting to 
 people who work with their hands for a living. Ready-made 
 clothing pays 40 cents a pound and 35 per cent. A rich 
 man sends to a London tailor for clothes, for which the 
 charge is $50 ; a poor man buys in this country a suit which he 
 could buy abroad for $20. Assuming that each suit weighs 
 five pounds, the rich man pays the government a tax of 39 
 per cent, while the poor man pays the American manufac- 
 turer a bounty of 45 per cent, and' he pays $29 for what 
 ought to have cost him $20. If a poor man buys a coarse 
 woollen blanket, worth 54 cents per pound, he pays 60 per 
 cent to the government or the manufacturer. If a rich man 
 buys a blanket worth $1.50 a pound, he pays no more tax or 
 bounty than the poor man. The average rate on the low- 
 
28 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 priced flannels, blankets, wool hats, etc., is 68.77 per cent; 
 on the highest-priced, 62.08. 
 
 A drugget or blocking pays a duty of 72.18 per cent; 
 but an Axminster carpet pays only 55.52 per cent. 
 
 Halter-chains, trace-chains, and fence-chains, that are used 
 by the farmers, and are worth about five cents a pound, pay 
 about 47.14 per cent, while finer chains pay 45.41. The 
 finest salt pays less than 40 per cent, while the coarse salt 
 used for preserving meats, feeding cattle, etc., pays a little 
 less than 64 per cent. 
 
 Sugar, which must be used by every one, pays a duty of 
 from 50 to 68.20 per cent; and this highest, duty is on a 
 grade of sugar that can be consumed without refining, and 
 the use of which, were the duty lower, might therefore save 
 the poorer people of the country an immense sum of money 
 every year. 
 
 But the protectionists object to reducing the rates of 
 duty. They say that to do so would lower wages. In due 
 time this will be demonstrated to be arrant nonsense or 
 deliberate falsehood. Protection to American industries 
 was first granted for the purpose of giving a profit to the 
 capitalists who invested their money in manufacturing en- 
 terprises. AVages must be higher in this country than in 
 England so long as agricultural land is as cheap as it is, 
 and agricultural labor as remunerative. The protectionists 
 threaten the working-men with reduced wages if they vote 
 to relieve themselves from burdensome taxes; but, while 
 they are making their threats, they do lower wages, even 
 under a protective system, with whose generous bounty 
 they sometimes profess themselves satisfied. There is no 
 better protected industry than that of iron and steel, and 
 yet its revived prosperity, which began in 1879 with the 
 general financial revival of the country, lasted only three 
 years. The report of the American Iron and Steel Asso- 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 29 
 
 elation shows that nearly all the mills closed in 1882, and 
 that during the four months when they were idle the opera- 
 tives were the losers. The prices of iron and steel did not 
 advance because there was enough material on hand to 
 supply the demand. This means that under the artificial 
 stimulus of protection the mills produced more than was 
 needed. It was simply a new illustration of a well-estab- 
 lished fact. Protection always leads to over-production, 
 and when that happens the capitalists stop expenses, sell 
 their surplus, and meanwhile the operatives starve or get 
 into debt. Judging from the reports that come from the 
 iron regions at this writing, the iron and steel industry is in 
 as bad condition as it was two summers ago, when nearly 
 all the rolling-mills of Pittsburg and the West were closed 
 for four months. 
 
 The statistics relative to hoop iron, bar iron, iron rails, 
 sugar, and molasses, for 1880, serve admirably to show the 
 workings of the present tariff, and the price paid by the 
 American people to sustain what protectionists call the 
 "American system." In 1880 there were produced in this 
 country, hoop (band and scroll) iron to the value of 
 $6,094,484; and there was imported $720,903.82 worth. 
 The domestic product cost $62.67 a ton ; the imported ar- 
 ticle cost $45.56. The rate of duty was $31.66. The cost 
 of the foreign iron, with freight added, would have been 
 $48.06, so that the consumer was obliged to pay $14.61 
 bounty on every ton of American hoop iron used by him ; 
 and the total bounty paid by American consumers amounted 
 to $1,414,876.22. From these figures it will be seen that 
 for every dollar paid to the treasury as duty, the American 
 manufacturer received $2.82 bounty. 
 
 In the same year the production of bar iron in this 
 country amounted to $35,302,431 ; the imports to $3,111,- 
 218.43. The domestic article was valued at $53.33 a ton, 
 
30 OUE UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 the foreign at $43.33. Duty was $22.86, and the cost per 
 ton of foreign iron, with freight added, $45.83. The bounty 
 of the manufacturer was $7.40 per ton, and the bounty paid 
 by consumers on domestic production was to duty received 
 fby the Treasury as $2.99 is to $1. 
 
 The domestic production of iron rails was $20,978,637 ; 
 imports, $1,635,980 ; cost, $44.93 and $31.10; duty, $15.68; 
 cost of foreign rails, freight added, $33.60 ; bounty, $11.33 ; 
 ratio of bounty to duty, $6.41 to $1. 
 
 The foreign sugar imported into this country in 1880 was 
 worth $68,052,639.55 ; the average duty per pound was 2.44 
 cents. The value of the domestic product was $13,191,- 
 200.02. The value of the imported molasses was $8,978,- 
 008.50; of the domestic product, $3,528,770.51. On the 
 total importation of sugar and molasses, $77,030,648.05 ; 
 the duty was $42,203,915.49 ; while the bounty on the do- 
 mestic product was $5,616,503.96. For $94,000,000 worth 
 of sugar and molasses the people of the country paid 
 $142,000,000. 
 
 These are some of the enormities of the present tariff. 
 The man who consumes the products of our own mills, or 
 who buys the imported products of foreign mills, pays for all 
 his cottons an average of 38.29 per cent more than the goods 
 are worth ; on his wife's woollen shawl, 65.83 per cent ; on 
 his blankets, wool hats, flannels, knit goods, etc., about 67 per 
 cent ; on his carpets, from 40 to 70 per cent ; for all the 
 sugar his family consumes, about 50 per cent ; for the iron 
 vessels of his kitchen, about 104 per cent ; for his knives 
 and forks, 35 per cent ; for needles, 25 per cent ; for the pens 
 with which he writes, 50 per cent ; for his tin utensils, 45 
 per cent; for his wooden furniture, 35 per cent; for his 
 other woodenware, the same; for his brown earthenware, 
 25 per cent; for his white stoneware, 55 per cent; for the 
 slate and pencils of his children, 30 per cent ; for preserve 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 31 
 
 jars, 35 per cent ; for his common window-glass, from 66 to 
 74 per cent ; for his provisions, an average of 21 per cent. 
 
 Suppose a man in moderate means wants to f urnish a house. 
 How much, under the present tariff law, must he pay for 
 $1,000 worth of furniture? Here is a table showing, in the* 
 first column of figures, the worth, and in the second the 
 price to be paid after the tariff has added the duty, or 
 bounty : 
 
 Wooden Furniture .... 
 
 Carpets ....... 
 
 (125 Tapestry Brussels and $75 two- 
 
 ply ingrain) 
 White Stoneware ..... 
 
 Brown Earthenware . . . 
 
 Iron Kitchen ware ..... 
 
 Tin " " .... 
 
 Woodenware ...... 
 
 Cutlery ....... 
 
 Wortlu 
 
 $700.00 
 
 200.00 
 
 40.00 
 10.00 
 15.00 
 15.00 
 10.00 
 10.00 
 
 Price. 
 
 $945.00 
 
 298.83 
 
 62.00 
 12.50 
 30.60 
 21.75 
 13.50 
 13.50 
 
 $1,000.00 $1,397.68 
 
 A bounty of $398 is paid by the consumer, and the same 
 fate follows him through life. He pays more for all that 
 goes to the feeding and clothing of his family. For every 
 $100 worth of cottons, he pays, on an average, $138.29; for 
 a $10 woollen shawl he pays $16.58; for $20 worth of flan- 
 nels he pays about $33.40; $10 worth of sugar costs him 
 $15, and so on through the long list of taxed articles. 
 When he is born his sponsors pay $14 for his $10 silver 
 mug, and when he dies his executors take from his widow 
 $95 to pay for a $50 monument. 
 
 The protectionists say that they will not remedy these 
 evils; that they will not consent to any reduction whatever. 
 In the last session of Congress they took the position that 
 they would not debate the question, they would not con- 
 sider it ; and later, when they were forced to consider it, 
 
32 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 they refused to try, by offering amendments, to take any 
 steps to make a good bill. The refusal of the protectionists to 
 vote for the Morrison bill is conclusive evidence that they 
 propose to do nothing for the relief of the consumers. They 
 "refused the most moderate reductions, to cut down the 
 duty on cotton and cotton goods from 88.29 per cent to 31.50 ; 
 on hemp, jute, and flax goods, from 28.04 to 24.61 ; on wool 
 and woollens, from 57.71 to 46.43 ; on metals, from 35.19 to 
 29.81 ; on books, papers, etc., from 21.67 to 18.51 ; on sugar 
 and molasses, from 43.59 to 34.87 ; on tobacco, from 72.70 to 
 58.16; on wood and woodenware, from 33.98 to 29.35; on 
 earthenware and glassware, from 53.16 to 44.12 ; on provi- 
 sions, from 24.17 to 21.01 ; on sundries, from 25.46 to 22.60; 
 on chemical products, from 37.11 to 31.40. 
 
