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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 THE 
 
 Policy of Protection 
 
 CHAS. A. MURDOpK. 
 
 PROTECTION AND PATRIOTISM ARE UECIPROCAL. 
 
 — Calhoun. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 SAMUEL CARSON & CO., PUBLISHERS. 
 
 1884.
 
 THE 
 
 Policy of Protection
 
 f} H i} r 
 
 THE 
 
 POLICY OF PROTECTION, 
 
 CHAS. A. MURDOCK. 
 
 rROTECTION AND TATRIOTISM ARE RECIPROCAL. 
 
 — Calhoun. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 SAMUEL CARSON & CO., l^UnLISHEKS. 
 
 1884.
 
 Copyright^ 1SS4. 
 
 SAMUEL CARSON & CO. 
 
 San Francisco, Cal. 
 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 C A. Murdock <&^ Co., Printers.
 
 nr 
 
 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 In a defense of protection it is first necessary to de- 
 fine the position of its opponents, and of this the 
 address issued bythe last Free Trade Convention 
 may be assumed to be the strongest and fairest ex- 
 pression. 
 
 It denounces the present tariff as "the chief ob- 
 struction to the continued development and prosperity 
 of the country,"' and claims that free trade "is an 
 essential part of American freedom, and the only com- 
 mercial policy consistent with business stability." It 
 declares that the tariff "keeps us from the enormous 
 export trade we ought to have," and "does not pro- 
 tect the classes it claims to protect;" that "to protect 
 a few at the expense of the many is inconsistent with 
 the principles of republican government;" that "Amer- 
 ican labor is discovering that it has no higher wages 
 by protection, and that it can buy less with its money 
 and can save less;" and that "American fiirmers pay 
 for protection but get none of it; they sell in an un- 
 protected market and buy in a protected one." 
 
 It charges that the tariff "burdens the manufac- 
 turer by adding to the cost of his materials, without 
 increasing the amount of his sales," and that it "re- 
 duces the wages of workmen in every line of business." 
 
 500658 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 It, finally, denies the constitutional right of the 
 (lovernnient " to impose taxes on the people except 
 with the intent and result of getting sufficient money 
 to pay the public debt, and provide for the common 
 defense and the general welfare ; " and declares that 
 "all tariff taxes called protective, laid with a different 
 intent and result, ought to be abolished." 
 
 There arc here presented ([uestions of both prin- 
 ciple and policy : the right of the (Government to 
 impose protective duties, and the expediency of such 
 action. 
 
 The (luestion of right was clearly stated by Senator 
 Bayard not long since. He said : " Quite indepen- 
 dent of the economy to the Treasury, and incidentally 
 to the benefit to American producers and manufac- 
 turers, which are to be affected by higher or lower 
 rate of tariff taxation, is the more profound question 
 of political right and power to lay any public burden 
 upon the entire people for the benefit or profit, or for 
 the protection, of private individuals." 
 
 This branch of the question is of first importance, 
 for if it is not right it cannot be expedient. Its con- 
 sideration involves the question of what a nation is, 
 for what it exists, and what are its rights and duties, 
 a subject too large for amplification here; but as in- 
 dicative of the stand-point from which the whole 
 (juestion will be considered a few extracts are given 
 from "Thompson's Elements of Political Economy," 
 touching upon this ])oint :
 
 THE NATION AND ITS RIGHTS. 
 
 "A nation is the highest type of social life, and under it man's 
 nature attains its greatest perfection. It is the organization of 
 a people under one government for purposes of defense from 
 without, and the fuller realization of their mutual rights and 
 wants. Historically it is an organism, a political body ani- 
 mated by a life of its own, embracing not one generation but 
 many, the dead and the unborn as truly as the living. 
 
 It contemplates its own perpetuity, making self-preservation 
 the first law. * * * -phe end of the nation is its own per- 
 fection. * * *^ Industrially it continually aims to develop 
 the resources of its soil and the activities of its people, until 
 they become in all necessary things independent and self-suf- 
 ficient. * * * It is the state's function to do justice upon 
 evil-doers within and without; and, also, to do itself justice by 
 securing the fullest and freest development of the national life 
 in all worthy directions. 
 
 The industrial state contains three great fundamental classes: 
 the agricultural, the commercial and the manufacturing. A 
 nation takes high rank industrially in proportion as all the three 
 are fully developed and exist in equilibrium. If any of the three 
 is depressed or hindered in its development, the whole body 
 politic suffers accordingly. The others may seem to prosper at 
 its expense, but because the state is a living organism and not 
 a dead aggregate of individuals, one member cannot suffer l)ut 
 all the members must suffer with it." 
 
 The preamble to the Constitution of the United 
 States seems to harmonize with the views here set forth, 
 and finely shades its meaning when it states one 
 function of government to be to '■'■provide for the 
 common defen.se,'' and to "-promote the general wel- 
 fare," objects for which by .Vrticle I Congress is granted 
 power to collect duties.
 
 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 The rights that any individual enjoys exist through 
 society, and the rights of the nation, which is the rep- 
 resentative of society, take precedence. If the well- 
 being of society demands it, individual rights must 
 give way. 
 
 The right of the state to levy a tax for the support 
 of education is acknowledged. A wealthy bachelor 
 is not exempt because he derives no direct benefit. It 
 is assumed that the nation has the right to seek the 
 highest develoiiment of its intellectual life ; that it is 
 for the interest of all that intelligence prevail and the 
 fact that there is a class that derives the immediate 
 benefit does not vitiate the right. 
 
 So in the pursuit of the fullest development of the 
 industrial state, it is wise and just to remove all possi- 
 ble hindrance to growth. England does not subsidize 
 commerce with any ])urpose of especially benefiting 
 ship-owners. It is the general good that is sought, 
 and if America protects manufactures, is it fair to as- 
 sume that it is for the benefit of a class ? 
 
 The profound question of political right raised by 
 Mr. Bayard rests upon the assumption that a tax is 
 laid upon the whole people for the profit ot private 
 individuals, — that the many suffer that the few may 
 thrive. It would seem to be admitted that if the 
 tariff is for the general welfare, it is right in principle. 
 So that the question, after all, is one of fact. If it can 
 be shown that its result is beneficial to but a small por- 
 tion of the nation and detrimental to it as a whole, the
 
 OUR COLONIAL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 high moral objection liolds good, otherwise it tails to 
 the ground. Let us then consider the effect of pro- 
 tection. 
 
 PROTECTION IN THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 The unparalleled growth and prosperity of our 
 country is admitted, and it certainly seems more rea- 
 sonable to conclude that it has been reached with the 
 aid of protection than in spite of it. Whatever has 
 been the result of the policy, its beginning was cer- 
 tainly honorable. Washington, Hamilton, Lranklin, 
 Jefferson and Monroe were neither narrow-minded 
 bigots nor interested demagogues. They were for the 
 most part planters, and advocated the policy from 
 purely patriotic motives. Indeed, the condition of the 
 country compelled it. 
 
 During the colonial period England persistently dis- 
 couraged every effort on our part to engage in manu- 
 factures. In 1 73 1 the interchange of manufactured 
 articles among the colonies was prohibited, and in 
 1750 the preparation of iron, except for export to 
 England, was declared a common nuisance. The 
 dependence on Great Britain during the war for so 
 many of the comforts and necessaries of life was keenly 
 felt, and at its close the manufactures that had sprung 
 up were ruined by the flood of British wares that 
 flowed in. Individual States adopted protective tariffs 
 under the confederation, but our land was to be the 
 home of one people, and such expedients were in-
 
 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 effectual; the Constitution became a necessity. Fisher 
 Ames, a leader in drafting it, said: " I conceive, sir, that 
 the present Constitution was dictated by commercial 
 necessity more than by any other cause. The want of 
 an efficient government to secure the manufacturing 
 interests and to advance our commerce, was long seen 
 and pointed out." 
 
 On July 4th, 1789, Congress passed a bill imposing 
 duties on goods, wares and merchandise imported. 
 The preamble alleged it to be necessary " for the 
 payment of the debts of the United States and the 
 encouragement and protection of manufactures." The 
 duties were so low as to afford little if any protection. 
 At the adjourned session, 1790, Washington reminded 
 Congress that " the safety and interest of the people 
 require that they should promote such manufactures 
 as tend to render them independent of others for 
 essential, particularly for military supplies." Acting 
 upon this. Congress called upon Alexander Hamilton, 
 the Secretary of the Treasury, to propose a plan for 
 carrying into effect the President's recommendation. 
 Two years were spent in the preparation of this report, 
 which has taken its i)lace as a great historic paper. 
 It is perhaps the most remarkable achievement of that 
 remarkable man. In the light of succeeding events 
 and the condition of to-day, it exhibits that wonderful 
 insight which makes prophecy possible, and in that re- 
 spect affords a marked contrast to the dismal fore- 
 bodings that have from that day to this been put forth
 
 JEFFERSON AND MADISON ON PROTECTION. 9 
 
 by the opponents of protection only to be wholly un- 
 fulfilled as the future unfolded. 
 
 Jefferson, in his second message, includes the pro- 
 tection of manufactures among the landmarks by 
 which the Nation was to be guided, and, in 1806, 
 when the financial condition was c^uite analogous to 
 the present, he suggests that after the debt is paid the 
 impost duties be suppressed and the duties from im- 
 ports maintained, giving that advantage to domestic 
 over foreign manufactures. 
 
 When the war of 181 2 broke out, duties were 
 doubled to meet its expenses. The war showed our 
 poverty of resource in nearly everything needed to 
 carry it on : — clothing for the army, saltpetre for gun- 
 powder, the products of iron and steel, and even com- 
 mon salt. We had been buying in the cheapest mar- 
 ket to our serious subsequent loss. 
 
 After the peace of 1815, England again assailed our 
 manufactures, being determined to keep us in a con- 
 dition of industrial dependence. Lord Brougham ex- 
 pressed the true British spirit when he said, "Eng- 
 land can afford to incur some loss for the purpose of 
 destroying foreign manufactures in their cradle." 
 
 At the session of Congress following the peace, 
 Madison urged protection for the manufactures that 
 the war had fostered. The tariff reported by Dallas, 
 and introduced by Lowndes of South Carolina, was 
 supported by Calhoun, who especially dwelt upon the 
 advantage to the farmer. Like ])receding tariffs, it 
 was too low to afford much protection.
 
 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 In 1823, Monroe, for the second time, urged addi- 
 tional duties, and in June, 1824, the first tariff, high 
 enough to be protective, was adopted. 
 
