Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 May 1882 — TARIFF TALK. [ARTICLE]

TARIFF TALK.

Sophisms of the Proteciionlats ExA posed -A Rattling Speeds by Cois-1 gremsaan Cox. Among the many speeches delivered in Congress during the discussion of the Tariff Commission bill, that of Hon. S. S. Cox, of New York, deserves especial attention because of the lucid way in which he proceeded to expose the sophisms of the high protectionists. Mr. Cox first referred to the snr] Ins in our Federal revenues and the dangers ol over-taxa-tion. Excesses in anything, he said were very bad. Excessive cost for fuel, sheltq, clothing and food are worse. But all are embraced in an excessive tax or tariff. The lai test drain made on this patient people is the d ain made on their credulity. They are expeol id to believe that these surpluses are bene cent and needed. t I do not believe that these excesseawould be permitted for a day bat for the clam irons fallacy that these high taxes are intends! to help labor by keeping up higher wages. \ In reply to the wages fallacy Mr, Cot said : The usual thing is an elaborate talle, professedly comparing wages in Englandjand the United States. It exhibits a low scale if wages for England and a high scale for thiUmted States. And thus runs the wondeml syllogisms : I L Major premise: England has fre* trade. Minor premise : England has low wftgesl Conclusion : Free trade produces low wages! 2. Major premise: The United Stata has Eroteotic-n. Minor premise: The United \tates a 8 high wages. Conclusion: ProtectionWoduces high wages. Really, Mr. Speaker, this sort of logio is lery easy. There is no end to the propositionwre might prove. Thus: V 3. Major: England has a Queen. Mint: England has low wages. Conclusion : Queek make wages low. X 4. Major: The United States is infested witl snakeß. Minor: The United States has high wages. Conclusion: Snakes make wages high.\ “ But this is nonsense,” says the protectionist “ Exactly so,” responds the free trader; “as pure nonsense as the stock protection argument about wages.” The thing you pretend to do is to prove that the alleged low wages of England result from free trade, and you simply assert it You are asked to prove that the high wages which exist in the United States are the result of protection, and again you simply assert that such is the case. Why do you not carry out your pretense of reasoning? Of ail the advanced countries of Europe, England pays the highest wages. Wages are higher in England than in France; higher in France than in Germany. Why do you not treat your followers to this sort of argument: In England, free trade and high wages. In Fiance, protection and low wages. Therefore, free trade makes wages high and protection makes wages low. What country in the world has more protection from the outer barbarian than China? If protection can make wages high, the Celestial diggers should be Vanderbilts and Astors. Why do not our friends “appeal to facts” in this" direction, and blazon the result before “free-trade fanatics” and their deluded followers?

Do I, therefore, maintain that comparison of faets are meaningless ? Not at all, I say only, first, get yonr facts; and secondly, put them fairly on grounds of comparison. Everybody admits that this country is prosSsrous.' Every American glories in the fact. ut when the protectionist calmly ascribes our magnificent progress to his patent process of invisible taxation some of us object. Has the fertility of our soil done nothing? Has the wealth of our mines gone for naught? Does ■ the cunning skill of our artisans count for nothing in industrial development? Has American genius in mechanical invention been spent in fruitless vagaries? Protectionists are compelled to acknowledge that prosperity has followed free trade in England. How could they do otherwise ? Between 1805 and 1825, while England was yet under the protective policy applied to the uttermost, her exports rose from $190,000,000 to $194,000,000—a gain of only $4,000,000, or about $200,000 per annum. Between 1825 and 1842 under a tariff somewhat reduced, the rise was from $194,000,000 to $237,000,000 ; gaiu per annum, $2,400,000 ; rate of increase, twelve times as great as before. Between 1842 and 1846, a period of partial free trade, the increase of exports was $52,000,000; rate of increase sixty times as great as under the system of ultra protection, five times as great as under the reduced tariff. From 1846 to 1876, a straight free-trade period, the exports rose from $289,000,000 to $1,00(1,000,000, showing an annual gain of $33,700,000 ; rate of increase, three times as great as under partial free trade, twelve times as great as under moderate protection, and 160 times as great as under stringent protection. As to the United States, the census valuations show, in round numbers, that during ten years of low tariff, from 1850 to 1860, the wealth of the country increased from $7,000,000,000 to $16,000,000,000, while from 1860 to 1880, twenty years of high tariff, tho rise was only from $16,000,000,000 to *35,000,000,000. In 'other words, under low tariff property doubled in ten years ; under high tariff it took twenty years to double. In iBSO the average of wages per year was $248. After ten years of low tariff the average had risen to $290, an increase of about 20 per cent. Then came tei years of protection, and the paper rate of wages was $377, for which the gold equivalent vas about $250, a decline under protection of more than 13 per cent., bringing wages to just about the point at which they were left by a for revenue ” twenty years before. The statistics for 1880 are not yet compiled, bu, if the indications of the advanced bulletins are sustained, protmtion had better speedily change its tactics—flu-swear “ facts,” and onco more, as of old, turn its attention to theory. The census of 1879 divides the working population of the country as follows: Pr. ot. Agricultural 47 Professional and personal services 22 Trade and transportation 9 Manufacturing, mechanical and mining industries 22 The division of the tribute will obviously be confined to the latter class. So that, at the first examination, we find that the proposition “protection increases wages ” must at least be denied as regards four-fifths of the working popI ulation.