 If they will not make such moderate reductions of taxes, 
 what is to be expected from them ? But at any rate the 
 country is afforded a view of the standard of taxation that 
 is deemed necessary for the fostering of these aged infant 
 industries. The conclusion that must be reached is that the 
 protectionists propose to keep all the benefits they have 
 received, and to secure all other possible advantages. The 
 tax was first granted to meet the necessities of the war ; it 
 has been preserved because it is said to be needful to tax 
 the people for the benefit of a few manufacturers ; and now 
 that the government's surplus reaches to the neighborhood 
 of $100,000,000, the protectionists refuse to yield a cent 
 of their enormous bounty. 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 33 
 
 IV. 
 
 WHAT PROTECTION MEANS TO THE FARMER. 
 
 OF the 17,392,099 persons engaged in wealth-producing 
 occupations in 1880, 7,670,493 were agriculturists, farmers, 
 and farm laborers. Almost half the working population of 
 the country, therefore, drew their sustenance from the soil. 
 The amount of capital in farms, agricultural implements, and 
 live-stock is very large. In 1880 it was $12,104,081,440, 
 while the capital invested in manufactures was only $2,790,- 
 272,606. What does prol^tion do for the farmer ? 
 
 In the first place it increases the cost of everything he is 
 obliged to buy. How much more his clothing, his groceries, 
 his household furniture and utensils cost, has already been 
 shown. His agricultural implements cost him at least half 
 as much again as they ought, because of the duties which 
 the manufacturers are obliged to pay. The tariff adds 25 
 per cent to the cost of transporting his products to market. 
 In return he receives a duty that amounts to about 25 per 
 cent on his leading staples, and which he does not need. 
 
 The American farmer is the one producer in this country 
 who is compelled to sell in a foreign market. Wheat is so 
 largely produced that our own population cannot consume 
 it. The surplus of the wheat product in 1883 was more 
 than 100,000,000 bushels. This surplus is sold to Europe, so 
 that American wheat competes with the wheat of the world. 
 Its price is regulated by the markets of Liverpool. In deter- 
 mining the price at which he will sell his goods, the manu- 
 facturer can add to the cost of foreign-made goods the 
 freight charge across the ocean, and the duty; but the 
 farmer must deduct freight charges, and must meet the Eu- 
 ropean wheat growers on their own ground. The result 
 
34 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 is that the price paid for wheat in Liverpool determines tLe 
 price paid in this country. The 20 cents a bushel duty, there- 
 fore, does no good ; it is never collected by the farmer as a 
 bounty. This truth about wheat comes home to the Ameri- 
 can farmer now as it has never come before. The increase 
 in the wheat product of India has become astonishing. Last 
 year 40,000,000 of bushels of wheat were exported from 
 India. The result is that the exportation of American 
 cereals has greatly decreased, and the price of American 
 wheat has fallen below 80 cents a bushel. 
 
 Now the question which the American farmer has to 
 answer is, Can he go on paying taxes for the benefit of his 
 neighbor, the manufacturer, whifc he is forced to sell in the 
 cheapest market of the world ? Can he afford to burn his 
 candle at both ends ? What he buys costs him more than 
 similar articles cost in Europe, and yet he receives per 
 bushel just what his English competitor receives, and just 
 what is received by his Indian competitor, whose clothes con- 
 sist of a single yard of cotton. The average farmer is not a 
 rich man. As the value of the farm products of the United 
 States in 1880 was $2,213,402,504, while the persons engaged 
 in farm labor numbered 7,670,493, it follows that the aver- 
 age income of farmers and farm laborers was $289 a year. 
 To the ordinary cost of living must be added the $450,000,- 
 000 which the farmers pay annually in taxes and bounties 
 for the maintenance of the business of their manufacturing 
 neighbors. Can the farmers afford the luxury ? 
 
 The pretence of the protectionists is that the establish- 
 ment of manufactures furnishes a home market. On the 
 theory of the protectionists there is only one kind of a home 
 market that is worth anything. It is a market from which 
 all foreign competition is excluded. That is the kind of 
 home market the protected manufacturers desire for them- 
 selves. In their speeches at the last session of Congress, 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 35 
 
 they said that they favored the continuance of the present 
 high rate of taxation in order that our people might be sup- 
 plied with everything of American manufacture. The main 
 object of the protectionists of the present day is to prohibit 
 the importation of foreign goods. In other words, the lead- 
 ers of the protectionists hold that it is right for the govern- 
 ment to tax the people in order to prevent revenue. There- 
 fore, when a perfect tariff law shall be made, the large 
 revenue now collected by the custom houses will go entirely 
 into the pockets of the manufacturers, and the government 
 must be supported by direct taxation; internal revenue 
 taxes must be increased rather than diminished. 
 
 But the American farmer cannot have this kind of a home 
 market. He produces too much for the country, and, in the 
 natural order of things, production must increase rather than 
 diminish. The manufacturers' promise of supplying an ade- 
 quate home market has not been kept. Half the people of 
 the country pay every year $450,000,000 for a market which 
 they do not get, and for higher prices which they do not 
 realize. How much did this market demand in 1880, the 
 census year? The people engaged in manufacturing, with 
 all those employed in mechanic and mining pursuits added, 
 consumed only $335,000,000 worth, while the producers 
 were obliged to sell abroad $685,961,091 worth. The only 
 result of the protective system to the farmer is to increase 
 the cost of living. 
 
 Moreover, statistics show that the proportion of our crops 
 consumed at home has been greater under low tariffs than 
 under high tariffs. Under the low tariff of 1846, in the 
 census year 1850, the total cereal production was 867,453,967 
 bushels, of which we consumed at home 851,502,312 bushels, 
 and exported 15,951,655, or 1.9 per cent. In 1860, under 
 the still lower' tariff of 1857, the production was 1,239,039,- 
 945 bushels, of which the home market purchased 1,216,- 
 
36 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 084,810 bushels, and 22,955,135 bushels, or 1.8 per cent, were 
 exported. In 1870, under a high protective tariff, the total 
 production was 1,629,027,600 bushels ; 1,571,737,179 bushels 
 were consumed in this country, and 57,290,521 bushels, or 
 3.50 per cent, were sent abroad. From 1850 to 1860 the 
 production of grain increased 45.1 per cent, while the exports 
 increased 43.9 per cent, while under a high tariff law, from 
 1860 to 1870, production increased 31.4 per cent, while the 
 exports increased 149.50 per cent. 
 
 More than 80 per cent of the exports of this country are 
 of agricultural products. There is no complaint made by 
 protectionists because the farmers are obliged to compete 
 with the freed serfs of Russia or the laborers of India. On 
 the contrary, our farmers are asked to go on competing, and 
 at the same time to put their hands in their pockets and 
 pay a bounty to the manufacturers, in order that their 
 brother working-men who prefer to labor in the mills may 
 not be obliged to compete with the British operatives. It 
 is not true that the wages of our own operatives will ever 
 be governed by the wages paid in Great Britain ; nor is it 
 true that the protectionists desire high tariff taxes for the 
 laborer, for they are looking entirely after the interests of 
 capital. But, leaving all that aside for the time, is it fair 
 to ask the American farmer to compete with lately eman- 
 cipated serfs and Indian ryots and half-naked Africans, and 
 at the same time to tax himself to prevent the operatives of 
 mills from coming into competition with the skilled laborers 
 of Great Britain ? 
 
 It has been shown that the home market which the protec- 
 tionists have promised has not been furnished by the estab- 
 lishment of manufactures ; that out of their slender incomes 
 the farmers of the country are forced to contribute to the 
 manufacturers $450,000,000 annually. What is the result, 
 to the manufacturers, of this contribution, and what to the 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 37 
 
 farmers ? In 1880 the capital invested in manufactures was 
 $2,790,272,606 ; the product was $5,369,579,191. Deducting 
 from this the value of materials used and the wages paid, 
 we have a gross profit of $1,024,801,847, or between 36 and 
 37 per cent. It is estimated that the gross profits of the 
 farmers is $1,436,944,067, which is between 11 and 12 per 
 cent on the capital, $12,104,081,430, invested in the business 
 of agriculture. It is strange that a business paying the 
 small return should be taxed to sustain enterprises whose 
 profits exceed the profits of its benefactor three times. The 
 American farmer is the victim of a bad system, and a deluded 
 victim whenever he votes for a protectionist for Congress. 
 
 V. 
 
 WHAT PROTECTION MEANS TO THE WORKING-MAN. 
 
 
 
 JUST now it is the burden of the protection song that 
 American labor would be degraded if the tariff were re- 
 duced. On the contrary the laborers of the country would 
 be benefited. It is perfectly clear that taxing working-men 
 does not benefit them unless at the same time their incomes 
 are increased more than enough to make up the tax. The 
 average tax imposed by the existing tariff is 39 per cent, 
 but, as has been shown, the working-man pays 50 per cent 
 tax on his sugar, over 60 per cent on some of his woollens, 
 about 40 per cent on his cottons, 55 per cent on his ready- 
 made clothes, and so on. Is there any return made for this 
 by the tariff ? Are his wages increased more than the cost 
 of living? If they are not, then protection is an injury to 
 the working-man. 
 
 In the first place the large majority of working-men do not 
 
38 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 labor for protected industries. The only man who can give 
 larger wages by reason of the tariff is a manufacturer who 
 receives a bounty from the tax imposed upon the consumers. 
 The fund from which wages are paid must be increased if 
 wages themselves are to be greater. This increase is given 
 up to the manufacturer. It has been shown that the 
 farmer suffers from the exactions of the tariff. All that he 
 buys is dearer for it, and all that he sells is as cheap as can 
 be. The laborer for the farmer must suffer with his em- 
 ployer, and he suffers so much that the average annual in- 
 come of all workers in agriculture, including employer and 
 working-man, is only $289. Of course the farm laborer gets 
 nothing but increased taxation from the tariff. He pays 
 more than he ought for his clothes, for his boots and shoes, 
 for his blankets, for his hats, for his provisions, for his rent, 
 for everything which he must have to sustain life ; and as 
 his employer's income is decreased by his share of the 
 $450,000,000 annually paid by the farmers to support their 
 richer manufacturing neighbors?" he is obliged to sustain, in 
 reduced wages, even more than his own share of the burdens 
 of tariff taxation. 
 
