Crawfordsville Weekly Journal, Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, 15 October 1892 — Page 9

The few who are thus publicly stigmatized are the manufacturers of the United States. If this charge means anything it is that they, as a class, take advantage of protection to plunder the people by putting an unreasonable price on their goods. I# this wholesale accusation true?

There is one class of manufacturers who make large profits it is those who make patented articles. They have a monopoly in their products while the patent runs and can charge what they please and they do, in fact, charge all they can get. We grumble at them often, and sometimes with reason. But protection has no more to do with their extortions than the changes of the moon.

Aside from these, I deny that American manufacturers, as a class, are making extravagant profits. Have you seen any proof of it Have you seen in any Democratic newspaper anyauthentic statistics, reports, or facts showing that the manufacturers of the United States, as a body, leaving out those who work under patents, are making larger profits than other business men Not a bit of it. And you will not. It is rot true. On the contrary, the fact is, as every intelligent, observing man knows, that the business of manufacturing in this country, where not protected by patents, is subject to such nipping, close competition that it is impossible to succeed in it without the best machinery, the best organization, the closest economy and the most judicious management. Of course, a great manufacturing business, well managed, employing thousands of workmen, makes a great deal of monev for its owner in prosperous times. But that is true of any kind of business successfully carried on upon a great scale, in any country, under any commercial system.

In the place of proof on this subject, we have .heard, and will continue to hear until election day, the same mere execrations of the rich which have formed the stock in trade of demagogues in all ages. It is true that we have many rich men among us—some that are very rich, and that there are evils attending the accumulation of great wealth in few hands which deserve consideration. But what relation has that fact to the issue Between protection and free trade No man makes money in business except through the prosperity of other*. A. T. Stewart never would have made his millions in merchandising without prosperous customers to buy his goods the Vanderbilts never would have made their millions without a prosperous communitv to patronize their railroads Carnegie never would have made his millions without customers able to buy his iron. The conditions under which great fortunes are made are those in which there is the greatest general prosperity, and all the people live well and spend freelv, and it matters not whether those conditions arise from protection or free trade. They may exist with either, as I have already shown. England has her manufacturing princes as \yell as her merchant princes, who have made their millions under free trade. If Stewart, Vanderbilt and Carnegie had found the same conditions of general prosperity existing under free trade which they found existing under protection, they would have made the same fortunes in the same way. I will not say that the adoption of free trade may not prevent the accumulation of great fortunes in the United States, but if it does, it will be by making all the people so poor that there will be no basis in the country for profitable business.

Some sort of political strabismus prevents most free-trade orators from seeing anything between .a beggar and a millionaire. The one is the object of tearful pitv and the other of withering scorn but for the great body of comfortable, happy, prosperous citizens who stand between, he has no eyes at all. How many men have made a million dollars in Indiana Perhaps a dozen or twenty. How many have realized the wise prayer of Agur, and, without either poverty or riches, have enough for comfort Hundreds* of thousands. And shall we cripple the prosperity of all these in order to scotch a few nabobs

THE SEI.F RESPECTING MANUFAC-

r, Tl'RER.

»v I do not see how any self-respecting manufacturer can vote with the Demo5 r'* -f

cratic party this year, lie knows that its wholesale indictment of him and his bupiness is utterly false. He knows that unless he can invent something new, and so protect himself by a patent for a few years, he has to do business on as close margins as a merchant. He knows that he is, in truth, a public benefactor, Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of men, women and children live on the wages he pays out. It is his to raise the money, devise the means, watch the markets, drum up the customers study the proljlems which a great business presents, and take the chances of its success. It is theirs to have steady, secure employment, and go to happy homes at night without an anxious thought for the morrow. Of course, this is not for charity on his part. He may be, in a given case, a selfish, hard, grasping man, and open, as an individual, to all the criticism which those qualities invite wherever we find them. But, separating the accidental character of the man from the essential character of his business, the manufacturer is a public benefactor in a higher sense than any of the rest of us. And the indiscriminate villification of the whole body of them in Democratic platforms, papers and speeches is the most disgraceful appeal to ignoranc" and prejudice that has been made by any party since the days when to hate a negro was a party principle.

