92 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



say, is, " Thou shall pay ! " It has nothing to give ; it can only 

 demand. Tliey who say that a tariff enriches a country, virtu- 

 ally say that a people can he enriclied by taking money out of 

 their pockets ! Some men say this in ignorance, having never 

 looked into tlie nature of a tariff, and others say it in craft and 

 guile to deceive the people and make merchandise of them. Now 

 all taxes in their very nature are a burden ; they are so much 

 out of our pockets ; but you and I are willing to pay all taxes, 

 even tariff taxes, that are laid simply for the support of the 

 government and its credit. But taxes laid for any other pur- 

 pose than this we are not willing to pay ; as men of sense and 

 spirit, we object to paying them, we protest against paying 

 them, and with the help of others like-minded, please God, we 

 shall abolish them ! But it is the very purpose of a protective 

 tariff, so called, to lay taxes on the people, not for the support 

 of government at all, but to raise the price artificially of 

 certain articles, which you and I have to buy, for the benefit of 

 the " protected " classes. Government gets revenue from a 

 tariff only as foreign articles, subject to duty, come into the 

 country. Protection desires to keep some of these articles out 

 of the country, and thus to cut off the revenue from govern- 

 ment, and yet to make the people pay on the corresponding 

 domestic goods the full amount of the tax. You are paying to- 

 day enormous taxes on certain articles, of which taxes govern- 

 ment does not get one penny ! The people are paying several 

 millions of dollars a year in consequence of a tax on coarse 

 blankets, of which the government does not get one cent ! The 

 tax is so high as to exclude the foreign blankets on which it is 

 laid, but the domestic blankets are raised in price in consequence 

 of the tax, and the people pay to the blanket manufacturer, and 

 not to government. So of many other things. " Protection " 

 likes nothing so well as to exclude the foreign article by a tax, 

 and thus take away its revenue from government, but make 

 the people pay the tax just the same. Protectionists, as such, 

 are the worst foes of the government and its credit. 



On many other articles the people pay a great deal more in 

 consequence of the tariff-tax than the government gets. The 

 foreign articles are not wholly but only partially excluded ; 

 government gets something on what still comes in ; but t' o 

 people have to pay on all they consume, domestic a. well as 



