THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY. X^^^ 



NOVEMBER, 1888. 



THE EFFECTS OF PROTECTION". • 



By CHARLES S. ASHLEY. 



THE people of the United States are this year applying them- 

 selves with a concentration very rare in great masses of men 

 to the problem of tariff revision. It is inevitable that in a nation 

 of so fresh and independent a spirit the claims of 'authority and 

 scientific results should not receive any great recognition ; and I, 

 for one, rejoice that the people rely upon themselves and their 

 own judgment and experience, rather than on the theories, how- 

 ever respectable, of eminent writers. We are therefore brought 

 face to face with the question. What has been our experience in 

 the matter ? What have been the effects of protection in this 

 country ? It is especially interesting to examine the question 

 from a strictly practical point of view, because this is the chosen 

 battle-ground of the defenders of the existing system. 



Free trade is an 'extension of the practice of our daily lives. 

 We each of us buy in the cheapest market what we wish to buy, 

 and sell our wares or our labor where we can get the most for 

 them. I do not make my own shoes, but employ the great length 

 of time which it would take me to make them in doing something 

 which enables me to buy several pairs and other things as well. 

 Instead of making my own shoes (thus, in protection phraseology, 

 " protecting " my own " labor "), I buy my shoes of a neighbor, 

 and the Government does not attempt to prevent me or to tax me 

 for so doing. Even my neighbor does not himself make the shoes 

 which he sells me. He does not undertake to protect his labor, 

 but buys of a wholesale house in New York, which in turn buys 

 of a Lynn manufacturer. The result of all these complicated 

 transactions going to give me a pair of shoes is, that I get them 

 at an equivalent orf a very moderate amount of work, instead of 

 by a great deal of direct exertion and personal sacrifice. So, too, 



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