CHEAP GOODS.

Will free trade give us cheaper goods This is a question to be considered from two points of view first, the real cost of things second, the money cost. The real price which a man who earns his living pays for the things he consumes is the labor he expends. And if an average year's work in the United States will procure more things ministering to use and comfort than an average year of like work in another country, then prices are really lower here than in the other country, although a market price current might indicate the contrary in dollars and cents. And that is the real situation. Measured bv the labor necessary to procure them, all the necessaries of comfortable living are cheaper in the United States than anywhere else. To this fact there are among us millions of witnesses who have made the comparison for themselves, and who know by experience that while it may take more money to buy things in America than in Germany or Ireland, it takes less sweat.

But this is not the way a free-trade debater approaches the question. He takes a yard of cloth made bv the cheap labor of the Old World and shows it to a high-priced laborer in the New World, and says: See how cheap this is if you will take off the tariff you can have it at the same price," expecting his hearer to take it for granted that under free trade he will get American prices for his labor, and be charged European prices for his goods. But can he do that

If a man could make an exception to the general rule in his individual case, and take the money which his labor produces in the United States under protection, and buy foreign goods with it without payment of duty, it would be a profitable arrangement. Just so, it would be money in a man's pocket to be relieved from public taxes, and yet continue to enjoy the advantages of government, and law. But in order to judge whether his taxes are a good pecuniary investment or not a man must consider what his condition would be if nobody paid any taxes, and society were deprived of all the institutions which depend on taxation. So in order to form any valuable opinion as to the probable effect of free trade on his own condition, a man must take into account its consequences upon the lives, earnings and prosperity of all his fellow citizens. We cannot have free trade for one man or set of men, and protection for all the rest. We cannot have its advantages without taking its disadvantages also.

PRICES IRON,

To trace all the causes that affect prices and predict exactly what effect free trade would produce on them in the United States, is beyond the power of any one. But it is cirtain that it would not give us European prices without giving us substantially European conditions in other respects as well. Let us make a little study, for example, of the price of iron, which iscoming to be the most important of

all manufactured commodities. It has in the first place, what you may call a world-round price, depending 011 the whole world's supply, the whole world's consumption, and those elements of the cost of production which are universal. The local price varies in different countries by a margin depending on local conditions, but the general price depends on general conditions, and rises or falls in parallel curves. There can be no doubt that, although not a pound of American iron may be sent to England, and the money price may be higher here than there, the American production affects the English price. The pig-iron output of the three great iron-producing countries is given as follows:

Tons.

United States. 1S90. .. .9,202,000 England 1S90... .7,904,000 Germany 1SS9. .. .4,524,000

Our own- production is nearlv onethird of the world's supply. Its diminution from any cause except lessened consumption would tend to raise the price everywhere. Suppose we should shut up our furnaces and go to England and Germany to buy all our iron what would be the effect It would send the price booming skyward. You or I can go there and buy a few tons at a less price than we can buy it here. But if we should all go there to buy, prices would go up like a rocket.

Suppose, on the other hand, that without forming any resolution on that subject we simply open the door to free trade in iron. If the foreign producers should put, their prices up to our standard we would gain nothing by the change. If they should offer us iron at less prices than those at which we are now producing it, what would our iron makers do They must meet those prices or go out ol the business. And to meet a cut in prices they must have a reduction in everything that enters into the cost of production and sale—wages, freights, rents, interest and everything else. This would compel a readjustment of our whole industrial system so as to bring it into line -with the industrial conditions of the competing countries. With English wages, and English standards of living we could compete with England in the production of iron, but not otherwise. In fhort, if we want foreign prices on iron we must accept foreign conditions with them.

