58 BENEFITS OF TARIFF PROTECTION. 



in Boston, at 15 cents, currency, per pound. No wonder the duty 

 is a burden to the Sheffield manufacturer ! 



No error is more common or more unfounded, in discussing the 

 tariff question, than the assumption made by Free Traders that the 

 duty is added to the price, not only to the imported article which 

 is dutied, but also to the home-made manufacture of like kind. 

 This assumption is contradicted by a multitude of facts. In the 

 first place, the duties on very nearly all imports from Canada into 

 the United States, as the experienced collectors of customs on our 

 northern frontier have officially declared, are paid by the Cana- 

 dians for the privilege of sale in our markets. This one fact dis- 

 proves the position taken by the advocates of an unrestricted com- 

 merce. Moreover, we have demonstrated in these columns, beyond 

 room for doubt, that English manufacturers of steel are compelled 

 to pay a considerable part, sometimes all, of the duty on that arti- 

 cle before they can get it into our markets. Under these circum 

 stances, how is it possible for the duty to be added to the price 

 The present duty on wheat is twenty cents per bushel. Does any 

 farmer ever take that rate into consideration in fixing his selling 

 prices? Nevertheless, the tariff protects him, and assures him a 

 higher quotation than he could possibly have without the tariff. 

 Once repeal that duty, then Canadian wheat will pour into New 

 England and New York, and there supply an annual consumption 

 of some 32,000,000 bushels, now almost altogether furnished from 

 the West. If our farmers were forced every year to throw that 

 additional quantity upon the foreign market, or forego saH, would 

 price tend up or down? Every tiller of the soil who thinks 

 that the policy of Protection is injurious to his interests, and re- 

 pressive of his prosperity, needs only to try five years or less of 

 partial Free Trade to produce 1 permanent change of conviction. 