 Thus we see that the poHcy under which we have 
 .so prospered was adopted very cautiously. Mild 
 methods were first tried, and not till they had failed 
 of their purpose were more heroic measures resorted 
 to. 
 
 Very gloomy were the prophecies uttered by the op- 
 ponents of the tariff of 1S24. Our shipping was to be 
 ruined. What was the result ? The tonnage of the 
 country which had increased 100,000 tons in the four 
 years preceding, increased 350,000 in the four years 
 following. Our revenue was to be so cri])pled that 
 direct taxation would be forced upon us. To the 
 contrary, the four years following showed an increase 
 of $20,000,000 (30 per cent.) over the four years pre- 
 ceding. 
 
 In 1828, Secretary of the Treasury Rush called at- 
 tention to the prosperity that had followed this ac- 
 tion, citing especially the fact that our industrial 
 independence had enabled us to escape the effect of 
 the English panic of 1826. He suggested an increase 
 of duty on several articles. Daniel Webster, who had 
 opposed the tariff iour years before, now announced 
 that New England was for protection, and gave the 
 increased tariff his hearty support. 
 
 Under it the country continued to increase in pros- 
 perity. Henry Clay, addressing the Senate in 1831,
 
 HENRY clay's TESTIMONY. 
 
 said ; " If I were to select any term of seven years 
 since the adoption of the present Constitution, which 
 exhibits a scene of the most widespread dismay and 
 desolation, it would be exactly that term of seven 
 years which immediately preceded the establishment 
 of the tariff of 1824." He then spoke of the current 
 condition of affairs and said : " If the term of seven 
 years were to be selected of the greatest prosperity 
 which the people have ever enjoyed, it would be ex- 
 actly that period of seven years which immediately 
 followed the passage of the tariff of 1824." 
 
 In 1832, some reduction was made in the tariff, 
 •partly to decrease the revenue, which was in excess of 
 the needs of the government. 
 
 In 1833, the South assailed the policy of protection, 
 and a compromise bill was passed providing for the 
 gradual lowering of duties. This gradual reduction 
 went on till 1842, and with it the gradual closing of 
 American workshops. Imports increased 75 percent. 
 Capital, released from legitimate channels, was wildly 
 invested in speculations. In 1837 came the crash. 
 By 1840 the country was ready to elect a jjrotectionist 
 President, and in 1842 a thoroughly good tariff was 
 adopted. Industries revived, the production of staples 
 increased, finances improved, and all was promising. 
 
 In 1846 a change was made. The Polk-Dallas ad 
 valorem tariff was adopted. Within three years Eng- 
 lish iron sold down to $40 per ton, driving out 
 of existence many furnaces. Py 1854, when home
 
 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 competition was practically overcome, it had risen to 
 $80. American iron had previously been furnished 
 for $60. 
 
 In 1857 Congress reduced the duties 25 per cent. 
 The effect was similar to that of the reduction of 1833. 
 Increased imjiortations and an era of speculation were 
 followed by a panic, in which lands in the West were 
 sold for taxes, and the government was forced to bor- 
 row money. 
 
 The war of the rebellion compelled heavy duties, 
 and the Morrill tariff of 1861, with some modifications, 
 has had a 23 years' trial. The average ad valorem 
 duty was increased from about 14 per cent, in 1861 
 to 42 in 1865. It need not be assumed that the won- 
 derful growth of our country during this period is due 
 to the [)rotective tariff alone or mainly, but no one can 
 reasonably douljt that it has contributed to it. Such 
 a vigorous stride history never before recorded. 
 
 The products of manufactures have increased as 
 follows: i860, $1,019,106,616; 1870, $1,885,861,676; 
 1880, $S,369>5i9.i9i- 
 
 The most rapid increase has been made in the 
 Western States, from $346,000,000 in i860, to 
 $1,583,000,000 in i88o, which is thirty per cent, 
 of the whole, and almost equals the total production 
 of 1870. 
 
 In i860, 1,31 1,249 persons were employed in me- 
 chanical and manufacturing industries, while in 1880
 
 THE GENERAL RESULT. 1 3 
 
 there were 3,600,000, or twenty-one per cent, of per- 
 sons having occupation according to the census. 
 
 The exports of manufactured articles have increased 
 from $45,000,000 to $135,000,000. 
 
 Our foreign commerce has never shown such growth. 
 Exports liave increased from $333,000,000 in i860, to 
 $855,000,000 in 1883, and imports from $353,000,000 
 to $751,000,000. Our domestic commerce is be- 
 yond computation ; as an evidence of its advance, 
 our railroad mileage increased from 30,635 miles in 
 i860, to 120,552 in 1884, and in the year 1883 there 
 were trans|)orted upon the railroads of the United 
 States 400,453,439 tons of freight. 
 
 Agriculture has kept pace. The product of 1880 is 
 estimated at $3,600,000,000, of which $512,000,000, 
 or fourteen per cent, of the whole, was exported. 
 The value of farms has increased fifty-three per cent, 
 in twenty years. 
 
 This, in brief, is the history of protection in the 
 United States. It must be conceded, whatever the 
 cause of the marvelous advance of our country in 
 industrial development, that it has been most marked 
 during the periods when the tariff has been most pro- 
 tective, and the periods of greatest depression have 
 been those succeeding a reduction of the tariff, no- 
 tably that following the compromise tariff of 1833, 
 when there was almost a collapse of industry and 
 revenue.
 
 14 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 Ill a liitndred years we Jiave changed oitr policy tiine 
 times ; every movement toward free trade has been fol- 
 lowed by disaster or decline, and every raising of the 
 tariff by increased wealth and prosperity . 
 
 PROTECTION IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 
 
 Let us now take a rapid survey of the experience of 
 other nations. 
 
 England is held up as the great example of the 
 success of free trade, and her wonderful increase in 
 wealth under it cannot be denied, but it must be borne 
 in mind that 500 years of consistent protection pre- 
 ceded her free trade era, and made it possible. Six 
 hundred years ago England was an agricultural coun- 
 try, sending her wool across the channel to be made 
 into cloth by the Flemings. In 1337 an Act of Par- 
 liament was passed, forbidding the exportation of wool 
 or the imi)ortation of woolen goods. This was the 
 beginning of the policy in which she persisted for five 
 centuries. Under Cromwell the foundation of her 
 merchant marine was laid by the Navigation Acts. 
 In 1771 the iron interest was taken in hand; the 
 tariff being increased from time to time, till, in 18 19, 
 it reached ^6 lo^-. a ton. 
 
 The wonderful inventions of the last century have 
 found England their most favored home, and on her 
 small expanse she has gathered machines that do the 
 work of 450,000,000 people. Improved facilities of 
 communication give her ready access to the whole
 
 ENGLAND S POSITION. 
 
 15 
 
 world, while immense accumulations of capital make 
 any enterprise possible. 
 
 To subsist her population, Great Britain must 
 annually import food to the value of $800,000,000, 
 and of raw material $700,000,000, while she must sell 
 $1,200,000,000 of manufactured articles in foreign 
 markets. Having a scarcity of land and a redund- 
 ancy of population, it is therefore naturally her pol- 
 icy to trade freely with those nations which produce 
 breadstuffs, and the gain from crushing growing man- 
 ufactures in such countries has been two-fold : the 
 larger the proportion of people engaged in agriculture 
 the cheaper would breadstuffs be furnished, by reason 
 of the increased supply, the greater competition and 
 the lessened home demand ; and at the same time 
 a greater market for her manufactured articles would 
 follow, with less competition and more remunerative 
 prices. 
 
 Since 1832, when the landed class virtually lost 
 control of the Government, middle class interests 
 have been consulted in the policy of England. Duties 
 have been gradually reduced and removed. Cheap 
 food following the repeal of the Corn Law, has re- 
 duced what her economists are pleased to call "the 
 natural and necessary rate of wages," and with her 
 advantages in coal and iron, she has been enabled to 
 figure closer in the competition of the world's market 
 than any other nation. 
 
 She is the great free trade power. She has accumu-
 
 1 6 TH^: POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 lated enormous wealth, yet her prosperity is unreal, in 
 view of its unetiual distribution. There is grim truth 
 in Ruskin's indictment: 
 
 "Though England is deafened with spinning wheels, 
 her people have not clothes ; though she is black with 
 digging of fuel, they die of cold; and though she has 
 sold her soul for grain, they die of hunger." 
 
 As to the effect of free industrial competition be- 
 tween countries of great unequal advantages, what 
 better evidence can we have than is afforded by Eng- 
 land and her colonies? The same policy that sought 
 to crush manufactures in the American colonies has 
 tried to keep Ireland, India, Australia and Canada in 
 a state of industrial subjection. The two latter have 
 had it in their power to resist the purpose, and after a 
 full and fair trial of the advantages of free trade, have 
 adopted protective tariffs in self-defense. 
 
 Canada first tried to strengthen herself by fostering 
 immigration, but to no purpose. The immigrants 
 brought over at the public expense could not be held 
 within her lines ; 73,000 left her in six months. They 
 would cross over into our benighted land. The " oj)- 
 pressive and unjust tariff" seemed to have for them no 
 terrors. If they had indirect taxes to pay, they also 
 had something with which to pay them. 
 
 In 1862 there was not a cotton mill nor a silk 
 manufactory in all Canada. Imports of iron and most 
 articles of general use were constantly increasing. As
 
 CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 1 7 
 
 testimony to the effect of the contending theories on 
 the same soil, listen to the candid statement of Lord 
 Durham. After speaking of the unfavorable compari- 
 son that the ancient city of Montreal bore to the young 
 city of Buffalo, he says : 
 
 " But it is not in the difference between the large towns that 
 we shall find the best evidence of our inferiority. That painful 
 but most undeniable truth is most manifest in the country dis- 
 tricts, through which the line of natural separation passes for a 
 distance of a thousand miles. There, on the side of both the 
 Canadas, and also of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, a widely 
 scattered population, poor and apparently unenterprising, though 
 hardy and industrious, separated from each other by tracts of 
 intervening forests, without towns or markets, almost without 
 roads, living in mean houses, drawing little more than a rude 
 subsistence from ill-cultivated land, and seemingly incapable of 
 improving their condition, present the most instructive contrast 
 to their enterprising and thriving neighbors on the American 
 side. The market value of land is much greater on the Ameri- 
 can side than on the British side. I am positively assured that 
 superior fertility lielongs to the Britisli side." 
 