 It is equally true that the working-men in the mechanical 
 industries receive no benefit from the tariff. The protec- 
 tionist who would assert that a carpenter or a mason receives 
 im>re wages because the cotton, woollen, and iron manufac- 
 turers are the recipients of a popular bounty would indeed 
 be an enthusiast. The employer of the carpenter and mason 
 is a builder, and the price of all the material which he pur- 
 chases is increased by the protective tariff. He receives no 
 bounty which he can divide with his laborers. It would be 
 interesting to find out from the working-men themselves 
 what they think they gain by reason of the taxes imposed 
 upon everything they buy. Is there one of them who sup- 
 poses that he is benefited by paying to capitalists a bounty 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 39 
 
 of about 40 per csnt ? What gains the man who carries a 
 hod, or works on the streets, or drives a carriage, or takes 
 care of horses, or writes books, or for the newspapers, or 
 paints pictures, or sets type, or runs a printing press, or 
 drives a locomotive, or is a conductor or a brakeman on 
 a raih-oad, or practises law, or preaches sermons, or heals 
 bodies, or digs ditches, or belongs in any way to the vast 
 brotherhood of labor that works outside of mills and fac- 
 tories ? Can any one of the men who work in this way 
 say how his condition is improved by a law which compels 
 him to pay $29 for a $20 coat ; $1.50 for $1.00 worth of 
 sugar ; $16.50 for a $10.00 shawl? 
 
 How is it with the men who work in mills and factories ? 
 Mr. J. E. Thorold Rogers has recently published a book 
 entitled " Six Centuries of Work and Wages." Mr. Rogers 
 is a member of the British Parliament, who has given much 
 study to what we call the labor problem, and he is one of 
 the best and wisest of friends of the working-men of Eng- 
 land, a firm believer in the good accomplished through a 
 union of laborers, and a stanch supporter of Mr. Joseph 
 Arch in his work in behalf of the agricultural laborers of 
 Great Britain. Mr. Rogers says this, in speaking of his own 
 country : 
 
 "At present I believe that the workmen of this country, speaking 
 of them in a mass, are better paid than those of any other settled and 
 fully peopled community, if one takes into account not merely the 
 money wages which they earn, but the power which their wages have 
 over commodities." 
 
 And the increase of wages has come entirely since the 
 establishment of free trade in England. 
 
 Another thing which Mr. Rogers says is worthy of careful 
 thought. It is this : 
 
 "Political economy has indeed taught one lesson of enormous 
 value, though the truth has only been accepted in its fulness among 
 
40 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 ourselves. It is that any hindrance put by law or custom in the pur- 
 chaser's market is a wrong to every one to the community first, to 
 the laborer next, to the capitalist employer last. It is due to the facts 
 that the injury comes last to the capitalist, and that before the mis- 
 chief is worked out such a person is able to gain abnormal profits by 
 the losses of others; and that they who get those profits are an organi- 
 zation ; the consumers and the laborers, as a rule, are only a mob ; that 
 protectionist laws, as they are called, exist for a day." 
 
 Unless the operatives in mills are benefited by a protec- 
 tive tariff no class of working-men can be helped. Even a 
 protectionist will admit the soundness of this position. But 
 to start with, as Mr. Rogers shows, the experience of Great 
 Britain is that the condition of the working-men was bettered 
 by the abandonment of protection. What might have been 
 expected has naturally followed. As soon as the govern- 
 ment ceased taxing the earner of wages in the interest of 
 the earner of interest the former's condition was improved. 
 
 Robert Giffen, LL.D., is president of the London Sta- 
 tistic Society, which was organized for the purpose of ob- 
 taining information concerning the progress of the working- 
 classes. In his inaugural address, delivered last November, 
 Dr. Giffen shows that in the last fifty years the wages of 
 British operatives have increased wonderfully. For example : 
 the wages of weavers have increased 150 per cent ; of chil- 
 dren who are employed in spinning, 160 per cent ; of pattern 
 weavers, 55 per cent. Dr. Giffen tl links that the figures 
 do not fully indicate the increase that has actually occurred. 
 At the same time, while the wages of operatives have grown 
 greater, the wages of seamen have increased from 25 to 69 
 per cent. The wages of agricultural laborers have also 
 increased about 60 per cent, while the increase in wages in 
 Ireland has been very marked. 
 
 At the same time the hours of labor have been diminished 
 very nearly 20 per cent, so that the workman gets from 50 
 to 100 per cent more money for 20 per cent less work. At 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 41 
 
 the same time, the price of the necessaries of life has de- 
 creased. Although meat and house-rent are dearer the 
 latter largely because there has been much improvement in 
 the dwelling-houses of the British workmen the aggregate 
 of price has diminished, largely owing to the cheapness of 
 wheat. The improvement in the condition of the British 
 workman has been so great that the death rate has decreased; 
 pauperism has diminished ; savings have wonderfully in- 
 creased, and the schools have multiplied. 
 
 Dr. Giffen states the method by which nature works, 
 under a system of taxation such as the revenue reformers 
 propose, so well, that it will be best to quote exactly what 
 he says. He shows that nature, and not a protective tariff, 
 distributes the rewards of toil. He says : 
 
 " It lias been shown directly, I believe, that, while the individual 
 incomes of the working-classes have largely increased, the prices of 
 their main articles of consumption have rather declined; and the in- 
 ference as to their being much better off, which would be drawn from 
 these facts, is fully supported by statistics showing a decline in the 
 rate of mortality, an increase of the consumption of articles in general 
 use, an improvement in general education, a diminution of crime and 
 pauperism, a vast increase of the number of depositors in savings 
 banks, and other evidences of general well-being. Finally, the in- 
 crease of the return to capital has not been in any way in proportion, 
 the yield in the same amount of capital being less than it was, and the 
 capital itself being more diffused, while the remuneration of labor has 
 enormously increased. The facts are what we should have expected 
 from the conditions of production in recent years. Inventions having 
 been multiplied, and production having been increasingly efficient, 
 while capital has been accumulated rapidly, it is the wages-receivers 
 who must have the benefit. The competition of capital keeps profits 
 down to the lowest point, and workmen consequently get for them- 
 selves nearly the whole product of the aggregate industry of the 
 country. It is interesting, nevertheless, to find the facts correspond 
 with what theory should lead us to anticipate." 
 
 According to statistics furnished by our own State De- 
 partment, the wages of Great Britain are much higher than 
 
42 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 wages in the continental countries where there are pro- 
 tective tariffs. For example : in England, bricklayers 
 received $8.16 a week; in Italy, they are paid $4.00; in 
 Spain, $5.25 ; in Germany, $4.00 ; in France, $5.00 ; in 
 Belgium, $6.00. This sufficiently illustrates the difference 
 between these countries. 
 
 Mr.'Jacob Schoenhof, a New York manufacturer, made a 
 statement, last winter, before the Ways and Means Com- 
 mittee of the House of Representatives. He showed that 
 in the cotton factories of this country wages were about 
 15 per cent higher than in England, but this was made 
 up by the longer hours of labor, and by the greater skill 
 of the American operative. The wages in England, how- 
 ever, are 50 per cent higher than those in Germany, and 
 30 per cent above those of France, while the hours are 56 a 
 week, against 66 and 72 in this country. In the woollen 
 industries England pays 50 per cent more wages than Ger- 
 many, and from 20 to 35 per cent more than France. 
 
 In almost every respect, the cost of living in this country 
 is higher than in Great Britain. House-rent and board are 
 higher, but some food supplies are cheaper. This is because 
 much of the food of Great Britain is imported from this 
 country, and therefore the low prices are the result of for- 
 eign competition, and must always exist, because of the 
 wealth of our agricultural resources. If duties were lowered, 
 and even if the protective feature of our tariff should be 
 entirely abandoned, there would be no change in this re- 
 spect, except to equalize prices, so that the farmer and his 
 laborers, and the mechanics and operatives of towns and 
 cities, would secure more for their earnings than they do 
 now under protection, which means an artificial distribution 
 of wealth. 
 
 Working-men should not be deceived by comparisons made 
 between the working-men of one city in Englancl and of 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 43 
 
 another in Massachusetts, Manchester and Lowell for 
 example. It is not ingenuous to argue, as has been argued, 
 that because there are more savings deposited in the banks 
 of Lowell than of Manchester, therefore the operatives of 
 Lowell can lay aside more from their earnings than opera- 
 tives similarly employed in Great Britain. The people of 
 two cities may differ in many respects, even of two cities 
 in one of our own States. Between Lowell and Fall River, 
 both in the State of Massachusetts, for example, the statis- 
 tics of that commonwealth show a great difference. The 
 people of Lowell are thrifty, self-respecting, and saving, 
 while those of Fall River are less so, according to the 
 reports of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor. When to 
 the ordinary temptations of an undue proportion of drink- 
 ing-shops, of ill-ventilated, unwholesome dwelling-houses, is 
 added dear land, which precludes the possibility of a work- 
 ing-man saving enough to buy a house for himself and his 
 family, it may easily be seen why the same man may change 
 his nature if he shall be transplanted from one place to the 
 other. An operative who may in Manchester waste the 
 average time in drunkenness, which, according to trust- 
 worthy reports, is two days in a week, may, in the different 
 atmosphere of Lowell, become a saver of money. In the 
 one place, it is the thing to get drunk ; in the other, it is 
 the thing to have an account in the savings bank. 
 
