VALUE OF A PROTECTIYE TARIFF. 317 



with American coal and by American labor. Now, the 

 whole is a thing of the past, — taxed out of existence. The 

 decay of American shipping is not a matter of wonder 

 when such one-sided legislation can prevail and pass without 

 protest or complaint. 



But to recur to the salt tax. When it was first imposed 

 it was partly with a view to revenue, as salt, a necessity of 

 life, has always been a favorite subject for monopoly and im- 

 post, and partly to protect the salt-makers on our coast. 

 These, before the Western salt springs were worked, covered 

 our sea-shores with thousands of acres of salt pans, making 

 salt by solar evaporation. Now there is not an acre of them, 

 and what good to us, or to anybody, is a protective tax on 

 salt? 



We will now look at wool as a protected article, as that 

 is one of our farm products. Did you ever hear of a pound 

 of wool raised in the United States, east of the Rocky 

 Mountains, that was sold at twelve cents a pound or under, 

 or even at sixteen cents or less ? Yet wool of this character, 

 long and coarse, coming from Asia, Africa, South America 

 and Mexico, at a cost of twelve cents or less a pound, pays 

 a duty of three cents a pound, and if only one mill over 

 that, up to twenty cents, a duty of six cents a pound. Now 

 the American wool-grower needs no protection from such 

 wool as this I Yet this class pays sometimes, 7,500,000 

 dollars a year, into our over-flowing public treasury. It is 

 used for carpets, blankets, flannels and other coarse goods, 

 that our laboring classes need to use, and enhances to that 

 extent the cost of them. And then what is the result to 

 our "infant manufactures?" They must be protected 

 against the foreign goods made in England and Germany, 

 out of this same coarse wool, rendered more costly to our 

 own manufacturers by the duty I have named, and so the 

 cheap carpets, blankets and clothing which come from abroad, 

 must pay a still heavier proportionate duty. The impost 

 on low-priced blankets is eighty-five per cent, (almost or 

 quite prohibitory), and the American working-man must pay 

 one dollar and eighty-five cents for what the English laborer 

 pays but a dollar. The duties on the finer qualities of wool 

 are much higher, and in spite of them, large quantities are 