 It does not seem strange that when in 1879 the oppo- 
 sition took up the issue of a protective tariff they swept 
 the country. It is too soon for great results, but un- 
 der the tariff then adojited her manufactures are in- 
 creasing in strength and her farmers are finding a more 
 remunerative market. 
 
 Australia tried free trade till she was fast becoming 
 a huge sheep-walk. Young as she was, and sparse as 
 was her ])opulation, the problem of finding ])roductive
 
 1 8 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 employment for her young men was a troublesome 
 one. Manufacturing was desultory and subject to the 
 well-known British expedient of flooding. She was 
 not able to make her own soap and candles till the 
 tariff of 187 1 gave them protection. Now the party 
 of progress has carried the day, and the legislative 
 majorities of the protectionists are constantly increasing; 
 varied industries are being established, and there is a 
 genuine enthusiasm for industrial independence. 
 
 Painful is the contrast show^n by India. England 
 imposed prohibitory duties on imports of Indian man- 
 ufacture, while establishing nominal duties on English 
 goods imported into India; as a result, the cotton 
 manufactures are almost annihilated. The Hindoo 
 cotton grower finds no market nearer than Manches- 
 ter, and the manufactured cloth he wears costs him 
 twenty times as much as he gets for the cotton it con- 
 tains. He must take whatever an English agent 
 chooses to give for his raw material, pay an English 
 ship-owner for carrying it at least 6,600 miles, and when 
 it is made into cloth, pay another transportation charge 
 and buy it back at the English mill-owner's price. 
 
 Ireland is another helpless country, where England 
 has had full opportunity of carrying out her lofty free- 
 trade principles, and utter selfishness has borne the 
 fruit it always will. 
 
 As early as 1698 the policy of confining Ireland to
 
 IRELAND S EXPERIENCE. I 9 
 
 the manufacture of linen was begun. The woolen 
 trade, for which she possessed many advantages, was 
 taken from her, and other industries discouraged. 
 
 In 1783, when Ireland had an independent ijarlia- 
 ment, she had a brief rest. She imposed a duty on 
 certain English goods that she could well make her- 
 self. The eighteen years of self-rule were years of 
 rapid growth. Lord Clare, in 1789, wrote of Ireland: 
 "There is not a nation on the habitable globe which 
 has advanced in cultivation and commerce, in agricul- 
 ture and manufactures, with the same rapidity in the 
 same period." 
 
 But the union of i8or changed all this. One of the 
 terms of the compact was the gradual removal of these 
 duties, and, as they came off, Ireland's industries lan- 
 guished and died. By 1840, Dublin's 5,000 woolen 
 factory workmen had dwindled to 600, and Cork's 
 6,000 weavers to 478. The people were thrown back 
 upon the soil, and poverty became their heritage. Her 
 soil is as good as England's — her people are of the 
 same blood as the thrifty French — her [jopulation is 
 but 167 to the square mile, against 445 in England and 
 Wales, but she suffers from bad economy. There is 
 no equilibrium in her industries. 
 
 France has attained very fully the end of nationaj 
 existence. The ])roductive forces are fully and har- 
 moniously developed, and she is consecjuently in- 
 dependent. Like every other nation, she has felt her
 
 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 way — testing theories by practice and correcting errors 
 when discovered. 
 
 Colbert's tariff law of 1664 gave the first impulse to 
 the manufactures of France, especially to fabrics 
 demanding taste and skill. The treaty of 1786, admit- 
 ting English goods, almost destroyed her manufactories, 
 but Napoleon restored Colbert's policy, and they re- 
 vived. 
 
 The development of the beet sugar interest is a re- 
 markable instance of the benefit of protection. Sugar, 
 theretofore the product of another climate, drawing 
 millions from Europe, was naturalized to her soil, and 
 now is the source of great wealth. Besides supplying 
 her own demand, France, in 1880, exported sugar to 
 the value of $6,000,000. 
 
 The i)olicy of Colbert and Napoleon has been con- 
 tinued to the present time. The commercial treaty of 
 i860 with England, it is true, reduced the rate of im- 
 ports, but all the efforts on the part of England to 
 extend its ])rovisions have been futile. 
 
 Germany has tried both policies. Frederick the 
 Great was an ardent protectionist, and did much to 
 encourage manufactures. He left his kingdom pros- 
 perous. After his time free trade maxims prevailed, 
 but not to the satisfiiction of Germany. In 1818 a 
 moderate tariff was adopted, which was later made 
 the basis of the famous ZoUverein, established in 
 1833, ^"d made complete in 1853. Under it Ger- 
 many has become a great industrial state.
 
 EUROPEAN HISTORY. 
 
 Russia tried free trade under Alexander, but after 
 the ruin of a great part of her manufactures, resorted 
 to protection in 1822, and has since maintained it. 
 She is constantly gaining in industrial power. 
 
 Belgium, originally a great manufacturing country, 
 lost ground after the coming in of the era of inven- 
 tion. England prohibited the exportation of linen 
 machinery, and sent her large quantities of cheap 
 goods that prostrated her industries. In 1844 the 
 first Belgian protective tariff was adopted. She rap- 
 idly regained her ability to manufacture, and to-day is 
 pressing English products in the English markets. 
 
 Spain, with her fatal facility for blundering, for a 
 long time raised her revenue by duties on commerce 
 between her provinces. She discriminated against 
 export and in favor of foreign manufactures, and suf- 
 fered for her mistake. Since her protective tariff of 
 1845 her manufactures have gained materially. 
 
 Portugal made an early trial of English recii)rocity. 
 The treaty of 1703 ruined her woolen manufactures. 
 Her people were reduced to much fewer occupations. 
 Gold flowed out to help the exported raw material pay 
 for British imports, and she soon became a "sucked 
 orange." Not till 1837 was protection resorted to, 
 and so utterly demoralized was the nation that it was 
 many years before much relief was gained. The
 
 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 balance of trade has at length changed, and she is 
 now advancing. 
 
 Turkey has become a burden and a curse to the 
 great nation which gave her free trade. Her indus- 
 tries are in a state of hopeless decay. Corruption 
 and inefficiency prevail, and she is about the most 
 discouraging type of a nation on the face of the earth. 
 
 It has been said that history is the teacher of 
 philosophy ; and if we find that a nation prospers 
 under the policy of protection, and languishes when 
 she departs from it, we may assume that it is at best a 
 cause, and that it is for her the true policy. And the 
 more uniform we find this result in a world study the 
 stronger may be our conviction that whatever theories 
 may have been deduced from reasoning, the most truly 
 philosophic is that one which is in practice the most 
 effective in promoting the welfare of the people. 
 
 Having reviewed in a general way the historic results 
 of protection, let us return to the address of the 
 Free Trade Convention, and take up the argument in 
 the order there established. 
 
 THE FREE TRADE INDICTMENT. 
 
 We are first met with the assertion that the present 
 tariff is the chief obstruction to the continued develop- 
 ment and prosperity of the country. This is some-
 
 TARIFF FOR REVENUE. 23 
 
 what general. Our develo[)mcnt and prosperity have 
 certainly continued, so far, and bid fair to continue. 
 Why any one should desire a more rapid growth than 
 we are making is not plain, and what reason we would 
 have to expect it under free trade is less so. To be 
 sure we have never tried it, but we had an experience 
 with her twin sister, "tariff for revenue," from 1847 
 to i860. During that period California turned out 
 $1,100,000,000 in gold, and we had that sum to add 
 to our capital in trying the experiment. We had a 
 heavy immigration and good crops. We bought enor- 
 mous quantities of cheap goods. W'e found coal from 
 Great Britain cheaper than our own and we bought it. 
 We bought cheap British rails for our railroads, and 
 took a full swing generally in the exercise of our " in- 
 alienable right " to buy in the cheapest market. We 
 exported a good deal of cotton and grain, $68,000,000 
 of the latter in one year, but the commodity with 
 which W'e paid for these goods was found to be mostly 
 gold, and at the end of ten years our $1,100,000,000 
 had pretty much disappeared, while our manufactures 
 were depressed, and wages were back to the basis of 
 182 1 and 1841. Then came the war, compelling heavy 
 duties and self-reliance, and our growth has since been 
 unprecedented. From $14,000,000,000 in i860, the 
 wealth of the United States increased to $44,000,- 
 000,000 in 1880; the greatest enrichment in the his- 
 tory of the whole world.
 
 24 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 We are next told tliat it is the only commercial 
 policy consistent with business stability. Why, no)i 
 constat. It cannot be doubted that protection, right or 
 wrong, greatly extends the variety of manufactured 
 articles, giving us breadth of beam (to speak nautically) 
 and consequent steadiness. Thousands of articles are 
 now manufactured on our own soil, from materials 
 mined or raised by our own people, that under free 
 trade would come from abroad. 
 
 Again, if we are to reap the advantage of low prices 
 that free trade is to bring, we must either buy in a 
 foreign market, or bwy home products at materially re- 
 duced rates, and however pleasant it might be to that 
 fictitious being, the mere consumer, it is not apparent 
 how either course would tend to " business stability." 
 
 If we take the foreign product and allow our own 
 manufactures to cease, we certainly shall not promote 
 stability anywhere, except in England. The workmen 
 discharged from an occupation with which they are 
 familiar must turn to another with which they are not 
 familiar, and in which their labor must therefore be 
 less productive, both in an individual and national 
 sense. Free trade theory points to the raising of 
 cereals as the natural occupation of most Americans. 
 We are doing pretty well in that line as it is, and it is 
 not evident what disposition we would make of much 
 more grain. Our principal foreign demand is predi- 
 cated on European crop failures, and is easily sup- 
 plied. The market is exceedingly variable. The crop
 
 INFLUENCE ON MANUFACTURES. 25 
 
 of 1880 brought $127,000,000 less than the crop of 
 1 88 1, though exceeding it in quantity by 700,000,000 
 bushels. To what would the mechanics, now engaged 
 in profitable industries, turn? How would they fare? 
 If they cease to be customers and become com- 
 petitors of the farmers, it certainly cannot benefit the 
 latter class. 
 
 " But," says the free trader, "you have no right to 
 assume that manufactures will cease ; the removal of 
 the tariff will only reduce the enormous profits of the 
 manufacturers." 
 
