Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1888 — TARIFF FACTS. [ARTICLE]

TARIFF FACTS.

'Shameful Decline of Our American Shipping and Its Cause. Some High-Tariff Fallacies Punctured by the Cold Facts and Figures. from “Tariff Cnats," by Henry J. Philpott, of Des Moines, la.] I might fill a large volume with statistics to show that we do not owe our high wages, or any of the other good things of this life, to the tariff lobby, but I have condensed a volume of statistics into one very little table, which Prof. Perry, of Williams College, has done me the honor to put into the last edition of his “Political Economy,” which, by the way, is a standard text-book on that subject in American -schools and colleges. By way of preface to this table, which answeis every claim of the tariff trustees, let me explain a little. Every protectionist orator and pamphleteer tells you that this country has tried free trade, and, that it always worked disastrously. Particularly he calls your attention to the bad results of the low-tariff period just before the war. He says all the prosperity of the country has been since then. I concluded to investigate that matter thoroughly. I used only official documents, except “Poor’s Bailroad Manual,” which is the only recognized authority on that subject." I found the rate per cent, of increase from .1850 to 1860, under low tariff, and the average rate for each of the two ten-year .periods since then:

IL Lines of progress. 2,”° ® P ” J; a* «2 ® S ® a 1 ropuiMion;. 35.5 25.2 Wealth 126.6 61.0 Foreign commerce, aggregate. 131.0 45.6 Foreign commerce, per capita. 70.3 15.2 Miles of railroad, aggregate.... 210.0 69.0 Miles of railroad, per capita... 150.0 34.0 in manufactures 90.0 66.0 "Wages in manufactures, aggregate 60.3 58.2 Wages in manufactures, per hand 17.3 9.4 Products of manufactures f-5.0 69.6 Value of farms 103.0 23.6 Value of farm tools and machinery 62.0 27.7 Value of live-stock on farms... 100 0 17.3

One important industry had to be left •out of the above table. Before the war our shipping was second only to agriculture in the sisterhood of our industries. Threefourths of our foreign trade was carried in -our own ships, and even this occupied but ■half of them, the other half being scattered over the whole world, bearing our glorious ensign of liberty everywhere and carrying a trade that was wholly foreign. That industry must be left out of the table because •the last two decades show no increase at all, but a most startling and shameful de--dine. The old excuse was Confederate piracy. But my old neighbor, lowa’s first Republican Governor and second Republican Senator, James W. Grimes, always a persistent foe to protection, when he was -Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, replied to this excuse: Confederate piracy did not destroy our mer- - chant marine. The privateers who have sunk the second commercial navy of the world sit around me in this Senate. The means they have used may be found in that protective policy which deserves to be called a “war measure,” since it has wrought in our shipping such destruction as no enemy has ever inflicted, but ithe worst enemy would desire. Last year, 1887, 14A per cent, of our foreign trade was carried in American vessels. THE FARMER'S MARKET. Let us take, for instance, the “facts” manufactured for the farmer’s consumption. He is told that whatever home market he has he owes to the tariff, and that as a result of the tariff he sells at home what his fathers had to ship across the -ocean. In other words, he now has a rhome market—as if Pennsylvania and Massachusetts were a home market for the Kansas farmer! But even if it were, the Kansas farmer is more dependent on the foreign market than ever, as I shall pro--ceed to show. Our Government, ever -since it was organized, has kept a record •of the amount of wheat, corn, cotton and provisions exported to foreign markets. If the tariff trustees are really keeping •their promise to furnish us a home market for these products the Government reports -ought to show a steady decline of exports and a steady rise of prices. Now, let us ssee what they do show. Our lobby tariff was adopted soon after 1860. Here is a -comparison of all the com and wheat (unground) exported prior to that time, a of seventy-one years, with the two ■whole decades since, and the last year:

_ . _ Corn, Wheat, Period. bushels. bushels. 1789 to 1860—71 years.... 149,905,645 89,771,520 1860 to 1870—10 year5....100,611,081 220,115,995 1870 to 1880—10 year5.... 534?.434 667,435,801 .1887 1 year 40,307,252 101,971,949 We have exported more corn in the last .“four years, more wheat and flour* in the last six years, and more unground wheat m the last year than we did from the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 up to the adoption of our present system of taxation in 1862. We have exported more pounds •of bacon and hams in the last fifteen months than our fathers did from the set■tlement of Jamestown in 1607 to the bombardment of Fort Sumter in 1861. If ■that is not a startling increase in our dependence on foreign markets for these farm products, I need enlightenment. Watch the tariff mendicant right here and ?see if he doesn’t turn round now and claim ■that it is the foreign market, and not, as he said a minute ago, the home market, that his blessed system of one-sided taxation Jias built up. When he has made that •claim, ask him if he desires also to claim the credit for the fdllowing apparent •decline of export prices, as returned by l the Government: Corn. Wheat. 1850 to IB6o—lo years ...72.8 cents 91.39 1860 to 1870—10 years 81.6 cents 1 36 1870 to 1880—10 years 59.9 cen s 1.21 1887 —1 year 47.9 cents .84 ♦Up to the war 85 per cent, of our wheat exj>ort was in the manufactured state—flour. In 1887 only 36 per cent, of it went abroad in that -form. Our millers, who are certainly manufacturers, thus missed the job of grinding 78,000 - 000 bushels of wheat Quite nn item, is it not? And the millers are taxed on their lumber machinery, mill-stones and bolting-cloths. Half a •dozen manufacturers are injured where one is helped, if, indeed, any are helped, in a broad national sense, by the tariff.