 If capitalists engaged in carrying on protected manu- 
 fnctures are so much interested in keeping up the wages 
 of labor, why do they import cheap labor from abroad ? It 
 is a custom in New England and in other parts of the 
 country where the ..business of manufacturing is carried on, 
 to import labor from Europe and elsewhere because it is 
 cheaper than American labor. Only a year ago a foreign 
 government had occasion to make strong representations to 
 our State Department, because of the conduct of some mill- 
 
44 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 owners in New Hampshire towards subjects of Sweden. 
 These Swedes had been brought here at the expense of the 
 mill-owners, and had been supplied with household furniture 
 and provisions from a store connected with the mill. The 
 operatives received small wages, and when they were in 
 debt to the company they were in its power. When there 
 was danger that their earnings would pay their debts, the 
 mill would stop running, and the debts would be given a 
 chance to grow. In this way the Swedes were kept in 
 slavery. When better employment and higher wages were 
 offered them in the neighboring State of Massachusetts, and 
 they attempted to take advantage of the opportunity to 
 better their lot, they were arrested on the ground that- they 
 were about to quit the State of New Hampshire for the 
 purpose of defrauding their creditors. 
 
 This is not a unique case. The manufacturers, protected 
 or not, seek to secure their working-men for low wages, 
 because low wages is one of the elements that go to the 
 making of large profits. Protectionists say that they desire 
 a high tariff in order that the difference between the high 
 wages of this country and the low wages paid by their 
 foreign competitors may be made up. But as a matter of 
 fact they receive much more than that. At least they do 
 not begin to pay to their laborers what they receive from 
 the taxpayers in the way of bounty, and in very many 
 instances the manufacturer receives in bounty more than the 
 whole cost of his wages. 
 
 Speaker Carlisle figures out, from returns of the census 
 of 1880, that it requires two tons of ore to make one ton of 
 pig iron, and that the cost of labor in this quantity of ore is 
 $2.70, and in making pig iron is $3.35 a ton. It takes 1.3 
 tons of pig iron to make one ton of bar iron, the total cost 
 of labor in the pig being $4.35. According to the testimony 
 of persons engaged in the business, the cost of labor in making 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 45 
 
 one ton of merchant bar iron was, in 1880, $13. Mr. Car- 
 lisle, therefore, formulated this statement : 
 
 Cost of labor in 2 tons iron ore $2.70 
 
 " 1 ton pig iron 4.35 
 
 " " 1 ton bar iron .....'.... 13.00 
 
 Total cost of labor $20.05 
 
 But the duty on merchant bar iron was $33.60 per ton, 
 " or $13.55 more than enough to pay for all the labor in its 
 production from the time the crude material leaves the earth 
 until it is sent from the mill as a finished article. And 
 besides this," said Mr. Carlisle, in his speech of March 28 
 and 29, 1882, "there is a duty of 20 per cent on the ore 
 equal to $1.10 per two tons, and a duty of $7 per ton on the 
 pig, making the aggregate duty upon all these forms of pro- 
 duct $43.80." 
 
 A very interesting and important table was prepared by 
 the Hon. Thomas J. Wood, of Indiana, and used by him in 
 the debate on the Morrison tariff bill. This table showed 
 that the value of the product of all mechanical and manu- 
 facturing industries in the census year was $5,369,579,191. 
 The amount paid for labor in the production of this value 
 was $947,953,795. The percentage of value paid for labor 
 was 17.7 ; but the manufacturers received from the taxpayers 
 a bounty of 40 per cent, so that there was an excess of tariff 
 over the cost of labor of 22.3 per cent. Mr. Wood's table 
 will be found in full in the Appendix, but a few extracts 
 showing the excess of bounty over the entire cost of labor 
 will illustrate the important fact that the taxpayers of this 
 country pay to the protected manufactures all the wages, 
 interest, and insurance that they are obliged to expend. The 
 following list shows the excesses of tariff duties over cost 
 of labor : 
 
46 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 Agricultural implements 12.6 p. c. 
 
 Bags, other than paper 32.0 " 
 
 Leather belting and hose 20.7 " 
 
 Linen " " 20.1 " 
 
 liubber " " 17.9 " 
 
 Hag carpets , 17.9 " 
 
 Carpets, other than rag 28.28 " 
 
 Clothing, men's, 
 
 cotton 13.1 " 
 
 woollen 38.1 " 
 
 linen 18.1 " 
 
 silk 28.1 " 
 
 women's, same. 
 
 Cotton goods 16.7 " 
 
 thread .' 28.6 " 
 
 Cotton ties 20.5 " 
 
 Drugs and chemicals 26.2 " 
 
 Food preparations 7.2 tl 
 
 Fruit-jar trimmings 8.5 and 23.5 " 
 
 Furnishing goods. Silk 27 " 
 
 Woollen 37 " 
 
 Linen 17 " 
 
 Cotton 12 " 
 
 India rubber 7 " 
 
 Furniture, manufactured 5 
 
 silk reps 20 
 
 woollen reps 25 " 
 
 marble slabs . 25 " 
 
 haircloths 7 " 
 
 varnish 10 " 
 
 Glass, common window 25.1 " 
 
 polished window 18.0 " 
 
 fluted, or rough plate 7.0 " 
 
 plate glass 42.6 " 
 
 silvered glass 14.4 " 
 
 cut, stained, and ornamented 17.1 " 
 
 Hand-knit goods, woollens 24.1 " 
 
 cottons 9.1 " 
 
 House-furnishing goods, 
 
 Earthenware, common .... 8.7 " 
 
 China, unornamented 38.7 " 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 47 
 
 House-furnishing goods continued. 
 
 China, ornamented 43.7 p. c. 
 
 Cutlery 28.7 " 
 
 Glassware 28.7 " 
 
 Willow ware 13.7 " 
 
 Woodenware 18.7 " 
 
 Linens 23.7 " 
 
 Cottons 18.7 " 
 
 Metals 28.7 " 
 
 Iron and steel 22.2 
 
 Iron bolts, nuts, washers, and rivets 25.3 
 
 Iron doors and shutters 24.1 
 
 Ironforgings 24.5 " 
 
 Iron nails and spikes, cut and wrought . 9.4 and 49.9 
 
 Iron pipe, wrought 28.5 
 
 Leather from 4.1 to 35.8 " 
 
 Linen goods 19.4 " 
 
 Liquors from 9.2 to 79.59 " 
 
 Lumber average about 16 
 
 Marble from 13.4 to 58.1 " 
 
 Woollen hats 48.5 " 
 
 Woollen goods 49.5 " 
 
 Worsted goods 33.3 " 
 
 These facts show that the manufacturers receive too much 
 protection if they desire only to make up the difference be- 
 tween wages in this country and wages abroad. They show 
 that the taxpayers bestow upon many of them all the wages 
 that their labor costs them, and from 8 to 50 per cent in ad- 
 dition. That certainly should be a profitable business which 
 costs the owner nothing for labor, interest, or insurance. 
 
 What do these unprotected manufacturers do? It has 
 already been stated that they import foreign labor to com- 
 pete with American working-men, and keep them in slavery 
 at that. Moreover, the testimony of Consul Shaw at Man- 
 chester is, that many operatives in British cotton mills are 
 better paid than the men doing the same work in American 
 mills. The reports of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor 
 
48 ^ OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 Statistics show a deplorable state of affairs, small pay, 
 all the earnings of the operatives eaten up by the mill 
 stores, unwholesome dwellings, and overworked women 
 and children. A cigarrnaker testifies that in Pennsylvania 
 the wages earned by men of his craft average from $2 to 
 $6 a week, lower than the wages paid to Chinese laborers 
 on the Pacific coast. Mr. John Jarrett testifies that the 
 condition of the coal miners of Pennsylvania is miserable 
 and pitiable. They take their lives in their hands, and yet 
 they are paid a pittance, and their protected employers 
 make them pay for what they buy 100 per cent more than 
 other people pay. 
 
 The protectionists have a good deal to say about the evil 
 of employing women and children in factories, and they pro- 
 fess that the benefits which they receive from a high tariff 
 enable them to remedy this evil. With more than all their 
 pay-roll provided by the taxpayers of the country, they 
 ought be able to accomplish this good ; but do they? Statis- 
 tics show that they are as eager to obtain low-priced labor 
 as their competitors in Europe. In cotton mills of this 
 country there are employed girls as young as 7 or 8 years. In 
 the potteries of Trenton we may find even children of 9 
 years old at work. As a rule, the women who work in the 
 great mills of Pennsylvania labor from 7 in the morning 
 until 6 in the evening, with an hour's intermission, and 
 for this they receive from $5 to $7 a week. The mills of 
 Philadelphia employ large numbers of women, and it is the 
 common practice of these women to lock their children in 
 the street while the mothers go to work at the factory. 
 Recently, nurseries have been established where the children 
 of factory hands can be left at a fixed charge by the day 
 while their mothers are at work. 
 
 The picture that is presented by the honest reports that 
 are made on labor in factories is not such as that which is 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 49 
 
 presented by the protectionists in "their newspapers and their 
 speeches in Congress. Labor suffers all the exactions that 
 employers can make upon it; and in addition to the grind- 
 ing force of competition, there must be added all the taxa- 
 tion which a protective tariff imposes upon every consumer, 
 whether he is a merchant, a professional man, a laborer, or 
 even a bounty-fed manufacturer. 
 