 There is no evidence that the profits from man- 
 ufactures are inordinately great. There are as many 
 failures in manufacturing as in mercantile ventures. 
 It is a free country, and it is an insult to American 
 intelligence and thrift to suppose that if there is a 
 very large profit in any line of manutactures, there 
 will not soon be sufficient domestic competition to 
 bring it down. The kind of foreign competition to 
 which our manufactures would be subjected need not 
 be imagined. We know well, both from experience 
 and observation. An official report, published by the 
 House of Commons some years since, clearly expresses 
 the British policy and practice. It was intended to 
 mollify the ill will of under-paid workmen, and spoke 
 of the enormous loss, sometimes ;^ 300,000 or 
 ^^400,000 in three or four years, that English man- 
 ufacturers have often incurred in selling goods below 
 cost "in order to destroy foreign competition, and
 
 26 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 thus to clear the way for the whole trade to step in 
 when jjrices revive, and carry on a great business be- 
 fore foreign capital can again accumulate to -such an 
 extent as to be able to establish a competition in 
 prices with any chance of success." 
 
 Our manufactures would be driven from the field 
 unless they could first stand a heavy loss, and then 
 reduce wages to the English standard, with a small 
 fraction added for cost of transportation. 
 
 If wages were materially reduced there would fol- 
 low a lessened demand for farm products, a discon- 
 tented laboring class, increasing illiteracy as children 
 were taken from the schools, and eventually a pauper 
 class to be supported by the tax-payers of the country. 
 
 Again, thousands of millions of capital have been 
 invested in manufactures in reliance upon the policy 
 that has prevailed since our Government was estab- 
 lished, and it w-ould be bad faith to withdraw the pro- 
 tection afforded unless for clearly established reasons 
 of public good. 
 
 An era of speculation would be almost sure to suc- 
 ceed any interference with legitimate business. The 
 other alternative would be idle capital and the loss to 
 the nation of its productive power. 
 
 Lastly : the argument against the prosperity of 
 manufacturers savors much of an appeal to envy, the 
 meanest of human passions.
 
 THE EXPORT TRADE. 27 
 
 The next charge is that the tariff keeps us from the 
 enormous export trade that we ought to have, and 
 does not' protect the classes it claims to protect. It 
 is not apparent what class of exports the tariff i)re- 
 vents. 
 
 In the year ending June 30th, '83, we exported of 
 agricultural products $619,000,000, of which about 
 ninety per cent, consisted of cotton, breadstuffs, pro- 
 visions and live animals. Were we to turn our re- 
 leased workmen to tilling the soil we would be obliged 
 to export our largely increased supply, but what would 
 be gained in throwing on the foreign market an amount 
 of breadstuffs largely in excess of any reasonable de- 
 mand? Values would surely be lowered, and as the 
 Liverpool rate largely regulates the home price, the 
 depreciation would extend to the grain we retain, 
 which at present is sixty per cent, of the crop. 
 
 If the South could double her cotton crop, would 
 she have any assurance that she could find a market 
 at present prices ? And would she be likely to gain as 
 much from it as from the rapidly increasing manufac- 
 tures in her own borders ? 
 
 The reason of our comparatively small exjjort of 
 manufactured articles is our enormous home con- 
 sumption. In the last forty years the value of manu- 
 factured products has increased 427 per cent. Could 
 greater increase be dreamed of? In 1882 our manu- 
 factured products are said lo have reached $S,ooo,- 
 000,000, andthe fact that we exijorted but $135,000,000
 
 28 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 is the strongest possible testimony to our prosperity — 
 for it means that we were able to consume the rest at 
 home. Our export trade in manufactured articles is 
 increasing, there being a gain of 300 per cent, in the 
 last twenty years, but it does not keep pace with the 
 growth of manufactures, because our own market is 
 the best one, and the rapidly increasing capacity of 
 our factories is necessary for its supply. Further 
 evidence of our prosperity is found in the fact that in 
 spite of oppressive duties, we imported and consumed 
 in addition to the above, $235,000,000. So that our 
 consumption of manufactures is still $100,000,000 in 
 excess of our production. 
 
 Evidently no increase of exports can be expected 
 when all the coddling of which free traders complain 
 has not enabled our manufacturers to supply the home 
 demand. Nor is it clear how we can gain the market 
 of the world by letting England have ours. The Cob- 
 den Club is, no doubt, perfectly disinterested in its 
 desire to extend to us the blessings of free trade, but 
 when we are told that its adoption will make us the 
 rival of England, we can but wonder at their great 
 anxiety for our conversion. 
 
 The assertion that j^rotection does not ]jrotect the 
 classes it claims to jjrotect, is difficult to disprove, but 
 would be equally difficult to prove. 
 
 The only claim that is made for a tariff is that it 
 e(iualizes the condition of labor and capital in America
 
 DOES PROTECTION PROTECT? 29 
 
 with those abroad, and gives American manufacturers 
 a fair chance in our own market. It makes it possi- 
 ble for a manufacturer to pay such wages as an 
 American sense of justice considers necessary for the 
 proper maintenance of its humblest citizen. Govern- 
 ment cannot insure any one an income or fix any 
 one's wages, but if it can so collect its revenue as to 
 make possible the employment of its own people, it is 
 pursuing a wise course. Those who favor protection 
 believe that its results are seen in the rapid growth of 
 manufactures and in the generally creditable condition 
 of American workmen. It is not claimed to be the 
 only cause of our prosperity, nor is it to be supposed 
 that the workmen derive all its benefit. It is a human 
 device, imperfect and subject to abuse, but we believe 
 that it does protect our working class. They them- 
 selves think so. Many representatives of different 
 bodies of laboring men appeared before the late Tariff 
 Commission and spoke in its favor, and when at the 
 polls they have an ojjportunity they express their belief 
 in its beneficence. 
 
 The next count in the indictment is, that to protect 
 a few at the expense of the many is inconsistent with 
 the principles of Republican government. 
 
 In a Republican government the majority control. 
 Has the policy of protection been forced upon the 
 many by the few ? If it is a ])rotection of the few at 
 the expense of the many, why have the many done it?
 
 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 If the charge is true, the majority has either been 
 highly unselfish or grossly imposed upon. Is it not a 
 more reasonable supposition that they believed they 
 were legislating for the common good, and that, as a 
 matter of fact, they were ? 
 
 A man puts a pair of boots on his feet for their 
 special protection, but he expects to get some benefit 
 from them himself We protect our sea-coast with 
 forts and gun-boats because it is the exposed point. 
 We protect our manufacturers for the same reason ; 
 and if we thereby add to the productiveness of labor, 
 and wealth is created, its benefit enures to all. " We 
 touch afar," and are members of one body — the Na- 
 tion. Few consumers are not also producers, and 
 there is no antagonism of interest. Increased pro- 
 duction gives increased power of consumption, and 
 production must precede either national or individual 
 wealth. 
 
 But we are told that American labor is discovering 
 that it has no higher wages by protection, and that it 
 can buy less with its money and save less. 
 
 If this is true, we would ask whether it would be any 
 better off under free trade. Many laborers would 
 certainly lose their present employment, and many 
 more would be forced to work for less ; — but is it true? 
 Of this there can be no proof that will cover the whole 
 question of comparative wages and cost of living, and 
 the data to be found are not complete and conclusive.
 
 EFFECT ON WAGES, 3 1 
 
 The general tenor, however, is decidedly in favor of 
 the American workman as compared with the English. 
 \V^orkers in iron, glass, paper, earthen-ware, silk, etc., 
 receive about double his wages, while operatives in 
 cotton mills get about 40 per cent. more. It is claimed 
 in addition that English hands are much oftener put 
 on half or two thirds time. Meat and provisions are 
 cheaper in America. Clothing and rent cheaper in 
 England. 
 
 Some years ago statistics of interest were gathered 
 at the Pacific Mills, Mass., employing some 3,000 
 workmen. The average wages were $6 per week, 
 against $3.50 in England. In two years $26,000 had 
 been left on deposit by employees. Of 781 house- 
 keepers employed, 227 lived in their own houses, 
 averaging $1800 in value, saved from their earnings. 
 Compare this with a recent admission of a British 
 official, that in all his experience he had never known 
 a workingman in that country to own the house he 
 lived in. It is facts like these that throw the most 
 light on the question. In 15 of the United States 
 there is on deposit in the Savings Banks $966,000,000, 
 in sums averaging $356 to each depositor. 
 
 If protection causes diversity of manufactures, it 
 makes a larger and more varied demand for labor, and 
 must diminish the supply, thereby increasing its j^rice. 
 Perhaps the most conclusive evidence is the continued 
 immigration of English workmen. Those who come 
 know if they are better off, and if their friends follow
 
 32 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 them it means a bettered condition. An unprotected 
 market would offer no inducement for skilled labor. 
 
 Manufacturers testified before the tariff commission 
 that English workmen, when they get here, will not 
 work for the wages they have received in England. 
 They must have the means of living comfortably, they 
 must read, take the paper, pay the doctor and pew 
 rent, and send the children to school. 
 
 The United States is determined that no legislation 
 shall prevent such a condition of her workingmen. If 
 the price of extended trade is the crowding our hardest 
 workers down to the English level of bare subsistence 
 we will not pay it. And if, from considerations of 
 policy, or of policy joined with humanity, we waive 
 our right to buy in the lowest market, who shall per- 
 suade us we are wrong? 
 
 The sense of keen injustice the laborer feels at his 
 share of the wealth he creates, is a danger source 
 to society. The tariff cannot insure justice, but it is 
 a barrier against a class of competition that would be 
 fatal to any hopes of fair remuneration. From a sense 
 of sympathy with those whose lot is hard, and for the 
 general welfare, America protects its laborers. 
 
 In concurrence with this policy the Chinese ex- 
 clusion act was passed. It was directly and avowedly 
 for the ])rotection of labor, and what would it avail if 
 followed by free trade? If Chinese-made goods were 
 admitted free, the competition would simply be shifted 
 to ground more favorable to the Chinese. If the nat-
 
 THE SUFFERING FARMERS. 33 
 
 ural price of an article is the lowest for which it can 
 be obtained, regardless of all other considerations, 
 why should not the Chinese, when they see the ad- 
 vantage of combining the cheapest labor in the world 
 with the latest and best machinery, supply us with the 
 products we now protect ? According to free trade 
 principles, such a consummation is greatly to be de- 
 sired. 
 
 But the American farmers are the class that excite 
 the greatest sympathy. They pay, it is said, for pro- 
 tection and get none of it. They sell in an unpro- 
 tected market and buy in a protected one. 
 
 Now how much they pay for protection is uncertain, 
 but they do get it. One-third of the duties collected is 
 on agricultural products. If they get no protection, 
 why do they complain at the slight reduction in wool in 
 the tariff of 1882? 
 