A decline of one-third in the price of both wheat and corn from the average of the ten years before the tariff to the average of last year. How will the farmers like this when they find it out? And how do American prices of these products compare with foreign prices today? If the tariff has “built up” a home market for the farmer, as it has by force of law “ built jp” a home market for the protected claOM, corn and wheat ought to be higher in America than in England, as I have shown by market quotations that protected iron and steel are higher. Let us try the market quotations on corn and wheat for Feb. 14, 1888: Corn. Wheat. Chicago46?s .75?$ Liverpool6s .9734 Liverpool is 25 per cent, higher on wheat and 40 on corn. And this after our people have paid an average of at least $500,000,000 for twenty years for a home market, whose sole purpose could only be to make com and wheat worth as much in Chicago as in Liverpool. The above are Chicago prices. The prices the farmers actually get are much less — say frdm 40 or 50 to 75 or 80 per cent, of Liverpool quotations, according to the location and the bulkiness of the product. Take it all over the regions where the exported surplus is raised, including cotton and all, it is quite within the bounds of reason to say that Liverpool is at least 50 per cent, higher than the original American market where the fanner sells. THE LABORER'S HIRE. That settles the labor question. Cotton, breadstuff's, and provisions are the farmer’s wages—not his day wages, but his piece wages. They are all cheaper here than in England. Work by the piece is therefore cheaper here than in England for half the workers. Such being the case, if their work is higher by the day, the fact must be attributed to something besides the tariff,

Yes, and most of the other half of the people work cheaper by the piece than they do in England. Especially is this true in manufactures. Our manufacturers as a whole class have as great advantages over any other country as the farmers have. I have already called attention to these advantages. The result is that American manufacturers get their work done for less labor expense than those of any country in the world. Here is a little table worked out by our Consul at Tunstall, Mr. J. Scboenhof, showing the daily wages and wages per yard of cotton-mill operators in three countries.

Wages Dally ■ per 100 wages. yards. In Switzerland, and may include Germanys .44 to $ .49 $ .60 In England .65 .55 In Americaß9 to 1.12 .40

So the pauper labor of Europe is not so cheap to the man who buys it and sells its products as American labor is. Mr. J. B. Sargent, of New Haven, the most extensive hardware manufacturer in America, has told me over and over again that the same is true in his business, and, as he believes, in the great majority of American manufactures. This is one method of proof that it is not the workingman who gets the benefit of the tariff. He would be a pauper if he did, but he doesn’t. The tariff pauper is the mill-owner. He owns the goods when they are made. He sells them. He pockets the proceeds. He imports laborers, free of duty. He joins a trust, closes his mill half the year, gets a dividend for lying idle and “limiting production,” and turns his hands into the street to lie idle without a dividend and without wages. Wages are lower in the protected than in the unprotected industries, and the workingmen are more generally foreigners and treated worse. Many of them are to all intents and purposes bought by the ship-load, like slaves, in Europe. Of the 340,854 persons engaged in strikes last year 112,317, or about one-third, were in Pennsylvania, the most highly protected of all the States. There were half as many strikes in Pennsylvania as in all the rest of the country together. In lbßo the trustees placarded every workshop in the country with a comparison of wages in thirteen occupations between different European countries. New York City, and Chicago. This was not a fair comparison, because the United States census of manufactures shows that wages are 24 per cent higher in New York City than in the country as a whole. Without making any allowance for this, and averaging the whole thirteen occupations, we have on the trustees’ own authority: Germany—-per week $ 3.64 England 7.69 New York 12.38 England higher than Germany 111 per cent. • New York higher than England 61 per cent. Nearly double the relative difference between England and Germany as between New York and England, though Germany protects and England admits German goods free of duty. Our census of 1880 shows: WAGES IN WOOLEN MANUFACTURES, Ohio —yearly $ 196 Connecticut 335 Connecticut higher than Ohio 70 per cent. WAGES IN COTTON MANUFACTURES. North Carolina—yearly 9 135 New Jerseyr 255 New Jersey higher than North Carolina 83 per cent. A greater relative difference in both cases that even a red-hot protectionist campaign card claimed between New York City and England. If the latter difference is caused by the tariff what, pray, has created the others? While the trustees were at it they ought to have done a smoother job of wageraising—or deception.