 The Massachusetts Report of the Statistics of Labor for 
 188*2 shows some remarkable facts. Between 1878 and 
 1881 the wages of unprotected agriculture increased 14.1 
 per cent ; of blacksmithing, 11.8 per cent ; of builders' trades, 
 4.9 per cent ; of printing, 10.2 per cent. But the wages of 
 protected boot and shoemakers decreased 4.4 per cent ; of 
 carpet makers, 7.9 per cent. The wages of laborers in pro- 
 tected cotton mills increased 9.1 per cent ; in glass factories, 
 11.6 per cent ; hosiery, 13.5 per cent ; machines and machin- 
 ery, 22 per cent. The average increase of all industries was 
 6.9 per cent. 
 
 At the same time groceries advanced 9.1 per cent; pro- 
 visions, 20.1 per cent ; fuel, 30.1 per cent ; dry goods, 9 per 
 cent; boots fell in price 1.6 per cent; rents advanced 35.1 
 per cent ; board, 13.7 per cent. 
 
 Mr. Wright says, " On all these items entering into the 
 cost of living, the average increase was 21.2 per cent." 
 
 Considering all this, does the working-man think that pro- 
 tection is of any benefit to him ? In the first place he is 
 taxed heavily on everything which he buys. Most of the 
 working-men of the country receive no return whatever for 
 this increased taxation. They labor in occupations which 
 obtain no share of the vast sum of money taken from the 
 taxpayers for the support of the manufacturers. The wages 
 of those who do work for manufacturers, which are'increased 
 by protection, are not increased so much as is the cost of 
 living. Notwithstanding the fact that the protectionists 
 
50 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 assert that they ask for high duties in order to maintain 
 high wages, they reap the benefit of protection themselves. 
 If they should submit to an average reduction of between 
 17 and 18 per cent, they would still receive from the tax- 
 payers a bounty large enough not only to pay the difference 
 between wages here and wages m Great Britain, but abso- 
 lutely all the wages they pay ; at the same time this reduc- 
 tion to which they refuse to consent would make wages 
 mean more to the working-men, for the purchasing power 
 of each dollar would be greater. The charitable intentions 
 of the protectionists towards the working-men are not borne 
 out by the story of labor in this country. There are, indeed, 
 model manufacturing towns where the operatives of mills 
 are cared for. They have good homes, good schools, libra- 
 ries, and many advantages. But the coal miners of Pennsyl- 
 vania, earning less than a dollar a day, and bled by the 
 truck system ; the workers in furnaces, whose wages have 
 been cut down 20 per cent, while their employers have suf- 
 fered no decrease in the bounty which the taxpayers are 
 compelled to give them; the women of Philadelphia, earning 
 $5 a week for ten hours' daily toil, and leaving their children 
 at the neighbors' or at nurseries, at a cost which must be paid 
 from their scanty earnings, or, if the mothers cannot afford 
 that charge, locking the children in the streets ; the strikes 
 which last for months, and which rarely attain their ends; 
 the closing of mills made necessary by over-production ; the 
 importation of cheap foreign labor, all those tell a story 
 which contradicts with its terrible facts the pretended phil- 
 anthropy of the protectionists.* 
 
 * In the census year the average income of hands employed in 
 manufacturing, mechanical, and mining pursuits was $346. Since 
 then, according to the testimony of an expert friendly to the em- 
 ployers, wages have been reduced 20 per cent, so that the average 
 income is now $277. 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 51 
 
 One of the great evils of the system is that it increases the 
 distance between the poor and the rich. If a manufacturer 
 pays 15 per cent of the cost of production for labor, and 
 receives a protection of 45 per cent, the government is help- 
 ing him on the road to wealth, while it does not help his 
 working-men to the extent of a solitary cent. The rich are 
 helped in the increase of their riches, and the poor remain 
 where they are. Wealth is distributed not only unequally, 
 but artificially, and the working-man suffers while the pro- 
 tected manufacturer gains. Every vote cast by a laboring 
 man for a protectionist for Congress is a vote against his 
 own interests. 
 
 VI. 
 
 WHAT PROTECTION DOES FOR TRADE AND COMMERCE. 
 
 PROTECTION tends to destroy foreign commerce, and it 
 restricts domestic trade. If it does not accomplish this it 
 fails of its end. The professed purpose of those who advo- 
 cate a continuance of a high tariff is the prevention of im- 
 portations, in order that our people may manufacture for 
 themselves all that is necessary for their use. The logical 
 conclusion from this position is that a perfect tariff would 
 prohibit importations of all manufactured articles. The 
 cost to the consumer is a matter of indifference. Protec- 
 tion seeks to compel every American to wear American 
 goods, no matter how badly they may be made or how ex- 
 pensive they may be. 
 
 A protectionist looks upon commerce as hostile to the best 
 interests of the country. A hundred years ago the theory 
 that commerce is an object of suspicion was fashionable 
 everywhere except in Holland, and the shrewd Dutchmen 
 
52 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 profited by the intellectual blindness of their European 
 neighbors. To-day the old fallacy is fashionable again in 
 the United States, and in some countries on the continent 
 of Europe, while Great Britain wisely reaps the rewards of 
 extended commerce. 
 
 The manufacturers of this country do not want competi- 
 tion. This does not mean in every instance that they are 
 still unable to compete. In some branches of manufactures 
 they make the best goods that are produced. There is no 
 reason, for example, why cotton goods should be protected. 
 The cotton is grown at our doors, whereas the English mills 
 are obliged to import it from us, paying freight on all that 
 they receive. Then, when their goods are made, they are 
 compelled to pay freight back if they send them to this 
 country. Moreover our machinery is much better than the 
 English machinery. Is not cheaper raw material and freight 
 money over and back across the Atlantic sufficient protec- 
 tion ? It would be, but if protection were removed the 
 American cotton manufacturers would have to be content 
 with a larger market and smaller prices. Now we shall see 
 the result of this on the cotton goods trade of the country 
 which produces most of the raw cotton of the world. In 
 1881 it was estimated by the State Department that the 
 United States produced four fifths of all the cotton of the 
 world ; and yet the value of the cotton manufactures in 
 Great Britain was $561,170,000, while that of the manu- 
 facturers of this country was less than half as much, $233,- 
 280,000. Taking the figures of a pamphlet published by 
 the State Department, while Mr. Blaine was Secretary of 
 State, we find that the commerce of this coijntry with the 
 world, in cotton goods, was in a shameful condition. 
 
 Of all the cotton goods imported into the continent of 
 Africa, and the value reached $25,866,000, $16,049,000 were 
 taken from the United Kingdom, and only $817,000 from 
 the United States. 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 53 
 
 If this country ought to have any commerce it is certainly 
 with the countries of our own continent, and yet even here 
 our Chinese wall policy of protection keeps us from compet- 
 ing with Great Britain. In 1880 Great Britain exported to 
 Mexico 35,008,200 yards of cotton goods, valued at $2,406,-' 
 000. In the same year the exports of this country to our 
 nearest southern neighbor amounted to only 9,210,398 yards, 
 valued at $832,235. Although our manufacturers are thou- 
 sands of miles nearer the Mexican market than the British 
 manufacturers are, our plain cottons cost 6.97 cents a yard 
 while the British sold at 6.06 cents, and our prints cost 7.84 
 cents, and the British prints 7.22 cents. 
 
 The showing as to the Central American trade is still 
 worse. In 1880 the United Kingdom exported to Central 
 America cotton goods to the value of 82,161,000, while the 
 exports of this country amounted to only $77,736. 
 
 Great Britain exported to the West Indies $9,582,000 
 worth of cotton goods. The French exports amounted to 
 $1,221,000, while those of the United States reached only 
 the insignificant sum of $956,802. 
 
 The prices per yard of the goods of the two countries are 
 significant. They were as follows : 
 
 Prices of goods exported to Central America. 
 
 Plain. Prints, 
 
 cts. cts. 
 
 From Great Britain . 5.23 7.15 
 
 " United States 6.89 7.14 
 
 And yet with this small difference in favor of the Ameri- 
 can manufacturer in the price of prints, the Central American 
 market took $855,000 worth of prints from Great Britain 
 and only $28,322 worth from the United States. The rea- 
 son is plain. Great Britain's policy is to seek a foreign 
 market, and her manufacturers, therefore, make goods that 
 satisfy the demand. 
 
54 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 The prices in the West Indies were as follows : 
 
 Plain. Prints. 
 
 cts. cts. 
 
 Great Britain 6.72 7.28 
 
 United States 8.68 10.63 
 
 i 
 
 The following table shows the export of cotton goods to 
 the principal South American countries : 
 
 Values. 
 
 Great Britain. United States. 
 
 Colombia $3,163,000 $586,692 
 
 Venezuela 1,449,000 149,316 
 
 Brazil 17,182,000 687,523 
 
 Uruguay 3,081,000 , 52,524 
 
 Argentine Republic 4,816,000 133,647 
 
 Chili 5,162,000 217,869 
 
 The value of the cottons sent from England to British 
 India in 1880 was $102,870,000, while the value of American 
 cottons sent there was $136,043. 
 
 Great Britain sent to China and Hong Kong cottons 
 valued at $29,774,000, and the United States sent $373,568. 
 
 Japan received $9,784,000 worth of British goods, and 
 $33,331 worth of American. 
 
 The trade of the two countries with Europe is shown as 
 follows : 
 
 Great Britain. United States. 
 