 Which market is of most importance to the farmer, 
 the foreign, which takes on the average ten per cent, 
 of his products, or the domestic, that takes all he can 
 sell of the other ninety ? 
 
 What a farmer gets for his crop is of the most 
 importance. What he pays for manufactured articles 
 is of less moment, for if he chooses he can reduce it to 
 very small proportions. 
 
 The farmer's main reliance is on the home demand, 
 and every man added to manufactures l)y protection is 
 another family to be fed from his store, at rates afford- 
 ing a })rofit.
 
 34 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 The wheat, cotton and tobacco exported are eight 
 per cent, in value of the entire product, and that is all 
 he sells in an unprotected market. His first and most 
 remunerative business is to supply the home market. 
 The surplus he sends abroad. When England can get 
 American wheat as cheap as she can Russian, she 
 takes what she needs, and what circumstance could 
 induce her to take more is not apparent. " But con- 
 sider how much he might save on what he buys," says 
 the Free Trader. " He is taxed to pay the losses of the 
 Eastern manufacturer." 
 
 Mr. Mongredien, in the pamphlet called " The 
 Western Farmer," which the Cobden Club so gener- 
 ously supplied in the campaign of 1880, gravely as- 
 sumes that the duty is " the measure of the difference 
 between the prices which the Western farmers now pay 
 for what they consume, and those which they would 
 pay were foreign articles admitted free." He then 
 assumes that each farmer expends on the average 
 $200 a year for manufactured articles (a sum by the 
 way not indicative of poverty, as agricultural laborers 
 are included in the estimate.) Seven million engaged 
 in agriculture therefore spend $1,400,000,000. He 
 assumes the average duty to be forty-two ])er cent., 
 but liberally throws off the two per cent., and calls it 
 forty. He then says : " If the American farmers were 
 allowed to buy, as they could buy, for $100 — what they 
 are now compelled to pay $140 for — it is clear that 
 they could buy for $1,000,000,000 what they now pay
 
 COBDEN CLUB FIGURES. 35 
 
 $1,400,000,000 for, and consequently they would 
 save $400,000,000 every year." 
 
 It will be noticed that the calculation covers all the 
 manufactured goods they consume, domestic as well 
 as imported. According to the table of Congress- 
 man Springer, an ardent Free Trader, the home 
 product of articles affected by the tariff was, in 1880, 
 $2,440,000,000. Now the total manufactured pro- 
 duct was $5,369,000,000, so that only forty-five per 
 cent, of our manufactured articles are to be charged 
 with the added cost occasioned by the tariff, which 
 Mr. Mongredien claims to be forty per cent. 
 
 The assumption that the duty is the measure of 
 the added cost of home made protected goods cannot 
 be sustained. The claim was exploded years ago, 
 and has not been maintained by an American since 
 Clay's time. Some goods have been cheapened 
 by duty — the assured market inducing competi- 
 tion that lowered the cost below previous importa- 
 tion prices; others, iron tor instance, add one-half 
 of duty, few if any costing full importation prices, 
 duty added. Mr. Springer makes the average added 
 cost to home products affected by the tariff twenty- 
 eight per cent. — the tariff average being forty-two. 
 
 Now but seven and a half percent, of manufactured 
 articles consumed in the United States are imported, 
 and the assumption that the ninety-two and a half per 
 cent, which we manufacture ourselves could be either 
 ]jro(luced or imported at forty per cent, less were free 
 trade to prevail is cnlircly unwarranted.
 
 36 THli POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 A]:)plying these facts, Mt. Mongredien's modified 
 estimate will stand thus: 
 
 Loss on imported goods, $7,500,000, @ 40% . . $6,000,000 
 Loss on protected home- 
 made goods 450,000,000, @ 28% . . 124,000,000 
 
 Total loss $130,000,000 
 
 This is Still assuming that if the duties were re- 
 moved the goods would be cheapened by the full 
 amount, which is not at all probable. When in 1842 
 the tariff was raised, it was found that in many in- 
 stances there was no increase in the price of the 
 articles protected. Cotton prints and sheeting, for in- 
 stance, sold for less within a few months. American 
 manufacturers knew they could rely on the market, and 
 their enterprise and competition soon reduced the cost 
 price to a lower figure than had before been possible. 
 
 The same result was reached later when starch 
 was adequately protected. Its manufacture had be- 
 come desultory and uncertain; there was no assur- 
 ance that the product could be sold for cost ; but 
 when this danger was removed, manufacturing was re- 
 sumed with new energy, and a better article of Ameri- 
 can starch was soon sold for less than the price of the 
 imported article before the increase in the rate of duty. 
 
 And, as it is found that an increase of duty is not 
 always followed by an increase of cost, it is likewise 
 discovered that decrease of duty does not always de- 
 crease co.st.
 
 EFFECT ON PRICES. 37 
 
 In 1 87 1 the dut}' was taken off from coffee, and in 
 1872 off from tea, but neither of them sold any cheaper 
 afterward. Quinine has been placed on the free list, 
 but costs as much now as before. Sugar has been no 
 cheaper in California since the Reciprocity Treaty with 
 the Hawaiian Islands. 
 
 And again, would not the cost of English goods 
 be very likely to advance when the competition of 
 American manufactures was lessened or removed, and 
 the demand for American consumption was added? 
 Not long ago wool rose in England from lod. to i8d. 
 per pound, on a demand for 15,000,000 pounds. 
 
 In the above consideration of Mr. Mongredien's 
 calculation we have reduced his percentage of loss 
 from forty per cent, to thirteen per cent, by a proper 
 application of the estimates of a pronounced Free 
 'I'rader, and the tendency to exaggeration that marks 
 most calculations of this kind may be safely trusted to 
 further reduce the remaining fraction. 
 
 It is not denied that a protective tariff temporarily 
 increases the cost of many articles. It would be no 
 benefit to us if it did not ; but it is absurd to claim 
 that, under the present tariff, consumers pay forty per 
 cent, more for all manufactured articles than they 
 would under free trade. 
 
 Mr. Mongredien does not have a word to say 
 about the farmers' income under the change, but 
 assumes that it would be the same. Can it be 
 reasonably supi)osed that it would not be impaired,
 
 ^8 THE POLICY OF PROTFXTION. 
 
 under the lessened home demand that would follow 
 the crippling of our manufactures ? The home market 
 is yearly increasing in importance to the farmers. The 
 increased yield of India threatens to destroy the poor 
 market they now find in England, and if the surplus 
 for shipment should increase, by reason of a decreased 
 demand at home or an increased product (both of 
 which would probably follow were free trade our 
 policy), it would merely result in lower prices for the 
 whole crop. 
 
 But to complete the list of sufferers from protection 
 the manufacturers themselves are cited. After being 
 held up as the few who are benefited at the expense of 
 the many, they now appear as burdened and ham- 
 pered by that which was supposed to enrich them. 
 
 It seems remarkable that they have never seemed to 
 realize their " parlous state." They have never asked to 
 be relieved from the incubus, but have rather seemed 
 to enjoy it. The only reason assigned is that the 
 duties add to the cost of materials without increasing 
 the amount of sales. It would seem that the manu- 
 facturer might be somewhat indifferent to that hard- 
 ship so long as he has the privilege of charging up a 
 profit on the added cost, and it cannot be denied that 
 he has. 
 
 Let us take a single branch of manufacture, and 
 trace as far as we may the effect of protection. 
 
 Iron represents manual labor for a very large pro-
 
 THE IRON INTEREST. 39 
 
 portion of its cost ; a ton is so many days' work in 
 mining, smelting and puddling, with a small per cent- 
 age for raw material. It can be afforded at the small- 
 est price by those who pay the smallest wages, and the 
 United States has never been able to compete with 
 England, the cost of transportation being much less 
 than the difference in wages. The cost of English 
 and Scotch iron, laid down in New York, is from $14 
 to $16 per ton, while the average cost of labor alone 
 on American iron is $16.68. We pay for puddling 
 $5.50 per ton; England pays $1.94. Rolling costs 
 $4.80 here ; $1.80 in England. As Mr. Abram S. 
 Hewitt, in his report in 1867, remarks: 
 
 " The entire difference consists in the higher wages, 
 and not the larger quantity of labor, required for its 
 production in the United States, where the physical, 
 mental and moral condition of the working classes 
 occupy a totally different standard from their Euro- 
 pean confre'res, and where the wages cannot be re- 
 duced without violating our sense of the just demands 
 of human nature." 
 
 The average wages paid in England, the trade 
 through, are about one-half of those paid with us. 
 The tariff on i)ig iron is now $6 per ton, which en- 
 ables our manufactures to fairly compete. Our pro- 
 duction has increased from 947,000 tons in 1863, to 
 4,623,000 tons in 1883. The steel works of the 
 United States have a capacity of 1,800,000 tons per 
 annum, and the effect of this great increase of cai)a-
 
 40 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 city, and tlie competition in our own land, has been 
 to greatly reduce the difference in cost between the 
 foreign and domestic product. In 1864, Bessemer 
 steel rails of English make cost $85.65 per ton, 
 while the American cost was $148.50 — difference 
 $62.85. In 1882 they sold for $31.10 and $57 re- 
 spectively, a difference of $25.90 per ton. In 1883 
 with a duty of $17 per ton we imported about 387,000 
 tons and manufactured 1,300,000 tons, which demon- 
 strates that under the policy of protection the differ- 
 ence in the cost of manufacture has been so reduced 
 that the low rate of tariff does not allow England to 
 compete with us. Bessemer steel rails are now quoted 
 in the New York market at $28 per ton. 
 
 The entire metal industry of the United States em- 
 ployed in i860, 52,854 hands, and turned out a pro- 
 duct of $182,000,000. In 1880 there were 298,862 
 hands employed, and the product was $604,000,000. 
 We mined in 1882 9,000,000 tons of iron ore, and 
 imported besides about 600,000 tons. In 1883 we 
 consumed 4,948,000 tons of pig iron, 325,000 more 
 than our product. 
 
 The tariff is made lower with each revision, and, as 
 evidence that it is not prohibitory, and that it allows 
 foreign competition, the imports of iron and steel and 
 their products in 1882 amounted to over $74,000,000. 
 