As with iron so with all other commodities of general use produced bv us. Our production is part of the world'-s supply and helps to deep down the world-round price. Take away our production and the world's supply will be short of its wants, and the price will go up. If we adopt free trade and still undertake to keep up our production we must do it on a basis of wages and living substantially identical with that of other nations. So that, turn it over as you will, there is no way in v^ich we can get goods at foreign prices without importing also the conditions of foreign life and business.

The adoption of free trade by us would not, in fact, transfer all our manufactures to Europe. They have become too great for that. But it would produce a period of reconstruction on both sides of the water. 6n the other side it would be a reconstruction upward on bur side a reconstruction downward, until we reached such an equality of conditions that we could trade freely with each other. I have assumed in this argument that the money prices of manufactured goods are higher here than abroad, which is in general true. But as to most things the difference is slight, and as to many things there is none at all. The assumption made by President Cleveland in his tariff message of 1887, and by free trade advocates generally, that the difference is equal to the duty, has been shown over and over to be an egregious error. The broad truth, subject to minor and temporary exceptions, is, that in so great a country as ours competition is bound to force prices down to the lowest point of living profit.

FOREIGN MARKETS.

You will hear a Demo,cratic speaker in one breath revile the American rqanufacturer as a robber of his fcllow-citi-zens, and in the next, with delightful versatility, bemoan his cramped and embarrassed condition for want oPmore customers, and solicitously recommend to him free trade as an open doer to the markets of the world. The market? of

the world "—what an inviting, seductive sound. But by an unlortunate concatenation of circumstances the world is only eight thousand miles in diameter three-quarters of its surface is covered with water not more than two-third?, of the remainder is habitable and of the people who occupy that the majority have no money to buv anything with from anybody. A for the others, there isn't a savage cn the face of the earth who can be induced to buy another breech cloth that hasn't had an English drummer after him. Though you take the wings of the morning and tly to the uttermost parts of the earth, there he is. And yet the English manufacturer is crying for more customers. A royal commission was appointed recently to inquire into the causes of the existing depression of trade. It took sixteen hundred pages of testimony from the ablest experts in the kingdom, and in its report, which I have in my library, the first cause assigned was overproduction—too manv goods for the market. How can we get into those glutted markets Only by cutting prices. But all hands can pla'y at that game. And where do you suppose the cutting would stop before the countries of the Old World would retire to make place for 11s

TRUE BASIS OI-" FOREIGN TRADE.

But, you say, would you have no foreign trade? Certajnly I would. There is a field of international exchanges ordained by nature, profitable to both parties and ample to sustain .a great foreign commerce. It rests mostly upon the interchange of the products of different latitudes, including also natural productions of general use found only in limited localities. I cannot describe it more perfectly than by reference to our own commerce for the past year. During the twelve months ending June 30, 1S92, we imported—

Coffee..'. $126,So 1/07 Cocoa 3,221,041 Cork 1:368,244 Bananas 5.000,632 India-rubber 19,833,090 Raw silk 24.321.494 Foreign spices 2.740.0S7 Foreign gums 6,089.546 Foreign textile grasses 16,478,122 Sugar 106,720,228

Tea

v-•: 4.373-222

$326,947,313

Other free imports. 131,053,459

$458,000,772

Dutiable imports.... 369,400,801

Total imports...-... $827,401,573 During the same period we exported— Animals $36,498,221

Breadstuff's 299.363,117 Cotton 255,461.241 Petroleum 44.805,992 Meat and dairy products.. 140.362.159

$779 490 730

Other exports...... 236.241 2S1

Total exports $1,015,732,011 Total imports 827.401,573

Balance in our favor, $188,330,438 These two tables show at a glance the general character of our foreign trade. The eleven principal imports enumerated are things we need, but cannot produce for ourselves. We may be able some dav to produce the sugar the others are products of soils and climates different from ours. Our five leading exports named were of products of our soil and climate sold to nations that could not produce them for themselves either for want of suitable soil and climate or from excess of population. Those are the exchanges ordained by nature. They amounted in the aggregate to eleven hundred million dollars in the sixteen classes named during the first fiscal year following the enactment of the McKinlcv bill. Thev brought to our homes the choicest productions of every land under the sun without the burden of a dollar of duty. There is a reason for this kind of commerce in the constitution of the earth and the wants of man. It helps everybody and hurts nobody. It is necessary to human happiness and progress.

