excuse for protection was advanced in the Senate of the United States no longer ago than January 18, 1898, by Senator Pettigrew, of South Dakota, who interrupted Senator Morgan's Hawaiian annexation speech with this sage question: "Does the Senator from Alabama mean to say that the Hawaiian Government would voluntarily seek the protection of some other power, and thus forego the great advantage those islands now enjoy in their reciprocity arrangements with the United States which results in our remitting to them annually not less than $6,000,000?"

6. Another excuse is that there is a lack of patriotism in the Southern man who buys foreign goods in preference to "home-made" goods from New England; and that therefore a tax laid on him is a righteous penalty. Which being interpreted means, as Dr. Johnson said, that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

7. Another excuse for protection-not the protection we have been laboring under for over thirty years, but the Dingley tariff-was given to the country on June 15, 1898 (about three months before cotton fell to 45 cents per pound on North Carolina farms), by Senator Pritchard of North Carolina. It is that the Dingley tariff has produced a prodigious balance of trade in favor of the United States by shortening the wheat crop of foreign countries and causing an extraordinary demand abroad for the wheat of the farmers of the Western States. "As a result," he said, "of the happy concurrence of conditions"-"the administration of the government by the great party of Lincoln, Grant, and McKinley"—"the volume of cash sent over to us from Europe breaks all previous records." It has also advanced the prices of farm products "from 15 to 40 per cent."

1 1 Press Dispatch.

* *

"Horses are 75 per cent higher than in 1897, and few to be had; poultry 150 per cent above last year tobacco is higher than in four years.

991

8. Another excuse is that under "protection," and not without it, everything the people of these States need will be produced "at home." This is addressed to that narrow selfishness which in some quarters is mistaken for “patriotism"; and it presumes dense ignorance in the persons addressed. It utterly ignores the universal disposition to refuse to buy from a man who refuses to buy from others; and it sends the farmer out into an unwilling world in search of markets for his cotton, wheat, tobacco, etc., and brings him back "home" to spend his reduced income in a "protected" market.

9. And last, but not least, was the justification of ante-bellum protection which appears in a speech of Hon. J. H. Walker of Massachusetts, commented on in the 16th chapter (Slavery) of this volume. It is that since the slave-holder paid no "wages," he was under some sort of moral obligation to divide his profits with the Northern manufacturers who were obliged to pay wages.

Press Dispatch.

NOTE O.

That there may be no suspicion of exaggeration in the statement made in the chapter on the tariff, the following table has been constructed from data in Senate Report No. 407, Second Session, Fiftythird Congress. It shows the value of goods imported during the year ending June 30, 1893, and the tax paid at the custom houses, and from it these selections have been made:

These taxes were levied not for revenue but for "protection,” and everybody must be his own judge whether similar goods produced in the United States sold for less than the foreign price with the tax added. No sane man would buy these goods abroad and pay the tax, if he could buy them cheaper in the United States. And it may be added that, if the women of the country had been required, after paying $8.18 for dress goods, to hand over to a Federal tax gatherer $8.14, the reputations of certain distinguished gentlemen would have suffered. And it is quite probable that they would have diappeared altogether, if the poor people who paid $13.09 for woolen goods to clothe their families had been obliged to pay $21.36 as a tax to a Federal tax gatherer for the privilege of clothing their families. But the $21.36 was "wrapped up" in the $34.45 the merchant charged for the goods, and the poor people didn't see it. And the authors of this robbery are statesmen and patriots!

NOTE P.

The protective features of the tariff act of April 27, 1816, are constantly resurrected in Congress to confound Southern free-traders and low-tariff advocates, because it was supported by Mr. Calhoun. But a careful reading of it will confound the protectionists; all its protective rates were to be limited to three years, so as to give the "infants" time to exercise their legs and learn to stand alone. example, it contained these provisions:

"On cotton manufactures of all descriptions *

*

For

* as follows,

viz: For three years next ensuing the 30th day of June next, a duty of 25 per centum ad valorem; and after expiration of the three years aforesaid a duty of 20 per centum ad valorem," etc.; and

"On all woclen manufactures of all descriptions, except blankets, rags, and worsted stuff or goods" (all of which were left on the free list); "shall be levied, collected, and paid from and after the 30th day of June next, until the 30th day of June, 1819, 25 per centum ad valorem; and after that day 20 per centum on the said articles."

Indeed, some of the most grinding rates in the act of 1824 were to be temporary in their operation; but experience soon satisfied the Congress that there was no hope of the adolescence of the "infants." There are "infants" now on the protected roll which are more than a century old.

Mr. Calhoun's avowed object in favoring a three-years' encouragement of manufactures was to secure the production in the United States of such articles as were sorely needed in the War of 1812; and pro tanto, in his view, it was a war measure.

But even this temporary protection did not receive the support from the South which protectionists would have us to believe it did. The votes of the following States in the House of Representatives were as in this table:

The woolen manufacturers, not satisfied with the privilege of adding twenty-five cents to every dollar's worth of their products, induced their friends in the House of Representatives to pass a bill in February, 1827, "imposing additional duties on imported woolen goods," but it was rejected in the Senate by the casting vote of Vice-President Calhoun. Thereupon steps were taken by the woolen

manufacturers to unite in a convention at Harrisburg representatives of all the industries which were anxious to have their privileges enlarged. They were successful; the convention was held; and by united action they secured the passage of the act of 1828. 1

NOTE R.

Many of the rates in this tariff were dictated by the manufacturers, as is evident from the following passage in the report of the committee which framed the bil. They examined thirty witnesses, manufacturers and other interested parties, and then made this confession: Indeed, many of the questions put to the witnesses will afford abundant evidence that the committee had not sufficient practical knowledge upon the subjects before them to enable them to make a series of interrogations, the answers to which would place the testimony taken in the clearest light. None but a person intimately acquainted with the various operations could have drawn out a series of questions upon the subject, susceptible of clear and intelligible answers."2

* * *

For example, not satisfied with the privilege of selling $1 worth of woolen goods for $1.30, they had the rate so changed that they could sell at $1.40 and $1.45, according to quality.

NOTE S.

One of the strongest reasons given by the committee which framed the tariff bill of 1828 for the protection of the woolen manufacturers was as follows:

"That these depressions (in prices) are owing, in a very great degree, to the excessive and irregular importations of foreign woolen goods into our markets: thus causing a fluctuation in, and an uncertainty of price for those goods, more injurious to the American manufacturer than even the depression of price which these importations produce.'

3

Here was an act passed to insure certainty of prices to the woolen manufacturers, while the producer of cotton was unable to adjust his business to any certainty of price. His debts, his taxes, and the prices of his clothing, hats, shoes, salt, farming utensils, etc., did not vary; but the price of his cotton was as uncertain as the weather. In 1821 the Liverpool price of cotton was 19 cents, and in 1831 it was 12 cents (counting a penny as equal to two cents). And during this period the price of a bushel of wheat (at Albany and Troy, N. Y.) varied between six and fourteen shillings. *

1

See Statesman's Manual, Vol. I, pages 662-63.

2 See Taylor's Universal History of the United States, page 437.

3 Taylor, page 438.

4

+ See Alden's Cyclopædia, Article Cotton, and Report of Commis

sioner of Patents (Agriculture) for 1853, pages 142-43.