 Now here is an industry that free trade apparently 
 would annihilate. It could only be maintained by re- 
 ducing the cost of labor about one-half. Granting
 
 EFFECT OF FRKIC TRADE. 4 1 
 
 that the reduction in cost of imported articles would 
 be equal to the present duties, which it would not, and 
 that the reflected cost of domestic articles would be- 
 also reduced, so that the laborer's cost of living would 
 be less, it certainly could not effect a reduction so great 
 that he could live at half his present wages. The ef- 
 fect on the wages of laborers in other industries can 
 be imagined. Three hundred thousand hands to find 
 other work and bid against those the repeal of the 
 tariff might spare. The farmer loses that many paying 
 customers and gains a share of the competition. In 
 addition to those engaged in the direct trade, how 
 many in related industries — the miners of coal, the 
 quarriers of limestone, the transporters of mate- 
 rial — would be affected? What of the millions of 
 capital invested — where would it find equally profit- 
 able employment? And the profit in the business, 
 would it enrich our people and add to their comforts ? 
 And what would we gain from this change? " Cheap 
 iron," says the Free Trader. We would for a time, but 
 it is not at all likely that we would long be able to buy 
 P^nglish iron at prices at present ruling there. We know 
 that in 1846, when the low tariff closed our furnaces, 
 English rails, which had been $50, rose to $80. In- 
 creased demand and demoralized competition would 
 surely advance present values. They would not go 
 above our competing cost price, but would be just 
 enough under it to keep us out.
 
 42 IHE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 Further illustration is afforded by the growth of the 
 silk industry. In 20 years the product has increased 
 from $6,000,000 to $31,000,000; 5,000 hands were 
 then employed, 31,000 now. Our imports in the mean- 
 time have decreased slightly, and now barely equal the 
 home product. This is clearly the child of protection 
 resulting from the very heavy war-rate tariff. 
 
 The wool interest would also well repay our investi- 
 gations, and especially illustrate the advantage of the 
 proximity of woolen mills to the sheep farms of the 
 West : as, for instance in Ohio, where there are 208 
 woolen mills and four million sheep. 
 
 Why should this wool be sent to Europe, to be 
 there manufactured by poorly paid workmen, and 
 returned for the wool-raiser and his neighbors to buy? 
 Who pays the transportation ? Surely the wool pro 
 ducer, or the mill operator in England, or the pur- 
 chaser of the cloth. If it is labor we lack, why not 
 bring the man to the wool, instead of taking the wool 
 to the man? We could pay him living wages, and he 
 would be a customer for our farmer and our manufac- 
 turer. If it is coal and iron we cannot get so cheaply, 
 let us pay a little more for them, and for the cloth itself, 
 if need be, if by so doing these branches of industry 
 can be sustained, the volume of business increased 
 and the wealth of the nation augmented. In the gen- 
 eral result, the consumer who pays the enhanced price 
 will get it back again.
 
 THE QUESTION OF REVENUE. 43 
 
 What is true of wool in Ohio, is true of cotton in 
 Georgia, of wine and wool in California, and'of many 
 articles in every State of the Union. Protection pre- 
 vents unnecessary transportation, and renders labor 
 productive. Mr. Greeley admirably states this truth : 
 
 Protection is another name for labor saving, through co- 
 operation, by bringing producer and consumer nearer each 
 other, enabling them to interchange their respective products 
 directly and cheaply, instead of circuilously, through several 
 intermediates and at great cost. In thus reducing the propor- 
 tion of exchangers and increasing that of producers in a com- 
 munity, it inevitably increases the aggregate product of human 
 eftort, and thus enhances the recompense of labor. 
 
 The discussion of protection is as yet inseparable 
 from the question of revenue. The expenditures of 
 our Government were, for the past year, $265,000,000. 
 Our receipts from customs were $202,000,000, from 
 internal revenue, $130,000,000, and from miscella- 
 neous sources, $38,000,000, leaving a surplus of 
 $111,500,000, of which $109,500,000 was paid on 
 the princii)al of the debt. 
 
 Under free trade we would lose the $200,000,000 
 (less cost of collection), and fall short some $90,000,- 
 000 of our ordinary expenses, leaving the debt un- 
 touched. Where would we turn for this ? We would 
 be compelled to greatly increase our internal revenue 
 tax, and also to resort to the odious income' tax that 
 lingers in our memory as a touching feature of the 
 relKllioii.
 
 44 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 England formerly collected duty from more than a 
 thousand articles, but has now reduced the number 
 to twenty-four, from which she collected, in 1 880, 
 $94,000,000, while from excise, stamp, license and 
 income tax she raised $231,000,000. Of her duties, 
 tobacco paid $42,000,000. Tea and spirit each 
 $19,000,000. Her total tax per capita is $10.17, 
 $7.43 being inland. Our tax is $7. 32 per capita, 
 $4.20 of which is derived from import duties. 
 
 Aside from the benefits claimed to be derived from 
 protection, how could we adjust the tax more equit- 
 ably or collect it more easily? A direct tax would 
 hardly be resorted to. Restoring the duty to articles 
 of consumption like tea and coffee would be unpopu- 
 lar and also inadequate. The income tax would be 
 most appropriate, as it is, like free trade, beautiful in 
 theory, but it also has its drawbacks in practice. In 
 spite of the disadvantages of indirect taxation, it is 
 widely diffused and collected with certainty. Every 
 one pays in proportion to what he consumes, and de- 
 linquent lists are unknown. Any direct tax is difficult 
 of collection, and the temptation to misrepresent value 
 of property or amount ot income is a terribly demor- 
 alizing influence ; so that any tax we can pay without 
 lying about it has decided advantages. 
 
 The incidental taxes which we pay in support of 
 protection i)resent a fine field for tall figuring on 
 the part of opponents of the policy. Congressman
 
 INCIDENTAL TAXES. 45 
 
 Springer, in a recent article, fixes the amount at 
 $556,938,637 per annum. To the uninstructed mind 
 it involves difficulties. Why he should assume that a- 
 forty per cent, duty on $74,000,000 worth of imported 
 metals should involve a tax of twenty per cent, on 
 $604,000,000 of domestic production, is hard to see, 
 unless he implies that if we were to cease manufactur- 
 ing, and supply ourselves entirely from abroad, the 
 foreign goods would cost us $121,000,000 less than 
 we now pay for domestic. In the same way, the in- 
 significant amount of $8,000,000 in imported tobacco 
 is made to add $29,000,000 to the price of our 
 domestic product ; and the importation of $47,000,- 
 000 of wool and woolen goods causes us to pay $106,- 
 000,000 more for the $267,000,000 worth we produce ! 
 
 There is a slight suggestion here of the tail's wag- 
 ging the dog. But if we take him at his word, and 
 follow the logic of it, we find that to save this 
 $557,000,000 incidental tax, we must import in addi- 
 tion to the $433,000,000 we do at present, $2,440,- 
 000,000, which we now manufacture. Now how 
 would Mr. Springer pay this $2,877,000,000? With 
 breadstuffs? Who would cat them, and how many 
 ships would be required for their transportation ? 
 
 It may be answered that we would not be obliged 
 to import this enormous amount — that but for the 
 tariff it would be produced at home for the less cost. 
 This presumes that foreign competition would compel 
 our manufacturers to largely reduce the prices which
 
 46 THE POLICY OF PROTECTTON. 
 
 competition among themselves now fixes. This they 
 could only do by cutting down wages to the Euro- 
 pean rate, and they could not then compete unless 
 the other disadvantages under which we suffer were 
 offset by the cost of transportation. It is extremely 
 doubtful if wages coidd be largely reduced. It is 
 assuredly not for the true interest of any American 
 that they should be. That they must be, in order to 
 compete with foreign manufactures, is too apparent to 
 admit of argument ; and yet even this fact is denied. 
 As Mr. Blaine remarks in his recent work : " Free 
 traders do not, and apparently dare not, face the plain 
 truth — which is that the lowest-priced fabric means the 
 lowest-priced labor." 
 
 Mr. Springer assumes that the foreign market could 
 and would supply six times the quantity it now does 
 without increase of price, and also that were the "in- 
 fant industries," at which he sneers, discontinued, we 
 would have the same ability to pay that we have now. 
 Assuming so much, it is no wonder that he concludes 
 that the people of the United States have in twenty 
 years been mulcted in the sum of eleven billions. 
 
 It is claimed by free traders that protection unduly 
 stimulates manufactures, and that over-production and 
 periods of depression follow. The claim cannot be 
 substantiated. Excessive production is due to other 
 causes. It is the constant tendency from the nature 
 of things, and is not affected by systems of revenue or
 
 OVKR-PRODUCTION. 47 
 
 Other legislative action. Have we never heard of gluts 
 in the markets of Great Britain and of the great pros- 
 tration of her industries ? 
 
 If protection has any influence with us in this direc- 
 tion it is to mitigate the evil, for it keeps out the enor- 
 mous surplus of goods that accumulates abroad when 
 production outruns consumption, and which would be 
 thrown upon our market at any price. 
 
 Protection cannot insure a wise regulation of pro- 
 duction, but it tends to localize disturbances that arise 
 Irom over-production. It is by no means a panacea 
 for all evils. It cannot prevent occasional combina- 
 tions among manufacturers to keep prices above their 
 natural level, nor lockouts, nor strikes, nor many other 
 undesirable occurrences. It makes successful manu- 
 facturing possible, it does not insure it. It may not 
 prevent, but it does not cause. 
 
 Advocates of free trade persist in holding up Eng- 
 land's present policy by the side of her great wealth 
 and power, and claiming the one as cause and the 
 other as effect. They ignore the persistency with 
 which she pursued the policy of protection until she 
 had so firmly established her manufactures that she 
 had nothing to fear from free competition with all the 
 world. She held her own market for her own wares 
 until the development of industrial ])owcr, the accu- 
 mulation of ca])ital, the superiority of her machinery, 
 and the effective organization of labor gave her
 
 48 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 such decided advantage that she had everything to 
 gain and nothing to lose by adopting free trade. 
 
 The advantage she had then gained she has 
 steadily held, and she has waxed rich and strong 
 in the commercial intercourse she has maintained 
 with other nations less favorably circumstanced. 
 She has collected tribute from every land, and by 
 her enterprise and power put us, with other nations, 
 on the defensive. She has clearly seen her advantage 
 and wisely jjursued it. 
 
 Her ability to supply the markets of the world being 
 dependent upon her commercial power, she has sus- 
 tained with a strong hand her shipping interests. 
 
 Mr. Blaine, in his "Twenty Years of Congress," 
 concisely states her course. 
 