 Denmark $1,871,000 $2,812 
 
 Germany 14,648,000 166,029* 
 
 Holland 12,525,000 3,847 
 
 Belgium . . . 5,273,000 12,531 
 
 France 8,615,000 21,507 
 
 Spain 2,281,000 none 
 
 Portugal 4,150,000 1,200 
 
 Italy 7,064,000 10,566 
 
 Austria-Hungary 936,000 2,650 
 
 * The prices of American goods were cheaper than those of British. 
 The American goods cost 7.4 cents a yard for plain, and 9.09 cents for 
 print. The British goods cost 8.14 and 9.22 cents. 
 
OUK UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 55 
 
 The protectionists of the United States deliberately close 
 the door on this important commerce, because they prefer 
 to receive the high price of the home market to competing 
 with the manufacturers of Great Britain, who pay more for 
 their raw cotton, operate with not so good machinery, and 
 who yet study the demands of the world, supply all the 
 markets of the world, and who derive from lower prices a 
 greater prosperity than our own manufacturers can boast. 
 The reports of our consuls show that American cottons are 
 better than British, and when they do enter into competi- 
 tion are often sold cheaper than the British cottons. But 
 the foreign demand is only supplied by Americans when our 
 own market is glutted. Whenever there is a large home 
 demand our manufacturers turn their backs on the foreigners 
 and reap for a time the high prices at home which the 
 bounty enables them to charge. Instability is the general 
 result of the protective system, abnormal profits one day, 
 and gloomy depression the next; four months running day 
 and night, another four months of half-time, and another of 
 strikes, lock-outs, or entire shutting down ; the sale of goods 
 at unreasonably high prices, or their exportation at rates 
 which cannot pay. 
 
 There are not enough cotton goods manufactured by 
 power looms to supply the wear of the world. According 
 to our State Department, it is estimated that the Chinese 
 alone wear out 7,300,000,000 yards of cottons annually, made 
 on hand looms. Why not supply the enormous demand of 
 a people whose chief clothing is of cotton, and who are at 
 the other end of the route of the Pacific Mail Steamship 
 Company ? 
 
 The United States can compete and compete successfully 
 with Great Britain. The difference between the cotton 
 trade statistics of Canada and those of Mexico are very 
 For some reason, our manufacturers have 
 
56 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 found it to their profit to cultivate the trade of Canada, and 
 the result is that they exported to that country, in 1880, 
 cotton goods to the value of $2,766,779, while Great Brit- 
 ain's exports were valued at $3,771,165, and the exports of 
 plain goods were three times as many as those of Great 
 Britain. The prices per yard were as follows : 
 
 Plain. Print. 
 
 cts. cts. 
 
 Great Britain . . . . . . . 6.75 8.25 
 
 United States * . 6.75 7 
 
 The story of our cotton goods trade is the story of all 
 our commerce. Contrast the export trade of Great Brit- 
 ain and the United States for 1881, with the following 
 countries : 
 
 Great Britain. United States. 
 
 Africa $68,754,000 $4,581,924 
 
 Canada 43,583,808 36,704,112 
 
 Mexico 6,235,000 11,191,000 
 
 Central America . . . 3,310,000 1,626,000 
 
 Colombia ....'. 5,220,000 5,383,000 
 
 Venezuela 2,123,000 2,770,000 
 
 British Guiana .... 4,200,COO 1,723,000 
 
 Dutch Guiana .... 260,000 289,000 
 
 Brazil 33,607,000 9,200,000 
 
 Uruguay 6,877,000 1,612,000 
 
 Argentine Republic . . . 12,103,000 3,121,000 
 
 Chili 12,219,000 1,520,000 
 
 Peru 1,847,000 94,000 
 
 Of the exports of leading manufactured articles exported 
 to South America, Great Britain's exports amount to 
 $79,258,000, the exports of France to $58,113,000, and 
 those of the United States to $25,220,000. Great Britain, 
 in 1880, exported to the several countries of Europe goods 
 of the value of $617,576,000. The exports of France 
 amounted to $625,963,000, and those of the United States 
 to $765,701,000. Of these exports Great Britain exported 
 only $389,132,000 of British goods, France $479,819,000 of 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. $7 
 
 French goods, while the United States exported $754,995,- 
 000 of American goods. But this great exportation was 
 made up chiefly of the products of the soil. As has been 
 shown before, it is the farmer who must stand the com- 
 petition of the foreign market. In the fiscal year 1881, the 
 total exports of this country amounted to $883,915,947. Of 
 this amount, $748,536,043 was the value of the natural 
 products, and $135,379,904 of manufactured articles. And 
 these were the principal items of the natural products : 
 
 Bread and Breadstuffs $268,890,139 
 
 Cotton 247,696,746 
 
 Provisions 151,428,268 
 
 $668,015,153 
 
 Our commerce, then, is at the best not much different 
 than it would have been had the government never taxed 
 the farmer and the laborer to maintain the manufacturer. 
 It is a commerce in which we exchange the products of the 
 soil for the manufactured articles of other countries. We 
 do not even make enough cotton goods for ourselves. In 
 1881 we imported $234,962,511 of manufactured articles, 
 and $31,219,361 of this was the value of foreign cotton 
 goods brought into the country, while the cottons we sent 
 abroad were valued at only $13,571,287. 
 
 Protection has not only failed to give the country the 
 home market which it promised, but it has also failed to 
 give us the diversified interests for which we pay in tariff 
 taxes, and bounties. It does not even give us enough high- 
 priced American fabrics, and it obstructs and has destroyed 
 our foreign commerce. The shipping trade is ruined. In 
 1880 this country imported goods from Europe amounting 
 to $340,831,000, and only $11,863,000 came in American 
 vessels ; of the $754,995,000 exports, of the same year, only 
 $46,707,000 went in American vessels. 
 
58 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 In 1855 there were built in this country for the foreign 
 carrying trade 400 vessels. In 1879 only 35 were built. 
 On the other hand, the tonnage of Great Britain engaged 
 in the carrying trade with this country has increased, since 
 1857, from 950,000 tons to nearly 6,000,000 tons. In 1857, 
 this country had more than 4,000,000 tons engaged in the 
 foreign trade ; now it has hardly 600,000 tons. Last year 
 we paid $120,000,000 freight money to foreign shipowners. 
 
 The protective tariff prevents trading with foreign coun- 
 tries ; it throws obstacles in the way of American citizens 
 who desire to engage in the business of importing goods; 
 it has destroyed the carrying trade ; it prevents the citizens 
 of this country from earning the $120,000,000 of freight 
 money annually paid to foreign ships. During the last year 
 the flag of the United States was not once seen in the Suez 
 Canal, and it is rarely found in ports where it was once the 
 best known ensign of the world. t Can the commerce of the 
 country afford any longer to cripplevits resources and limit 
 its field, for the sake of increasing ^Uie profits of the pro- 
 tected manufacturers ? 
 
 YIL 
 
 WHAT A LOW TARIFF DID FOR THE COUNTRY. 
 
 BETWEEN 1846 and 1860 the country had a low tariff. 
 Under the law of 1846 the average rate of duty was about 
 25 per cent, and under the act of 1857 it was about 20 per 
 cent. There never was a period of greater prosperity in the 
 history of the country. 
 
 In 1850 the cash value of farms was $3,271,575,426, and 
 in 1860 it was $6,645,045,057, an increase of 103 per cent 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 59 
 
 In 1870 the value of farms was $9,262,853,861 in currency, 
 an increase of only 39 per cent over the gold valuation of 
 1860. In 1880 the value of farms was $10,197,096,766, an 
 increase of a little more than 10 per cent over the value of 
 1870. From 1850 to 1860 the value of farming implements 
 increased 63.50 per cent. In the next decade the increase 
 was only 36 per cent in currency, while from 1870 to 1880 
 the increase was only 20.66 per cent. 
 
 From 1830 to 1840 the aggregate value of all real and 
 personal property increased 40 per cent ; from 1840 to 1850 
 37 per cent. In 1850 this aggregate value was $7,135,- 
 780,228; in 1860 it was $16,159,616,068, an increase of 126 
 per cent. In 1870 the aggregate value was $30,068,518,507, 
 in currency, being an apparent increase of a little more than 
 85 per cent. In 1860 the total State and local taxation was 
 $94,186,746, but in 1870 it had reached the enormous sum 
 of $280,591,521, an increase of 198 per cent, although the 
 value of property had increased only 85 per cent. An ex- 
 amination of the report of the Superintendent of the Census 
 for 1870 shows that the increase in the value of real and 
 personal property from 1850 to 1860 was more than 184 per 
 cent, instead of 126 per cent, and that instead of an increase 
 of 85 per cent from 1860 to 1870, there was an actual de- 
 crease of more than 3 per cent. This arises from what the 
 superintendent says was an undervaluation of property in 
 1860, by carelessness, of from 20 to 30 per cent, while the 
 nominal valuation of property was increased in 1870 from 
 30 to 40 per cent through the effects of currency inflation 
 and other causes. Making the necessary allowances for 
 these sums, we have $20,199,520,085 as the proper valuation 
 for 1860, and $19,544,537,030 as the true valuation for 1870. 
 If our wealth had increased from 1860 to 1880 at the same 
 rate as it did from 1850 to 1860, it would have reached, in 
 1880, $83,000,000,000 instead of $43,300,000,000. 
 
