Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1883 — DOES PROTECTION PROTECT? [ARTICLE]

DOES PROTECTION PROTECT?

How It Han Not Fostered Home Industries. KeokukXlowa) Gate City: The TariffReform league has published a pamphlet volume by Mr. J. Schoenhof, of New York. We will summarize its contents. He affirms: 1. A tariff which taxes raw materials cannot be protective to manufacturing industries. . 2. A tax making raw materials cost * our manufacturers more than those of competing nations is practically a prohibition of the exportation of the surplus product of our manufacturers. 3. Protection fostering competition to unnatural fierceness becomes self-de-structive on account of this exclusion from foreign outlets. 4. Foreign commerce and home manufactures must decay where raw materials are taxed. 5. The carrying trade of the world must cling to that country whose trade and manufacture bear the lightest burdens. ,• . . 6. Wages are not gaged by tariffs, ’but by the general opportunities offered by the respective countries. 7. The standard of life of the working classes determines the rate of wages. 8. Where the standard of life is highest productive power and invention find highest development and production is cheapest. 9. Protection is the normal condition of countries whose standard of life ift a low one. 10. Free-trade is the normal conditiqp of countries whose standard of life is'ii high one. It is asserted that protection is necessary to foster our home industries, and without protection our industries would decay. If this be true, then the manufactures of free-trade countries should decay. England changed from protection to free-trade in 1845. The following table shows the exports of some lead- \ ing articles of English manufacture under free-t»ade. The amounts are in millions of dollars—thus, 125 in the table means so many millions: 1845. 1855. 1865. 1881. Cottons and yarns 125 • 168 274 380 Woolens Mid yarns.....*.. 42 51 122 105 I I.inens and yarns. 20 24 55 30 bilks 5 S 7 13 Iron and 5tee1......, 17 45 64 115 aiirt bra j H. 13 20 30 20 'lgolh, cutlery and implei ments. 16 25 45 G 8 ■ C’oa*>. 5 12 20 38 The year 1881 was a year of unusual business depression in England, there having been a series es bad harvests, of which that was the worst. England and Frarfbe made a freetrade treaty in 1860. In that year French exports were $45(1,000,000. 1 In 1873 they were $800,000,000. The total foreign trade of 4?rance in 1860 was $800,000,000; in 1873 it was $1,450,000,000. * In 1880 the United States produced . of metal manufactures of all kinds to the value of $672,078,000; they exported $14,116,000; imported $72,744,000. England exported of those goods i in that; year to the amount of $237,500,Eooo—more than fifteen times as much as this country. Of textile goods of all sorts the United States produced $521,000,000, i; soldabroad $10,216,576, importedsl22,- ’ j 350,000. England sold abroad of the same goods $534,500,000, or fifty-two times as much as this country. The only reason why America sells /no manufactured goods abroad as comi pared with England is because of availing itself in with protection. If it would tear down that wall it could be , the foremost country in the world in both manufactures and shipping trade. After twenty years of protection — and some very hard years were among 1 them-7-our exports of articles of American manufacture were in 1880: .AtrricTiltural implements, clocks, etc..s 3,500,000 Cotton Koods 10,000,000 iron atKl steOl goods 12,(03,000 J.eather goods 6,000,000 Woolen goods 700,000 All other manufactures 10,500,000 *42,700,000 A total of not quite $43,000,000, half the fortune of Jav Gould, as the total ■ol its manufactures that this county sells abroad after twenty years of protection. And England sold abroad in that year iiearly $1,000,000,000, or twenty-five times as much as this country. In 1860, under a free-trade tariff', the United States sold abrpad of its manufactures, $23,900,000; in 1872, after years of protection, our foreign ; sales were $20,600,000, or $3,000,000 less thun under free trade. The facts show that protection does not exclude foreign manufactures from the United States, but it does exclude American manufactures from the markets of the world. In 1860 our exports of industries now protected were nearly 7 per cent, of all our exports; in 1872 they were not quite 4 per cent.; in 1880 they we»e about 5 per cent. Take out sewing machines, which are patents, and patented agricultural implements, and our manufacturers would only furnish 3 per cent, of our exports, as against 7 per cent, in 1860, before we had protection. On the other hand, the import of protected manufactured goods has increased despite protection. Here is-a table of what we imported from abroad in 1860 and 1872<: 1860. 1872. Clothings 2,200,000 * 3,000,000 Cotton goods 33,000,000 35,000,600 Flax and manufactures.. 10,000,000 22,500,000 Silk and manufactures.. 33,000,000 36,000.000 Wool and manfactures.. 36.0(0,000 80,000,000 Earthenware, fancy goods, etc., etc 19,9X>,000 34,200.000 •Copper, braas, tin, etc... 8,500,000 17,200,000 Iron and steel goods 21,( 03,000 55,000,000 ♦ $163,600,000 $282,900,000 Thm-i under protection foreigners sold us 80 per cent, more of the very goods we were taxing ourselves more to protect than they did when we had a freetrade tariff, while we sold them 80 to 90 per cent, less of those products of those protected inudstries than we did in free-trade times. This is a summary of Mr. Schoenhof’s first chapter. ‘ 1