One man in five probably has increased wages, under the theory we are considering. But investigate further. The class of manufacturing, mechanical and mining industries includes a host of arts not touched by the tariff, except to burden them by additions to the cost of their materials and tools. Blacksmiths, carpenters, engineers, masons, milliners, painters, plumbers, printers, and so on through the alphabet, where is the protection for theso ? Not a thing they make is protected, nor could be protected; yet all their tools and all their materials are weighted with taxes for the benefit of the protected few. Again, there are scores of mechanical arts nominally protected, but really beyond protection. Who speaks of protection to American sewing machines ? American clocks ? American tools ? American wagons ? If reckoning be made among all these, and the workingmen counted out from the general class under consideration, we shall find the 22 per cent, dwindle to something like 5 per cent, We must seek among this 5 per cent, of the working people of America for those whose wages, on our supposition, may possibly be advanced. That is *to say, under the protection theory we are discussing, the employers of 5 percent, of our workmen aif enabled by the tariff to pay better wages than the market rate —if they choose to do so. Now, I wish to offer here a curious bit of figuring. Suppose that this reasoning from protection premises is correct, and that the 5 per cent, of our working people do actually get the higher wages. The number of working population is not far from 15,000,000. Five per cent, of these gives us 750,000. Now, the lowest estimate I have ever been able to make of the total tax paid by consumers on protected goods is $750,000,000 per anuum. Bat $750,000,000 among 750,000 men would be just SI,OOO apiece. Whence it would appear that we might just as well have free trade and pay the “ protected ” workingmen SI,OOO a year for remaining idle. Wages are said to be 50 per cent greater here than in Great Britain. This is a mistake. From 1815 to 1875 wages in Great Britain in many trades were higher than here. Immigration actually went home. When we have higher wages they are accounted for on other grounds. Onr natural advantages and ingenious maehinery and skill beget high wages. They always did from the first The wages depend on the product In farming we pay higher wages than formerly, and yet we outsell foraign-

ers in tneir own market The average annual wages of men, women and children employed in manufactories in 1850, as taken from the United States census just after taxation was reduced on the necessities of life, was *247.3? ; average annual wages in 1860, after fourteen years of a low tariff for revenue, *289.02 ; increase of *42.65. Average annual wages in i gold in 1870, after ten years of a high tariff, ' *283.23; decrease, *5.79. Difference in favor of the lower tariff, *48.44. Protectionists say that wages are higher here than in Europe. So they are now, but in 1875 they were lower. Many skilled mechanics went back to England and Scotland then. The tariff was nearly the same. But the high tariff raises the pnoe of everything workmen have to boy. Beef cost in 1860, 10 oents; now 16. Mutton then, Bto 10; now, 9to 14. Corned beef then 8 ; now,. 11. Baoon then, 10; now, 13. Lard then, 12 now, 15. The same is true of rent, clothing, and all the necessaries of life. Mr. Cox then cited the ease of the American silk manufacturers and the Massachusetts null operatives to show that protection did not make h|gh wages. Supposing, said he, that the silk manufacturers of Paterson were able to pay their operatives *lO per day; does any one dream they would doit? If the market rate were *1 a day they would pay the dollar and shake hands with each other over the $9 as profit They would probably use it to go on to Washington and petition for more protection. It is the unprotected industries whose steadiness of profits and products enables them to pay the best and steadiest wages. When we tax expenses and not income, it is the workingmen wno suffer, not capitalists. In short, the protected industries, like ell other industries, take the rate of wages as they find it, and the rate obviously can not be fixed by a demand which oovers only 5 per cent of the field. Wages are made high in this country by the 95-per-cent, demand—by the unprotected grain of the West, the unprotected cotton of the South ; by the wonderful bounty of nature to this fruitful land, and by the intelligent brains and cunning hands of all onr people. Value he considered the true basis of taxation, and specific duties, wherein the poor man’s tea might be taxed the same as the rich man’s, which cost twice as much, had no oh&rm for him.

The argument for free raw material Mr. Cox considered valid, and if good it was good for \the manufactured article. \ I join, he said, with all in the attempt to reSeve raw material, but let us not forget the iVoduct. I should be glad to vote in the dilution of freedom, even if limited. It would bea great relief; but if it stops there it might as Veil never have begun, for its modicum of relief only adds clamps to the system of protection} Aluding to the burdens of protection, Mr. Csx!said : Protection is insectivorous. It feeds oi} the larger body. It is parasitic. It was said by Prof. Riley, a naturalist of the Smithsonian, in a humorous illustration, that there are birds of ill-omen who tear holes in cows and sheep and deposit their eggs therein. (These hatch out lizards. They fatten on the animal just as protectionists fatten on agriculture. But the animal does not die at once. The lizards in time are driven off the body and buried in the ground, and come forth again in me form of birds, like their parents. It is the ipalogue of protection. It may not kill, owing to the native strength of the cow or sheep, but it'is very troublesome. This clamor of protection is a croak; it is not a rational speech. It began after developing its infantile ways as a tadpole in search for worms and insects. It grew so in damp weather, in the land, that peoplo thought it rained frogs. After a surfeit, the infant began to appear in public as a leader of fashion ; he works out of his old skin deftly and swallows it., then he begins to croak again at the satisfaction of consuming a part of himself. “ Every pr duct of the farm is protected, ” sings a sweet chorus here. One member picks out oats, another grain, another, of a gentle turn, sheep ; another, of a rude type, hogs, and so they say that the farmers are protected, and that, too, with their great crops and big surplus, the price regulated by the foreign demand for the surplus and the independence of the farmer assured by the demand! Farms protected! Why, if there be anything that neither has nor asks for Government aid in the way of bounty, it is the farming product. There is a perpetual vendue for him at home and abroad. Look at his list. Take the typical American wools, the great staples of beof, pork, corn and wheat, butter and cheese, cotton and hay, lard and tallow, fruits and vegetables—fresh and canned. Who asks to protect petroleum, turpentine, resin, ordinary hardware and agricultural implements, coarse cottons, starch, and scores of other articles, which, if the tariff were off, wonld not be increased in importation, and which, if we had free trade, would seek foreign markets ? If the market for agricultural products havo not had a better market under protection than under a revenue t&riff tho question is settled. For twenty years the farmers who produce tho great bulk of our product have wailed for a better home market. Have they had it ? In

1860 our agricultural exports were $295,000,000, or 78.81 per cent, of the whole amount; in 1870 they were $391,010,000. or 79 per cent, of the whole amount; in 1880 they were $685,867,000, or per cent, of tho whole amount; in 1881 they were $790,000,000, or 83 per cent, of the entire amount. To secure this home market they paid at least 25 per cent, more for domestic goods than they would have paid but for protection. On $5,000,000,000 worth of goods $1,125,000,000 mere have been paid than tfiey could have been imported for, and all for tbe home market. To secure, this home market the little surplus of *733,000,000 was foreign export. It requires much patience to argue this over and over again. It is enough to make every pig on every farm grant in derision ; every bull in every pasture bellow in laughter! A protective tariff to prevent Canada and France competing with us in bread and meat-stuffs! Ha! lia ! he! he! ho ! roars out universal nature! No wonder the Mississippi lost its channel at the ridiculous suggestion. Old ocean, bearing on its bosom to the needy of Europe onr immense surplus of the farm, from the cheese and apples of New York to the cotton and com of the South and West, thundered its ironic fun at the ridiculous suggestion. Farming in New England and New York does not pay! Who asks to protect them against the rich soil of the West? Their farms are in some places deserted, and what is cultivated is running into larger farms ; but tbe little tubs thrown to the whale in the shape of protection against foreign potatoes and Canada grainl The idea ! It would make Adam Smith or even Horace Greeley turn over and laugh in their graves.