 "When steam began to compete with sail she saw her ad- 
 vantage. She could build engines at less cost than we, and 
 when, soon afterward her ship-builders began, to construct the 
 entire steamer of iron, her advantages became evident to the 
 whole world. England was not content, however, with the su- 
 periority which these circumstances gave to her. She did not' 
 wait for her own theory of free trade to work out its legitimate 
 results, but forthwith stimulated the growth of her steam marine 
 by the most enormous bounties ever paid by any nation to any 
 enterprise. To a single line of steamers running alternately 
 from Liverpool to Boston and New York, she paid nine hundred 
 thousand dollars annually, and continued to pay at this extrava- 
 gant rate for at least twenty years. In all channels of trade 
 where steam could be employed she paid lavish subsidies, and 
 literally destroyed fair competition, and created for herself a 
 practical monopoly in the building of iron steamers, and a supe-
 
 THE BRITISH MARINE. 49 
 
 rior share in the ocean traffic of the world. But every step she 
 took in the development of her steam marine by the payment of 
 bounty, was in flat contradiction of the creed which she was at 
 the same time advocating in those departments of trade where 
 she could conquer her competitors without bounty. * * * 
 Even now there is good reason for believing that many lines of 
 English steamers, in their effort to seize the trade to the exclu- 
 sion of rivals, are paid such extravagant rates for the carrying of 
 letters as practically to amount to a bounty, thus confirming to 
 the present day the fact that no nation has ever been so persist- 
 ently and so jealously protective in her policy as England so 
 long as the stimulus of protection is needed to give her the 
 command of trade. What is true of England is true in greater 
 or less degree of all other European nations. They have each 
 in turn regulated the adoption of free trade l)y the ratio of their 
 progress towards the point where they could overcome competi- 
 tion. In all those departments of trade where competition 
 could overcome them, they have been quick to interpose protec- 
 tive measures for the benefit of their own people." 
 
 This is in marked contrast to our treatment of the 
 shipping interest. We have followed free trade prin- 
 ciples, and our shipping has languished. 
 
 A Government that would not pursue a policy look- 
 ing to the general welfare of its people would fall short 
 of its purpose. There are other wars than those where 
 armaments and projectiles are used — less sanguinary, 
 but not less destructive ; and there is the same justifi- 
 cation for defense when the means of earning a liveli- 
 hood are assailed as where an attack at arms is made. 
 
 What would be thought of a Government that failed 
 to defend itself when attacked because it believed that
 
 50 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 peace should prevail ? And shall we from any senti- 
 mental regard for an abstract theory fail to protect our 
 citizens from threatened danger to their supply of 
 daily bread? 
 
 Peace is the true theory, but the world has not 
 reached the point where it can be the universal 
 practice. 
 
 Free trade is the ideal theory, but with existing 
 conditions it would place at a disadvantage every new 
 nation, and retard its progress and development. Pro- 
 tection equalizes disadvantages, it permits development. 
 It is a practical declaration of independence. It says for 
 us to day to all the world : " We are doing very well 
 by ourselves, and we do not care to buy your cheap 
 goods. We like the kind of goods our own people 
 make, and it is for our interest to patronize them. 
 We are perfectly satisfied to pay them a fair price so 
 that they can gain enough from the business to be 
 comfortable. There are some things that you make 
 or raise that we cannot, and these we are glad to buy 
 from you, and we will pay you in gold or in wheat or 
 in anything else of which we have a surplus. We 
 have a large country over here, and we have a good 
 deal of free trade in it, all in our own family, and we 
 like it, but just at present we do not see how we can 
 let you come in on an even footing. We are a good 
 deal in debt yet (and, by the way, we think you helped 
 us get in), and if you send your goods over here we 
 will have to insist on your paying a little jiremium to
 
 A DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 5 1 
 
 land them. We do not choose to hire our help as 
 cheaply as you do, and it would not be fair to our 
 workmen to let you sell things at so low a price that 
 they would have to give up or go on half pay. In all 
 this we show no disrespect, and we wish you well, but 
 you must allow us to manage our affairs as seems wise 
 to us. You do what you think is best for your people, 
 and therein you are right. We may be mistaken (some 
 of your people have told us so), but on the whole we 
 are getting on very well, and we think we know what is 
 good for us." 
 
 The free trade arguments seem to be largely com- 
 posed of ridicule and misrepresentation, and are based 
 mainly on theory. Indeed, the line that divides pro- 
 tectionists from free traders is generally the line that 
 runs between theorists and practical men. College 
 students are, as a class, very ardent free traders. 
 When they go out into active life, and observe the 
 practical working of affairs, they are apt to doubt 
 their previous convictions, and become convinced that 
 there may be truth not yet recognized by the dogmatic 
 writers of text-books. In the college they naturally 
 receive the very [)ositive instruction of their professors 
 as unciuestionably correct. They are given to under- 
 stand that the truth of free trade theories is not to be 
 questioned. 
 
 A number of Yale students mildly and sensibly 
 suggested to Professor Sumner that they would like to
 
 52 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 hear the arguments in favor of protection. He replied 
 with warmth and indignation, "There are none." His 
 argument before the Tariff Commission of 1882, and 
 his replies to the Congressmen who questioned him 
 concerning it, illustrate very clearly the difference 
 between men of theory and men of practice in view- 
 ing the question. He ridicules protectionists without 
 mercy, and makes a strong theoretic case; but when 
 put to the test of the ai)plication of his theories, he 
 never touches ground. When asked what he would 
 substitute for the present system of taxation, he says : 
 " I am not a statesman at all ; I cannot formulate a 
 revenue system for the country. It is the business of 
 Congressmen and statesmen to provide for a revenue, 
 not the business of professors." He insists, however, 
 that all protective taxes should be abolished. He is 
 willing to pay a tax on tea, or pepper, or coffee, but 
 objects to paying a tax on any article manufactured in 
 the United States if by it the manufacturer is favored in 
 his business. Any tax that favors any particular busi- 
 ness ought to be abolished. 
 
 Commissioner Kenner asks him if New England, 
 whose soil cannot compare with the prairies of the 
 West or the savannas of the South, has not grown rich 
 by her manufactures. He admits it, but claims that 
 protection has had nothing to do with it. He is forced 
 to admit that the South has not prospered. Mr. 
 Kenner (himself a Southerner) replies : 
 
 " But the system which has been adopted by the
 
 A PRACTICAL VIEW. 53 
 
 Southern people is the one which you have been advo- 
 cating here to-day; while the opposite system has been 
 adopted by the New England States, by Ohio, Penn- 
 sylvania, and the Middle and Western States. They 
 have taken advantage of this system, which you say is 
 all nonsense — the sublimest nonsense, utterly and in- 
 effably ridiculous. * * * \yg ^^_\^q South] have 
 turned our backs on manufactures of every kind, as 
 a rule, and have adopted the theory propounded by 
 Mr. Calhoun and other great men of the South, that 
 we were tributary to the North, and have carried the 
 theory into ])ractice. The result has been that it has 
 placed the South at the bottom of the hill." 
 
 Mr. Sumner claimed that the protective system to- 
 day, as it exists in the United States, is a sacrifice of 
 the interests of the Western farmer to the interests of 
 the Eastern manufacturer. 
 
 Commissioner Boteler says in reply: 
 
 " We have traveled many thousand miles during the 
 last few weeks searching for facts, in the humble hope 
 that we might be able to send to Congress a record 
 that would be considered as a mirror of the public sen- 
 timent of the country, and we have never yet found in 
 the neighborhood of any manufacturing town where 
 the farmer finds a ready market for his perishable 
 products, one single person who did not rejoice in 
 the establishment of such manufactories, and feel that 
 the greatest encouragement that could be given to the 
 farming community was to vary the industries of his
 
 54 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 region of country, and develop a market for his pro- 
 ducts. * * * \Yq find a great change of public 
 sentiment in those localities. * * * We were glad 
 to find that the people are a long way ahead of the 
 politicians in the South, and are bringing these mat- 
 ters home practically and applying them to their own 
 business, and are proclaiming themselves as earnestly 
 and honestly in favor of a protective tariff." 
 
 Commissioner Oliver shows him that the price of 
 pig iron in England is $ii, and in Eastern Penn- 
 sylvania $22. Of the latter at least $21 is cost of 
 labor. The difference in value arises from the fact 
 that the English laborer gets fifty cents a day and 
 the American $1.25. Mr. Sumner replies, "That does 
 not make any difference." 
 
 The Commissioner rejoins : "It makes a difference 
 in his style of living, and a difference in the condition 
 of the man's family who receives $1.25 a day instead 
 of fifty cents a day, doesn't it ? " " Not at all," replies 
 Mr. Sumner ; " the only difference is whether he can 
 make $1.25 in making iron easier than he can in till- 
 ing the land. * * * Because a man gets fifty 
 cents a day in England for doing that work does not 
 affect the case. * * * I do not want to prescribe 
 what any man under God's heaven shall do. Let every 
 man stand on his own basis and help himself. I do not 
 want to be taxed to support him." " But you do not 
 want him to remain in ignorance," suggests the Commis- 
 sioner. Mr. Sumner replies, closing his examination :
 
 PROF. SUMNER S VIEWS. 55 
 
 " Every man has to take care of himself and win his 
 own way through the world, as I have had to do, and 
 as all the rest of us have had to do." 
 
 Professor Sumner contends that the effect of pro- 
 tection is to decrease wages, and that free trade would 
 tend to their increase. The assumption seems utterly 
 baseless in reason, and certainly is not borne out by 
 the experience of the two great powers representing 
 the contending systems. 
 
 A recent report of the Massachusetts Bureau of 
 Statistics on the comparative wages in 1883 in Great 
 Britain and Massachusetts covers twenty-four occupa- 
 tions, about seventy-five percent, of the manufacturing 
 industries of Massachusetts. The average weekly 
 wages are stated to be $10.31, while in the corre- 
 sponding industries in England they are $5.86. 
 
 In the purely manufacturing industries the percent- 
 age in favor of Massachusetts was 73.02 per cent. It 
 is noteworthy also that wages in Massachusetts are 
 28.36 per cent, higher than they were in i860. 
 
 Comparative prices of forty-three articles of grocer- 
 ies and provisions are also given, from which it appears 
 that while average wages in Massachusetts are sixty- 
 two per cent, higher than in Great Britain, the cost of 
 living is but six per cent, higher in Massachusetts. 
 
 The average ascertained in Massachusetts would 
 hold through New England and the Middle States, 
 while in the West wages would be still higher propor- 
 tionately and the cost of living less.
 