60 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 There was the same wonderful increase in our manufac- 
 turing and mechanical industries. In 1850 the total value 
 of the products of mechanical and manufacturing industries 
 was $1,019,106,616; in 1860 it was $1,885,861,676, an in- 
 crease of 87 per cent, although the population of the country 
 had increased only 85.50 per cent. From 1860 to 1870 the 
 actual increase was only 52 per cent. 
 
 The increase in the production of coal, which, according 
 to the protection leaders, indicates better than any other 
 single branch of industry the progress of all manufacturing 
 enterprises, was very wonderful between 1850 and 1860. 
 The following table shows this increase: 
 
 per cent. 
 
 Gain in number of mines 22.30 
 
 value of yearly products .... 182 
 
 " " material used 1017 
 
 amount paid as wages 137 
 
 number of hands employed .... 143.33 
 
 amount of capital invested .... 253 
 
 In Pennsylvania the capital invested in the production of 
 coal was 331 per cent greater in 1860 than in 1850, and the 
 value of the coal produced increased 179.90 per cent. In 
 Maryland the increase was nearly 137 per cent ; in Ohio 
 nearly 127 per cent; in Indiana nearly 652 per cent; in 
 Illinois it was 1708 per cent ; in Iowa it was 2204 per cent; 
 in Kentucky it was 200 per cent ; and in Alabama nearly 
 237 per cent. 
 
 During the fiscal year 1860 our foreign trade amounted 
 to $687,372,176, which was $45,000,000 greater than ever 
 before. We built 2,265 ships and barques, between 1850 
 and 1860, and only 860 during the next decade, and only 
 608 between 1870 and 1880. Then our tonnage engaged in 
 all trades, coasting as well as foreign, was 5,353,868 tons; 
 now, after the expiration of twenty years, it is 4,068,035 
 tons. 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 61 
 
 The social and intellectual condition of the people kept 
 pace with the material progress. Schools, churches, and 
 libraries flourished. The product of the printing establish- 
 ments of the United States increased 107.60 per cent from 
 1860 to 1870, while the capital invested increased during the 
 same time, 143 per cent. Wonderful as this is, it does not 
 tell the story of the prosperity and growth of the preceding 
 decade under a revenue tariff. Then the products of the 
 printing houses increased 168 per cent, while the capital 
 invested increased 235 per cent. In New England the in- 
 creased product was more than 96 per cent, and in the 
 Middle States 139 per cent. Pennsylvania increased her pro- 
 duct 250 per cent, and New Jersey 322 per cent. 
 
 In the eleven western States and Territories, the increase 
 was 572 per cent. The State of New York increased 104.60 
 per cent, and actually turned out in 1860 more than the 
 whole country produced in 1850. 
 
 In 1850 we had 18,417 postoffices and 178,672 miles of 
 post routes, but in 1860 we had 28,498 post-offices and 245,- 
 594 miles of post routes, an increase of 55 per cent in the 
 number of offices, and 35 per cent in miles of roads. In 
 1880, 20 years later, we had 42,989 postoffices, being an in- 
 crease of only 50 per cent over the number in 1860, and 343,- 
 888 miles of post roads, being an increase of 42.50 per cent 
 since 1860. 
 
 In the manufacture of paper the United States increased 
 the value of its product 106.50 per cent from 1860 to 1870, 
 while the capital invested increased 126.50 per cent, but from 
 1850 to 1860 the value of the product increased more than 
 108 per cent, and the capital invested increased nearly 180 
 per cent. The increase in the number of hands employed 
 was 73.50 per cent, and in the total amount of wages paid 89 
 per cent. Pennsylvania alone increased her product 128 
 per cent. 
 
62 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 Up to the end of the year 1850 we had constructed only 
 9,021 miles of railroad in this country, but at the close of 
 1860, we had 30,635 miles, being an increase of 239.50 per 
 cent in ten years. At the close of the year 1870 we had 52,- 
 914 miles of railroad, being an increase of only a little more 
 than 72 per cent over the number in 1860, notwithstanding 
 the government had since 1860 granted millions of acres of 
 public lands, and issued its bonds to the amount of millions 
 of dollars to various railroad companies to aid in the con- 
 struction of their lines. In 1880 we had 88,237 miles of 
 railroad, an increase of 66.66 per cent during the decade. 
 
 The value of the output of our woollen mills from 1850 to 
 1860 increased nearly 42.50 per cent, while from 1870 to 1880 
 it increased only 22.57 per cent. The number of hands em- 
 ployed increased 18.50 per cent, and the total wages increased 
 36.80 per cent. In New England the product of the woollen 
 mills increased 62 per cent; the increase in Rhode Island be- 
 ing 176 per cent; Massachusetts, 53.70 percent; New Jersey, 
 21.57 per cent ; Vermont, 61.39 per cent; and Maine, 83.46 
 per cent. 
 
 The value of the carpet manufactures increased 45.40 per 
 cent. The increase in the number of hands employed was 
 8 per cent, and the increase in the total of wages paid was 
 nearly 24 per cent. The compensation received by each 
 hand was 15 per cent more in 1860 than in 1850. In the 
 Middle States the value of the product increased 80.90 per 
 cent ; in Ohio, 208 per cent ; in Maine, 47.30 per cent ; in 
 Massachusetts, 44.80 per cent ; in New York, 32.90 per cent; 
 and in Pennsylvania 138 per cent. 
 
 The products of the manufactures of hosiery increased 
 608 per cent. The Eastern States increased 481 per cent ; 
 the Middle States, 695.50 per cent ; and the Western States, 
 445 per cent. Pennsylvania increased 276 per cent; Con- 
 necticut, 523 per cent ; New Jersey, 379 per cent ; Massachu- 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. G3 
 
 setts, 373 per cent ; Maryland, 255 per cent ; Ohio, 278 per 
 cent ; and Missouri, 726 per cent. 
 
 The production of iron ore increased 79.20 per cent, while 
 the capital invested increased 126.30 per cent. The total 
 number of hands employed in this industry was 45 per cent 
 greater in 1860 than in 1850, and the total amount of wages 
 paid was nearly 57 per cent greater. 
 
 The production of pig iron increased 54 per cent in the 
 United States. In the State of Pennsylvania it increased 
 82 per cent; in New Jersey, 105 per cent; in Kentucky, 27 
 per cent ; and in New York, 3 per cent. At the same time 
 the price of pig iron was reduced from $23.43 in 1850 to 
 $21.13 in 1860. 
 
 The increase in the value of bar, sheet, and railroad iron 
 was more than 100 per cent. The number of hands em- 
 ployed increased 66 per cent, and the amount of wages paid. 
 80 per cent. In this industry Pennsylvania increased her 
 production 106 per cent ; Delaware, 230 per cent; Maryland, 
 104 per cent; Ohio, 173 per cent; Kentucky, 68 per cent; and 
 Virginia, 104 per cent. 
 
 Iron castings increased in value of the product 74.80 per 
 cent. In the Middle States the value of the product was 
 more than 100 per cent greater in 1860 than in 1850 ; in 
 Pennsylvania, 100 per cent; and in Maine more than 520 per 
 cent. 
 
 In the production of hardware there was an increase of 
 56.70 per cent, while the capital invested increased 90 per 
 cent, and the number of hands employed increased 52.50 per 
 cent. The New England States increased 100 per cent, and 
 made more hardware in 1860 than all the States made in 
 1850. Connecticut alone increased her production 103.80 
 per cent; and New Jersey, 360 per cent. The Western 
 States increased their product 74 per cent, while the State 
 of Ohio increased 99 per cent. 
 
64 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 The steel industry had its birth during the decade from 
 1850 to 1860. The product increased 99.50 per cent, while 
 the capital invested increased over 3,000 per cent, the hands 
 employed 1,770 per cent, and the wages paid 123.60 per 
 cent. 
 
 In the manufacture of machinery, steam engines, etc., 
 including locomotives, hay and cotton presses, and cotton 
 and woollen machinery, the value of the product increased 
 66.60 per cent in the whole country, but in the Western 
 States the increase was 217 per cent. 
 
 The manufacture of sewing machines was scarcely known 
 in 1850, but in 1860 the value of the product was $4,247,820. 
 
 During this prosperous decade, when every branch of 
 commerce flourished, when labor was adequately rewarded, 
 and when the American mechanic was prosperous, when not 
 only the material but the intellectual and moral forces of 
 the country grew rapidly and healthfully, the government 
 effected two loans, amounting in the aggregate to $40,000,- 
 000. One half of this indebtedness consisted of Treasury 
 notes bearing six per cent interest, and redeemable at the 
 expiration of one year from date. These notes were issued 
 under the act of December 23, 1857, and although part of 
 them bore only three per cent interest they were sold at 
 par. 
 
 The other loan of $20,000,000 was effected by the sale of 
 bonds, authorized by the act of June 14, 1858. They were 
 made redeemable fifteen years after date, and bore interest 
 at the rate of five per cent per annum. They were sold at 
 a premium of from two to seven per cent in gold. Since 
 that time the government has never sold a bond, no matter 
 what the rate of interest might be, for any such premium 
 as was obtained for the bonds issued under the act of 1858. 
 
 An act passed June 22, 1860, was simply a funding act. 
 It authorized the issue of bonds or stocks to an amount not 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 65 
 
 exceeding 821,000,000, bearing interest not exceeding six 
 per cent, and redeemable not more than 20 years after date. 
 The money raised was to be used only in the redemption 
 of Treasury notes previously issued. Under this act there 
 was raised the sum of $7,022,000, the bonds issued bearing 
 interest at the rate of five per cent. Some of these bonds 
 were sold at par, and the remainder at a premium of nearly 
 1.50 per cent. 
 
