408 PAPER MONEY AND A PROTECTIVE TARIFF. 



udices are against it, political parties could make nothing out of it, 

 and personal aggrandizements would have no chance in connection 

 with it. The towns, counties, and states will probably continue to 

 raise their taxes on real estate and corporations; and the nation will 

 long continue to raise its revenue by excise and by tariff. 



But protective tariffs, so-called, will doubtless pass off from our 

 statute-books, as they have already passed out of the laws of Great 

 Britain, Belgium, and largely also of France, because they are mon 

 strously unjust; because by raising the price of the corresponding 

 domestic article as well as of the foregin article taxed, they make 

 the people pay in ostensible taxes a great deal more than the gov 

 ernment gets; because, since all foreign trade is an exchange of com 

 modities, just so far as a protective tariff keeps foreign goods out, 

 it keeps in of necessity domestic goods that would gladly go out, and 

 thus domestic producers lose their best and freely chosen market; 

 because there is no general gain in taking money out of one set of 

 pockets in the mostly vain hope of transferring it to another set of 

 pockets; because, so soon as the system becomes general, even manu 

 facturers, who have to buy &quot;protected&quot; materials, soon have to pay 

 more protection than they get; and because, just so far as the im- 

 portables are raised in value by protective tariff taxes, the export- 

 ables are depressed in value, thus throwing the vast losses of the 

 system upon those who grow the exportables. 



No man in his senses can pretend that protective tariff taxes are a 

 direct benefit to farmers, since these taxes cannot increase the num 

 ber of mouths that eat the farmer s produce, and since we do not 

 import agricultural produce to any great extent to be raised in price 

 by these taxes so that our farmers can sell their produce for more. 

 On the other hand, it is perfectly plain that these taxes cause an 

 enormous loss to farmers, because they grow the exportables that are 

 necessarily depressed in value by just so much as the irnportables 

 are enhanced in value by these taxes. According to the Bureau of 

 Statistics, this country exported in 1873, $649,132,563. Of this im 

 mense sum, $449,328*590, or more than two thirds of the whole, was 

 in strictly agricultural products. What we export buys all that we 

 import; most that we export is farmer s produce; but so far as the 

 imports are burdened with protective taxes, the farmer s exports are 

 1 essened in value, that is to say, they will not go so far, they will not 

 buy so much. The farmer has to give more of his grain, his hams, 

 his pork, his lard in order to get what he wants in return. It makes 

 no difference that others come in to help him make his exchange. 

 He is the real exchanger. These middle-men pay him less for his 

 produce than they would otherwise gladly pay him. His exports 

 suffer a loss in price equal to the gain in price of the imports caused 

 by the protective taxes. 



Under protection the farmer suffers a double loss. He must sub 

 mit to pay a great deal more for his supplies, whether these be for 

 eign goods protectively taxed, or domestic goods raised in price by 

 such taxes; and on the other hand, he cannot get nearly so much for 

 what he has to sell. He is smitten on the one cheek, and then told 

 by his masters in Pennsylvania and New England to turn the other 

 also. He sends out more than two thirds of all the exportables of 

 the country, to have them shaved and whittled down in price and 