 56 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 Objections to the policy of protection of the charac- 
 ter so stoutly urged by Professor Sumner and other 
 doctrinaires, are based upon its non-conformity to the 
 principles laid down by the old, abstract school of politi- 
 cal economists, but it would seem that the established 
 facts might justify a little distrust of the absolute cor- 
 rectness of their views, the more especially as other 
 dogmas of that school have been badly damaged by 
 the criticisms of later thinkers, and are being laid aside 
 by even the present adherents of the English system. 
 
 Methods of philosophy have experienced a great 
 change in the present age, and the result of the vigor- 
 ous inductive examination of the natural sciences has 
 been a decided modification of the theories that had 
 been reasoned out but never verified by facts. The 
 same test of early politico -economical theories is 
 being made in a very ])ractical way, and there are signs 
 that they, too, are being modified. The Malthusian 
 ghost, for instance, seems to have been effectually laid 
 by Herbert Spencer. The moral element in political 
 economy, a factor formerly ignored, is gaining wide 
 recognition. Writers like Roscher, the eminent Ger- 
 man, are emphasizing the supreme importance of con- 
 sidering man in economic studies, and giving him a 
 higher place than that of a mere machine for creating 
 wealth. 
 
 That remarkable man, Adam Smith, accomi)lished so 
 much in righting previous erroneous conceptions, and in 
 making political economy a science, that his followers
 
 MODIFIED POLITICAL ECONOMY. 57 
 
 seem unwilling to acknowledge that he did not abso- 
 lutely finish it, and state the whole truth in terms 
 never to be questioned. But there is a growing 
 impression that he did not give full weight to all the 
 facts of human life. We have made some history 
 since his time and developed much food for thought. 
 No man's judgment is entirely uninfluenced by self- 
 interest. The conclusions reached by nearly all 
 English writers on political economy conform to her 
 interests or justify her practice. England was wise in 
 adopting his views on free trade, but it does not follow 
 that the United States would show like wisdom in 
 discarding a policy under which she has so greatly 
 prospered. England looked to her interest, we are 
 looking to ours. The question to us is one of national 
 import. 
 
 Experience has taught that nations are as truly nec- 
 essary as families, and as it is not unwisely selfish for 
 a man to love and care for his own household more 
 than for another, so we can best advance the good of 
 mankind by laboring for the welfare of the nation to 
 which we belong. 
 
 The man without a country is a forlorn and mis- 
 taken wretch, and a man who would not make per- 
 sonal sacrifice for the benefit of his country, does not 
 deserve its protection. Patriotism is not inconsistent 
 with sympathy and love for all mankind, and a system 
 of taxation that looks first to the welfare of the people 
 adopting it needs no apology. It corresponds to the
 
 58 THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 enlightened selfishness that every man justly exercises 
 and is compelled to exercise in devotion to his own 
 family. There is in a measure the same practical 
 objection to free trade that there is to free love. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that in this discussion the 
 question is confined to the policy for this country and 
 at this time. For England free trade is perhaps the 
 best policy ; for us it does not seem to be. Even so 
 strong a free trader as John Stuart Mill admits that 
 were he an American he might be a protectionist. 
 
 The Nationalist idea in political economy is not a 
 late discovery. Berkeley was an early exponent of it. 
 Fichte and List in Germany, Coleridge and Byles in 
 England, Thiers in France, Colwell, Horace Greeley 
 and the much derided Henry C. Carey in the United 
 States, with hosts of lesser lights, have dared to ques- 
 tion the accepted faith. 
 
 The following is a brief statement of a few princi- 
 ])les affecting the question under consideration, as laid 
 down by Thompson, additional to those at first quoted : 
 
 Political economy treats of man in society. It is an art as 
 well as a science, and has to do with wise spending as well as 
 wise saving. 
 
 Upon the wise management of the general policy of the gov- 
 ernment, the welfare and the security of the individual depend. 
 
 A nation advances in wealth and prosperity in proportion as it 
 removes all obstacles to the mutual interchange of services 
 between its own people. 
 
 If all nations were equal in numbers, capital, and social and 
 industrial development, no obstacles would be presented by 
 the freest trade uitli all other nations.
 
 NATIONALISTIC PRINCIPLES. 59 
 
 It is the aim of protection to remove the obstacles to natural 
 growth. It is natural resistance to an unnatural state of things. 
 
 Its principles justify no rate of duty higher than an amount 
 sufficient to compensate the disadvantages as regards labor, capi- 
 tal, taxation, etc., under which the nation to be protected lies. 
 
 A nation, whether it consumes its own products, or with them 
 purchases from abroad, can have no more value than it produces. 
 The supreme policy of every nation, therefore, is to develop the 
 producing forces of its own country. 
 
 Protection tends to bring producer and consumer as nearly 
 as possible together, which saves to one or both the cost of 
 transportation and commissions of middle-men when they are 
 widely separated. The nearer they approach the more nearly 
 the value of raw material approximates that of manufactured 
 goods. 
 
 If buying in the cheapest market reduces the amount and 
 compensation of labor, it is for a nation bad economy. 
 
 Capital grows as the power of association increases. Its 
 movement in home manufactures is more rapid, giving it greater 
 power and efficiency. 
 
 It is for the interest of the nation that labor be well paid, that 
 its power may be developed to the utmost. 
 
 A system that gives the advantage in the most desiraljjc forms 
 of industry to the nation whose laboring population is the most 
 depressed is wrong, and should be resisted. 
 
 The United States, by its legislation, has refused to 
 exalt wealth over welfare. It has recognized the fact 
 that the law of parsimony, su[)reme in to-day's trade, 
 does not hold good as a national policy, where the 
 objects of highest concern are not tilings, but men. 
 
 That there are grave difficulties in fairly adjusting 
 tariff rates, no one can deny. The ])0wer of fixing 
 (hilics is a ureal tii.il both lo llic iiuiicsU and jiidg-
 
 6o THE POLICY OF PROTECTION. 
 
 ment of those who exercise it. It is improbable that 
 exact justice can be done, and very probable that 
 great injustice is in many instances worked, but the 
 same may be said of all laws and every device of man 
 to regulate his relations with his fellow man. 
 
 It would be very gratifying if peace and plenty 
 blessed every land, and love to God and love to man 
 possessed every human breast ; it would greatly sim- 
 ])lify matters, and tariffs and other necessary evils 
 would be thankfully forgotten ; but the world as it is 
 is the field in which man is called upon to work out his 
 destiny, and there is no other guide in reaching it than 
 an enlightened judgment. 
 
 The determination of the details of protection — its 
 extent, terms and duration — call for the highest in- 
 telligence, the clearest judgment and an absolutely 
 honest purpose. If, happily, they control, it would 
 seem from the present outlook that the people of the 
 United States will long have cause for gratitude at the 
 adoption of what Henry Clay was proud in calling, the 
 American System.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Agriculture — As affected by protection, .... 13-27-33-38 
 
 Australia — Experience with free trade, 18 
 
 Belgium — Forty years of protection, 21 
 
 Blaine, Jas. G. — " Twenty Years of Congress," . . . 46-48 
 
 Canada — Free trade and protection, 16 
 
 Duties — Right to impose, 4 
 
 Exports — Effect of protection, 27 
 
 France — Position as to protection, 20 
 
 Free Trade Convention — Its address considered, . . . 3-22 
 
 Germany — Progress under protection, 20 
 
 Great Britain — Methods of competition, 25 
 
 Protection of shipping, 49 
 
 Protective period, 14 
 
 Why she favors free trade, 15 
 
 Ireland — Cause of her poverty, 19 
 
 Incidental taxes — Mr. Springer's estimate, 45 
 
 Iron Industry — Dependence on protection, 38 
 
 Iron — Comparative cost in England and United States, . . 39 
 
 Labor — Protection of, 28-30-32 
 
 Manufactures — Effect of protection, 38 
 
 Ex]5orts, 27 
 
 Mongredien — " Western Farmer" pamphlet reviewed, . . 34 
 
 Over-production — Protection not responsil)le for, .... 47 
 Political Economy — Extracts from Thomjison's, . . . 5-61 
 
 Objections to protection, 5^ 
 
 Modified principles of, 59 
 
 Protection — Its origin and history in United States, ... 7 
 
 History of in foreign countries, 14 
 
 A declaration of independence, 50 
 
 Development of United States under, ... 12 
 
 Effect on prices of goods, 35 
 
 Revenue and expenditures, 43 
 
 Steel Rails — Production of in U. S. and decrease in cost, . 40 
 
 Sumner, Prof — Examination before the Tariff Commission, 52 
 
 Tariff Legislation— 1789 to 1861, 8 
 
 Tariff Commissioners — Eixperience and views, .... 54 
 
 Wages and cost of living — Comparative statistics, ... 56 
 
 Wages — Comparative rate in iron trade, .~ 39 
 
 Wool — Advantage of home manufacture, 42
 
 THE QUESTIONS OF TO-DAY! 
 
 PROTECTION, OR FREE TRADE? 
 REPUBLICAN, OR DEMOCRAT? 
 
 THE RECORD: 
 
 Vote of Senate, Fer. 20, 1861, on Adoption of Morrill. 
 Tariff. 
 
 RepiMicans. Democrats. 
 
 For— 25. FoK-o. 
 
 Against— o. Against— 14. 
 
 Vote of House, May 6, 1884, on Morrison Bill for 
 Horizontal Reduction of Duties. 
 
 Republicans. 
 For — 4. 
 Against — 118. 
 
 Democrats. 
 For — 151. 
 Against — 41. 
 
 Extracts from Platforms of i{ 
 
 Republican. 
 " We, therefore, demand that the 
 imposition of duties on foreign im- 
 ports shall be made, not for " rev- 
 enue only," but that, in raising the 
 requisite revenues for the Govern- 
 ment, such duties shall be levied as 
 to afford security to our diversified 
 industries, and protection to the 
 rights and wages of the laborer, to 
 the end that active and intelligent 
 labor, as well as capital, may have 
 its just reward, and the laboring 
 man his full share in the national 
 prosperity." 
 
 Detnocratic. 
 " Sufficient revenue to pay all ex- 
 penses of the Federal Government,, 
 economically administered, includ- 
 ing pensions, interest, and the prin- 
 cipal of the public debt, can be got 
 under our present system of taxa- 
 tion from Custom House taxes on a 
 few imported articles, bearing the 
 heaviest on articles of luxury, and- 
 bearing the lightest on articles of 
 necessity. We, therefore, denounce 
 the abuses of the existing tariff, 
 and, subject to limitation, we de- 
 mand that Federal taxation shall be 
 exclusively for public purposes, and 
 shall not exceed the needs of a Gov- 
 ernment economically administered." 
 
 4193 n
 
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