 No other decade excepting that during which the country 
 was blessed with a revenue tariff has such a story of pros- 
 perity to tell as these ten years have stamped on our history. 
 No other decade will have such a story to tell until the 
 government ceases to tax four fifths of the people for the 
 benefit of a small fraction of the other fifth. 
 
66 
 
 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 
 
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OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 67 
 
 Machinery. 
 
 Occupations. 
 
 England. 
 
 Germany. 
 
 rH 
 
 1 
 
 1880. Dundee. 
 
 1880. Glasgow. 
 
 1880. Reports 
 of chambers 
 of commerce. 
 
 1882. Statis- 
 tical tables of 
 Concordia. 
 
 Hours 
 
 66-72 
 
 54 
 
 54 
 
 54 
 
 
 
 Pattern-makers . 
 Iron-moulders . . 
 Brass-moulders . . 
 
 $7 92 
 8 64 
 
 $7 92 
 8 40 
 8 40 
 12 96 
 
 $696 
 7 20 
 672 
 
 $7 56 
 
 jjf 
 
 03 O * 
 
 &S3 
 
 Weekly earnings of skilled men in 
 machine shops, 232 towns: 8 at $2.40; 
 6 at $2.64; 26 at $2.87; 21 at $3.36; 65 
 at $3.60; 13 at $3.84; 9 at $4.08; 58 at 
 $4.32; 5 at $4.60; 8 at $4.80; 4 at $5.04; 
 1 at 5.38; 5 at $5.76; 1 at $6.24; 1 at 
 $6.48; 1 at $6.96. Average for the 
 the Empire, $3.82. 
 
 Steam-hammermen 
 
 
 
 
 16 80 
 6 48 
 
 4 56 
 
 6 00 
 6 72 
 6 24 
 5 14 
 6 72 
 
 * 7 32 
 5 04 
 
 6 72 
 6 72 
 7 14 
 6 12 
 7 03 
 
 
 
 8 16 
 J 5 04 
 
 6 72 
 7 68 
 7 68 
 4 80 
 7 20 
 7 20 
 
 J 4 32 
 
 Strikers . . . < 
 
 3 36 
 to 
 432 
 
 Turners. .... 
 
 7 20 
 7 20 
 
 Fitters 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Laborers . . . j 
 Boiler-makers . . 
 
 360 
 to 
 4 80 
 8 16 
 
 3 84 
 6 48 
 
 4 08 
 7 32 
 
 Boots and Shoes. 
 
 
 it. 
 
 
 
 
 '. a 
 
 
 
 Description 
 of occupation. 
 
 Great Britaii 
 cester and 
 borhood, 11 
 
 France. 
 
 Germany. Tables of 
 Concordia. 
 
 Hours .... 
 
 56 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sewing machinists, 
 men 
 
 7 20 
 
 In France wages of 
 shoemakers are be- 
 
 In Germany wages for men 
 in the shoe industry vary 
 
 Sewing machinists 
 
 
 tween five and six 
 
 from $4, paid in Frank- 
 
 
 3 80 
 
 francs a day. (Re- 
 
 fort (o. M.), Karlsruhe 
 
 Cutters, men . . 
 Clickers, men . . 
 Riveters, men . . 
 Machine operators 
 
 5 04 
 6 48 
 6 00 
 
 port of Secretary 
 Evarts, State of La- 
 bor in Europe, 1878.) 
 
 $3.84, to Olt'enbach (o. 
 M.) $3.00 the latter the 
 centre of a large manu- 
 facturing industry in 
 
 
 6 72 
 
 
 this line. 
 
 Finishers .... 
 
 7 20 
 
 
 
68 
 
 OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 
 
 The following tables were presented to the Statistical 
 Society of Great Britain by its president, Robert Giffen, 
 LL.D., November 20, 1883 : 
 
 Comparison of wages fifty years ago and at the present time. 
 
 [From miscellaneous statistics of the United Kingdom and Porter's Progress 
 of the Nation.] 
 
 Occupation. 
 
 Place. 
 
 Wages per week. 
 
 Increase. 
 
 Fifty 
 years 
 ago. 
 
 Present 
 time. 
 
 | 
 
 d 
 B 
 o 
 
 1 
 
 Carpenters ...... 
 
 Manchester . 
 Glasgow . . 
 Manchester a 
 Glasgow . . 
 Manchester a 
 Glasgow . . 
 Staffordshire 
 Huddersfield 
 Huddersfield 
 Huddersfield 
 Huddersfield 
 Huddersfield 
 Huddersfield 
 Bradford . . 
 Bradford . . 
 Bradford . . 
 
 *. d. 
 140 
 14 
 140 
 15 
 140 
 14 
 62 8 
 16 
 17 
 156 
 12 
 17 
 6 
 8 3 
 7 9 
 4 5 
 
 s. d. 
 1 14 
 160 
 1 16 
 1 7-0 
 1 9 10 
 138 
 64 
 150 
 120 
 1 10 
 160 
 170 
 11 
 160 
 15 6 
 11 6 
 
 *. d. 
 10 
 12 
 12 
 12 
 5 10 
 9 8 
 1 4 
 9 
 5 
 4 6 
 14 
 10 
 5 
 12 3 
 7 9 
 7 1 
 
 42 
 85 
 50 
 80 
 24 
 69 
 50 
 55 
 30 
 20 
 115 
 58 
 83 
 150 
 100 
 160 
 
 
 Bricklayers 
 
 Bricklayers 
 
 
 Masons 
 
 Miners 
 Pattern-weavers .... 
 
 
 
 Warpers and beamers . . 
 Winders and reelers . . . 
 
 Reeling and warping . . 
 Spinning (children) . . . 
 
 a 1825. 
 
 6 Wages per day. 
 
 Comparison of seamen" 1 s money -wages per month, 1850 and the 
 
 present time. 
 [From the Progress of Merchant Shipping Returns.] 
 
 
 1850 sail- 
 ing. 
 
 Present 
 
 Increase. 
 
 steam. 
 
 Amount. 
 
 Per 
 
 cent. 
 
 
 s. d. 
 
 250 
 250 
 2 10 
 2 10 
 250 
 200 
 226 
 250 
 2 10 
 250 
 250 
 200 
 200 
 
 s. d. 
 3 15 
 3 10 
 376 
 450 
 300 
 2 10 
 300 
 3 15 
 3 17 6 
 350 
 3 10 
 376 
 376 
 
 s. d. 
 
 1 10 
 150 
 16 6 
 1 15 
 15 
 10 
 17 6 
 1 10 
 176 
 100 
 150 
 176 
 176 
 
 66 
 55 
 33 
 70 
 33 
 25 
 40 
 66 
 55 
 45 
 55 
 69 
 69 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
OUR UNJUST TARIFF LAW. 69 
 
 Paupers in receipt of relief in the years given below. 
 
 
 1849. 
 
 1881. 
 
 
 934,000 
 a 122,000 
 620,000 
 
 803,000 
 102,000 
 109,000 
 
 
 
 United Kingdom 
 
 1,676,000 
 
 1,014,000 
 
 
 a 1859. 
 Average attendance at schools aided by parliamentary grants. 
 
 
 1851. 
 
 1881. 
 
 
 239,000 
 32,000 
 
 2,863,000 
 410,000 
 
 Scotland 
 
 
 Savings. 
 
 
 1831. 
 
 1881. 
 
 
 429,000 
 13.719,000 
 32 
 
 4,140,000 
 80,334,000 
 19 
 
 Amount of deposits 
 
 
 
 Table showing cost of English and American steel rails, and the 
 effect of duty on prices. 
 
 Year. 
 
 Price in Eng- 
 land, free on 
 board. 
 
 I 
 
 0* 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 Price of Amer- 
 ican steel 
 rails in gold. 
 
 Diiference in 
 price. 
 
 Rate of duty. 
 
 3 
 
 e 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 s. d. 
 17 12 
 16 7 
 14 10 
 13 10 
 12 12 
 11 6 
 10 7 
 11 6 
 13 18 
 16 9 
 13 2 
 920 
 6 12 
 600 
 550 
 5 10 6 
 716 
 6 10 
 676 
 
 $85 65 
 79 56 
 70 56 
 65 70 
 61 32 
 54 99 
 50 37 
 54 99 
 67 04 
 80 05 
 68 75 
 44 28 
 32 12 
 29 20 
 25 55 
 26 88 
 34 36 
 31 53 
 31 10 
 
 148 50 
 127 50 
 117 50 
 113 28 
 105 00 
 97 38 
 91 17 
 91 18 
 98 43 
 103 91 
 85 76 
 59 75 
 44 97 
 42 08 
 42 00 
 48 25 
 67 50 
 60 00 
 57 00 
 
 $62 85 
 47 94 
 46 94 
 47 58 
 43 68 
 42 39 
 40 80 
 36 19 
 30 79 
 23 06 
 17 01 
 14 97 
 12 75 
 12 88 
 16 45 
 21 37 
 33 14 
 28 47 
 25 90 
 
 45 
 45 
 45 
 45 
 45 
 45 
 45 
 
 $28 00 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 28 00 
 
 1865 
 
 1866 
 
 1867 
 
 1868 
 
 1869 
 
 1870 
 
 1871 . ... 
 
 1872 
 
 1873 ... 
 
 1874 
 
 1875 
 
 1876 .... 
 
 1877 . . 
 
 1878 
 
 1879 
 
 1880 
 
 1881 
 
 1882 
 
 
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Gaylamount 
 Pamphlet 
 Binder 
 
 Guylord Bros., Inc. 
 
 Stockton, Calif. 
 T.M. Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. 
 
 M290057 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY