Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 October 1908 — ELIOT ON THE TARIFF [ARTICLE]

ELIOT ON THE TARIFF

Voters Hoodwinked With a Word, “Protection.” UNJUST MONOPOLIES CREATED Harvard University's Distinguished President Says th* Protective Tariff Is Bad Business and Bad Ethics. Its Worst Result Is Legal Violation of Fundamental Equity. The high tariff which has prevailed in the United States since the civil

war has done a little good in the way of building up new industries, just as patents and other monopolies may, but it has done immeasurable harm to American industries and commerce and is likely to do more and more harm as time goes on. In the first place, it has postponed and obstructed the effective entrance of American products into the markets of the world. Many American industries, including the fundamental Industry of agriculture, produce much more salable material than can possibly be sold in the United States, and all these industries must sell their surplus products outside the United States at a great disadvantage because the products have paid high duties on the , raw or parttally manufactured materi- ' als which enter into them, on the implements or machinery which were used in producing them and on the structures which sheltered and distributed them. As a country which produces in normal years much more grain, meat and cotton and many more manufactured goods than it can consume, it is the interest of the United States to develop for itself world markets under the most favorable conditions possible. The tariff prevents or obstructs the attainment of those favorable conditions. | Again, the high tariff is the accepted democratic way of conferring privileges by law on individual men or small classes of men. Sometimes the privileged men are really few In number. At other times the privileged class may be fairly numerous and yet an insignificant proportion of the total population. Despotic and aristocratic governments have long practiced the , creation by law of privileged or fa- , voted men or classes. The American democracy has abolished, or had notL Ing to do with, the ancient privileges of nobles, court favorites, sinecure

holders and commercial adventurers by royal monopoly charter, but has been more than ready to create privileged manufacturers by tariff legislation. In spite of the fact that equality before the law has been theoretically the very foundation of American government and society. The enrichment of a few Individuals or of a small class at the expense of the bulk of the community and with no benefit to the state Is, however, not the worst result of the protective policy. The worst result Is the legal violation by the repablic itself of fundamental equity, and this result is aggravated by the falsely altruistic arguments used In support Of the tariff. The man who acts unjustly for reasons jhlch seem to him benevolent er humanitarian Is more dangerously poisoned than the man who is unjust for straight selfish reasons and admits to himself just what he is doing and why. The fallacies of protection are all the worse because they are covered with the nauseous slime of a pretended altruism. In short, the chief objection to protective legislation is a moral one—namely, that it diminishes the enterprise. self reliance and sense of justice of the population as a whole. That legislation is a serious mental and moral evil which has been for fifty years working Injustice at home and contracting American exchanges abroad, because two generations of voters have been hoodwinked with a word “protection.” No revision of schedules can dig up this evil by the roots. It will only be cured when the national legislature makes the tariff nothing but one means among many of raising needed revenue. It is constantly asserted and very generally believed that the object of the tariff Is to protect American workmen against the lower paid workmen of other countries, but that Is obviously neither the purpose nor the effect of the high tariff. It Is not Its purpose because the tariff rates on almost all products are many fold the differences in labor coyt. This fact has been demonstrated over and over again In governmental and private inquiries and reports on numerous industries. That the tariff is not necessary to the maintenance of American wages or American standards of living appears clearly from the common practice of selling American goods In foreign countries at much lover prices than they are sold in the United States and yet at a profit. The high American wages have l>een paid by the manufacturer who finds It to be his Interest to sell his goods abroad at much lower prices than he sells them at home. What a high tariff really protects is some sorts of Invested capital. It protects capital by .excluding the competition of other capital elsewhere Invested. The tariff establishes a tax paid by the great body of consumers, not to the government for its support, but to

the capitalists who have invested their money in those plants which produce protected articles. The protection has two conspicuous effects—first, it enables some capital to earn at home a larger profit; secondly, it exempts the manufacturer from studying and adopting improvements of organization or method. He is relieved of foreign competition and has no adequate motive to seize on every opportunity to improve his organization and his machln-

ery and increase his skin. Monopolies are always unprogressive because they are relieved of competition. If the American people mean to maintain their, Individual liberty in industries, trades, commerce and politics, they must steadily defend themselves against monopolies, whether created and maintained by tariffs, unlimited franchises or associations of either workmen or capitalists. CHARLES W. ELIOT.