Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1887 — America’s Great Mistake. [ARTICLE]

America’s Great Mistake.

In the age of Clay the high tariff argument was that the producer paid the duty, and that consumers had a Government that , cost nothing. It was shown by elaborate figures that the foreign manufacturer must find a market; that all other nations .supplied their own needs, and that Great Britain, the world’s workshop, could find outside her own colonies and dependencies no market on earth but the American. To be able' to utilize this market she must lower her prices by the amount of the duty, j To do this she must diminish profits and reduce wages. Therefore, paying tor the ' goods, we paid only the natural price of an ! open market, even with the duty added,

and thus our Government, supported by a tariff tax, cost us practically nothing. While this benefit was being enjoyed, American factories, fostered by protection, would in due time give us cheaper goods than England could manufacture. The fallacious argument served its turn. America was then at outs with Great Britain. A policy that would at once cripple her and benefit America was hailed ns an inspiration of statesmanship. The multitude, though warned of the error, did not reason the matter to a conclusion. There was another way out for Great Britian besides the reduction of profits and the scaling of wages. Cheaper production, enabling English manufacturers to pour their goods over the wall of the American tariff, was to be had by improving machinery and ransacking the world for lower priced material. The hunger ot invested wealth for dividends appealed to science for aid, offered premiums to Genius that persuaded him to hitch his Pegasus to the go-cart and relieve the over-burden of men. She mocked our policy, opened her ports to all the world, and the commerce of all lands brought her their commodities for interchange. The market widened with every barbarian taught to wear clothing. Missionaries were her supercargoes, and while, with a per cent, of the profits on beads and brandy, she “spread the gospel,” she did not fail to keep the marts of the heathen stocked with cast-iron idols nor to gratify the Chinese debauchee with opium. “Where there’s a will there’s a way/ The shut market of America developed the open market of Great Britain and changed the face of the world. For the alleged greater gain Americans withdrew their commerce, sold their ships, and invested in factories. Before we had choice of work, and naturally took that which was best. Now we are limited to the work that supplies our own needs. Commerce demands exchange, exacts the return cargo. Even if we required no duty for the raw material we must pay cash, and cash only, to obtain it. The price of our product is England’s price, with the duty added. Where in the world’s market can we sell with her as competitor? Lacking the incentive of necessity, sure of a compulsory home market, the manufacturing processes that cost as much as England’s or Belgium’s, with the duty added, content us. Now, our manifold monopolies, with “rings,” “combines,” “syndicates,” “unions," fixed prices of product, limit their output, await our needs, “pool their issues,"abolishcompetition, and collect their taxes. England and Germany have sent us home bur bonds. England has the ocean for her pond; nine-teen-twentieths of the freight charges on our imports and exports. We annually pour into her bursting purse, its plethora unrelieved by any perceptible contribution toward our governmental expenses, and we do not drain from England to any alarming extent participants in the huge wages protection promised to pay. From countries smaller than ours in area, with less diversity of natural productions, and where land tenures are oppressive, protected as we are, and with the same results, our mines import the refuse of civilization to debase our standard of living and lower the rate of our wage, while our cheaper lands are a refuge to the peasantry expatriated by the extortion of landlordism. These, increasing consumption, protract our agony, but for these purchased or exiled myriads thus poured in upon us, with their added needs, protection, despite our illimitable resources, would years ago have broken down the land to the hopeless bankruptcy of Austria.—Chicago Herald.