404 PAPER MONEY AND A PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 



fallacy to identify currency the means of exchanging property 

 with the property itself which is exchanged. Trade is an exchange 

 of property. The money is very necessary as a measure, but it is 

 not the trade. 



Q. You don t think there is anything to be said in favor of the 

 usury laws in this or any other country ? 



A. Laws limiting interest are not only bad, but absurd. They 

 are always evaded. They are mischievous and nonsensical. Your 

 banks here are limited to seven per cent. When the loan of money 

 is really worth more than seven per cent., then people don t go to 

 the banks, but somewhere else. You can t get anything for less 

 than it is worth. 



Professor Perry, from whom we have already quoted, says : 



Next to the irredeemable paper money, the greatest obstacle 

 to the prosperity of the farmers of the United States at the pres 

 ent moment is the so-called protective tariff. This is not so bad as 

 it was two or three year? ago. It has been twice reduced and sim 

 plified, in the fear that the honest indignation of the people would 

 otherwise overthrow it altogether. But it is still bad enough; it 

 is still too bad. It is an old trick of the devil, to take a good 

 word and cover up with it an evil thing. Precisely this is done 

 whenever the word &quot;Protective&quot; is applied to any tariff. The 

 word protective is a good word when used in its legitimate sense. 

 As signifying the security of person and property under a good gov 

 ernment, it is an admirable word, and describes an indispensable 

 thing; but as applied to a tariff,, the word is full of deceit, inasmuch 

 as a tariff from its very nature cannot &quot; protect&quot; anybody or any 

 thing. It can redistribute property by raising the prices of some 

 things and depressing the prices of other things, but it cannot pos 

 sibly raise the average prices of things in general. The trick of a 

 potective tariff is just the same as the trick of paper money, the jug 

 gler s trick of putting existing things in strange places. A tariff 

 creates nothing, produces nothing, adds nothing to existing wealth, 

 but it distributes a great deal; and we must now examine this mat 

 ter, especially in its bearing on the farmers. 



There is a town in Spain, situated in the narrowest part of the 

 Strait of Gibraltar, on the southernmost point of the kingdom, 

 which is named Tarifa, in honor of Tarif Ibn Malik, a Berber chief 

 who first landed here from Africa to reconnoiter the country, before 

 the conquest of Spain by the Mohammedan Moors, in the eighth 

 century of our Lord. These Moors occupied parts of Spain until 

 the year of the discovery of America, 1492; and it was in the joy of 

 her heart at the fortunate conquest of Grenada, their last strong 

 hold, that Queen Isabella pledged her jewels to the enterprise of 

 Columbus. The Moors built a castle at Tarifa which commanded 

 the strait, and during their domination in Spain, compelled all ves 

 sels passing through the strait to stop and pay &quot; duties&quot; to them, at 

 such rates as they dictated; and from this custom thus originating 

 at Tarifa, the word tariff, derived from the name of that town, 

 passed into the English and other European languages. The name 

 tariff accordingly has not a very respectable origin; for those &quot;du- 