ARTIFICIAL EXCHANGES.

There is another kind of commerce of which I do not think so well. Can any one give a good reason why cotton should be raised in Georgia, shipped to England, made into cloth and sent back here for use Or why we should wear clothes made from .Australian wool spun and woven in England Or why we should go abroad for glassware, pottery, or metal manufactures If

we were too ignorant and stupid to make these things, or learn to make them, that would be good reason lor buying them abroad until we could work up a little in the scale of intelligence. But that we cannot admit. And there remains 110 reason except that they can be made abroad bv cheaper labor. That is not a condition of God's or nature's creation, but ol man's creation. It is an artificial ion dition, and exchanges resting on that basis are artificial and not natural exchanges. And they are not good for us. They give us nothing which we could not produce for ourselves, and to our great advantage. They seduce us Irom the rugged paths, which, through eflort, self-denial, invention and perseverance, bring out our best powers, and lead us into the kingdom ot our inheritance as sovereigns ol the earth and all things on it. And 1 rejoice, therefore to see that kind of commerce diminished by the McKinlcv hill. In the four great departments ot cotton, woolen, silk and iron manufactures our importations, for 1S92 as compared with those of the preceding rear, were as follows

Cotton 1S91. $29.712/1.-4 Cotton 1S92. 2S.323.725

Decrease... .- $ 1,388.899

Woolen 1S91. $'41,060,080 Woolen 1S92 35t^ .,,,79

Decrease $ 5.494.201

Silk ....? 1891... $37,880,143 *»i,k 1892— '31.172 N,4

Decrease...,...'.,}1. $ (,707.249

Iron and steel. 1891 $53.2.11.022 Iron and steel. 1892 28.423.883

Decrease .$24.817,139 Making a reduction of import* in these four classes alone in one year of $38,407,488. The reduction in the same time ol all dutiable imports was $109,'-

27-|.°43- :iru'

^,c increase in free im­

ports was $91,759,420. According to my way of thinking our commerce is growing desirably in two direction1 it is growing greater as to those things which we must buy abroad, and it is growing less as to those things which we ought to make at home. At the same time we have not suffered any diminution of'our supply of manul'act in cd. goods. The decrease of importations has Ijeeh more than made up bv increase in our home production. The total amount of*thiit increase is no! known, but the report of Commissioner ot Labor Peck, of New York, shows an increase in that State alone, of $31,000,000. The total manufactures ot the country for 1S90, as estimated from the census returns, amounted to over eight billions of dollars. Comparing that'with our imports of manufactures —about one-third of one billion see how truly independent we have become. We make ninety-six per lent, of all the manufactures we use, and we use the most and the best-of any people in the world. At the same time our total foreign commerce—exports and imports combined—was greater during the last fiscal year than ever before. Here are the figures for live years past:

.$1,419,834,452

1889 1,471,714.007 1S90 1,618.968.6,10 1891 .. i.726.789.8f-o

lSc-2

i.'s43.133-.S8-)

It is certainly desirable to find a market abroad for anv surplus we have of anything we can produce. Thenare many nations'that must be buyers of manufactured commodities for a long time to'come, and so far as we can get a share of their trade without the sacrifice of more valuable interests at home, it is wise to do it. We can accomplish' something toward this in three ways: 1. By cheapening production through improved machinery and methods. An automatic machine is the cheapest workman. Plain cotton cloth, for example, is made almost wholly by machinery, the hand work required being very little and of the simplest kind. Hence we can now compete with the world in that industry, and last year exported a hundred and eighty-three million yards of it, for which we received eleven million dollars. More invention and more mills planted among the cotton fields and coal mines of the South will give us no one knows how much more of that trade. 2. By the production of machines and implements of general use that will overcome competition bv -Iheir