CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTORY-THE TARIFF QUESTION SIMPLE. We have no brief compendium for popular use, including a broad discussion of protection to home industry, criticism of free trade assertions and theories, and exposure of the delusion and peril of British free trade. Large volumes and valuable essays and tracts have had wide reading, but a condensed manual is wanted. This book aims to supply that want, and to present the leading principles and facts on this great question in such compass as to be readable and useful in the homes of the people, in libraries, and as a help in discussions. A generation has passed away since the great discussion of the tariff in the days of Henry Clay and Horace Greeley, and there are now many who want information to gain more positive and clear views and opinions. There are protectionists and free traders, equally sincere and earnest in their opposite opinions, yet wishing more light. A question so important and prominent deserves careful thought and serious attention. The statements of this work are offered as helps to all these classes. Its plain criticisms expose the methods and aims of leading free trade advocates, and cut across the grain of strong prejudices, but they do not impugn the honesty of well-meaning and sincere free traders.

Many of our college professors and text-books favor free trade. These teachers often lack practical knowledge of the world, and are captivated by fine English

theories, which are easy to accept, and save the trouble of studying the facts of our industrial history, as given by Carey, Elder, Thompson, Bowen, Kelley and other able Americans, or like facts and ideas in the writings of Sir Edward Sullivan, Sir Matthew Byles, Thiers, Frederick List and other eminent foreigners. But there are signs of a change. In Yale and elsewhere students are calling for light on protection to American industry.

The tariff question is supposed by many to be abstruse and difficult, a labyrinth of facts and figures to which none can find a clue except the few who can give it long and patient study. This is a mistake; the principles involved are plain and simple. It is thought of as a dry matter of dollars and dimes in the national treasury, and of profit and loss to great capitalists; or as a soulless thing galvanized into life now and then as the war-cry of a political campaign. It is full of vital interest and comes home to the daily life of the people. Political economy and social science should be more studied. Surely what pertains so closely to the peaceful industries which so largely fill our time should be as well understood as the poor quarrels of old kings with their ministers or mistresses, or the wars that have worse than wasted the strength of the human race.

A family pays special regard to the interests of its own members, while not oppressing or abusing others: a nation is a great family. A family earns its own expenses, or more, or decays; a nation sells as much as it buys or decays. This is "the balance of trade." When any one can show how a family can earn $900 and pay out $1,000 yearly, and still prosper, we may see how a nation can export $90,000,000 and import $100,000,000 yearly, and not grow poor.

A family, the members of which toil and care for each other, cannot be expected to admit others, who do not share these cares, into all its privileges and immunities; and none complain if its first and nearest aim is to see that its own members are well employed and in a way to independence. A nation, whose people have cleared its lands, built its mills and shops and mechanism, opened its beds of ores and coal, and are paying its debts and taxes, cannot be expected to admit foreigners, who have no share in these tasks or burthens, to its markets on equal terms with its own citizens. A tariff is a means

of asking them to pay reasonably for the privilege of bringing in their products, and at the same time of building up home industries, and giving employ and independence to the people. Nothing abstruse or complicated in all this.

We are to look at this protective tariff matter as it is practiced now, and as it now affects people and nations, especially our own country-going back to the past for such facts as may help to comprehend the present. In the dark ages of personal government by royal despots exclusive privileges of making, or dealing in, salt, woolens, etc., were farmed out to favorites. The people had no rights, their interest was not counted, the only question was, how much extortion will they bear?

Wealth was won by the sword, and the rude loom and the poor tillage of the soil was left to women and slaves, and to the lame and halt not fit to be soldiers. Duties were levied, now and then, on exports or imports, with no thought or care for anything save to raise money. Tariffs for revenue only, advocated by modern free traders, are relics of the barbaric ignorance of those dark days when the artificer was despised and the robber warrior exalted.

Then came slowly a recognition of the national importance of building up great industries, and legislation to that end. England, for instance, had a rigid system of tariffs for centuries, highly protective and with special prohibitions such as no country to-day would enact. The influence of legislation on the people fortunately enters more into the governmental acts of all civilized nations now than in the past, and especially is that the case in this republican country. By that test is this matter to be tried. If our protective tariff system works for the benefit of favored manufacturers, giving wealthy capitalists unjust monopolies and privileges at the cost of their employees and of the people, helping to enrich the few at the expense of the many, it is not fit to live a day. If it helps to build up great and varied domesticindustries; to employ labor at higher wages than elsewhere; to perfect and cheapen the products of our mills by a healthy competition; to open a larger and better home market for our farmers; to develop our great. natural resources; to furnish revenue to our government; to help our financial and industrial independence, and to enrich and enlarge the daily thought and life of the people, it should be sustained. All these benefits, it is claimed, result from it.

TARIFF REVISION.

The tariff framed in 1861-largely by the patient care of Hon. Justin S. Morrill, U. S. S., of Vermont, a man of eminent capacity and integrity-and modified after the close of the war, in 1870, has done excellent service, helping us through war and world-wide business panic. During this time we have reached a magnitude of home production on the farm, in the factory, and in domestic

and foreign trade, increasing beyond like growth in any other country or any previous increase in the same time at home. As changes in our condition seemed to call for its revision, a tariff commission was chosen by the President in 1882, made up of nine practical and able men, outside of Congress, who were to investigate the whole matter and report facts and opinions to Congress, their report (which was made December 4, 1882, and is of permanent value) to be information and advisory basis for final legislation by that body, that its work might be broad and comprehensive, so well done as to stand for a term of years, to avoid the trouble and disaster of frequent changes and fragmentary tariff tinkering, and give that stability which we need for safety in industrial enterprises. Such revision was approved and asked for by leading producers and manufacturers. During the sessions of the Forty-sixth Congress 257 large manufacturing companies and 80,867 workmen sent petitions to that body asking the appointment of such commissioners. It is not in the scope of this work to comment on the action of Congress in the tariff bill passed in the last days of their session just closed. This much only can be said: Any changes, either of reduc、 tion or increase, which kept the idea of just protection in view were wise; any changes ignoring it were unwise.

HOW MORE IMPORTANT THAN HOW MUCH.

The German revenue from customs duties, a little less in amount than the English, is levied by a protective tariff. Such a tariff discriminates in favor of the people of the country where it is framed. A tariff for revenue only discriminates against them and in favor of foreigners. This it does by allowing free competition in the