VALUE OF A PEOTECTIVE TARIFF. 315 



constructions, if not to fraud and stealing ! And what pro- 

 tection does the farmer get ? You and I know very well 

 that so long as we raise more than can be consumed at liome, 

 and have to seek a foreign market for our surplus, no farm 

 productions can be imported to compete with us ; hence, even 

 W'ith the low rates of duty on cereals and the like (not over 

 twenty per cent.), none can ever come in, except from an 

 entire failure of crops with us, and a famine were threatened. 

 And if foreign markets must be had to take our hundreds of 

 millions worth of produce, and if we must take such prices 

 as they can afford to give us, ought we not to have the privi- 

 lege of buying, with the proceeds of what we ship, the cheap 

 goods which they have to sell, rather than be forced by 

 almost, or quite, prohibitory duties, to buy of our protected 

 manufacturers at nearly double prices? If we could take 

 more of their goods in return, and get them home, with a 

 moderate revenue duty, would not foreigu nations be able 

 to buy more largely of us, and at better prices? Would 

 they not be better customers to us if we did not exclude 

 their products, and if they could sell us more, not having 

 to pay us in hard cash for what they are obliged to take from 

 us? In 1881, they had to pay us in gold a balance of nine- 

 ty-oue millions of dollars, seriously disturbing the finances 

 of Europe. 



And now, to make some specific points upon protection, 

 let us look at the article of salt, on which a duty of about 

 eight cents a bushel, or forty-six per cent, is levied, and for 

 what? To protect those who own the salt-wells of Western 

 New York, Michigan, and Virginia. Do you ever buy their 

 salt? No! You must use the foreign article, because the 

 Western is too dear, and must pay also heavy transportation 

 charges. Theirs is a monopoly, and they combine to pro- 

 duce as much, and only as much, as they can sell at protected 

 prices, and should they have a surplus, send it to Canada and 

 take what they can get for it, rather than make a concession 

 to us, or to those who, at the West, are obliged to have it for 

 packing purposes. It is the principle on which the Dutch 

 used to act in burning the surplus nutmegs to keep np prices. 

 There are other things worked in the same way, and notably 

 among them are the copper j)roducts of Lake Superior. The 



