62 EFFECTS OF PROTECTIVE DUTIES. 



chinery is beginning to overmaster the competition of cheap man- 

 ual processes abroad. A foreign manufacturer, who has been 

 largely engaged in supplying the American trade, is said to have 

 expressed a determination, before he returned to England last 

 summer, to "unroof the Trenton potteries and destroy the 'plant' 

 of capital there in the potting business." A.British iron master 

 said to a friend of ours, who was on a business visit to England in 

 1873: "When we get our grip on the throat of labor' again, we 

 will knock the bottom out of the Bessemer works in the States." 

 Protective duties stand between such menaces and their intended 

 fulfillment. 



We have never maintained, as the Times intimates, that foreign 

 producers always pay the duties, either in whole or in part. 

 Sometimes they pay every cent, as the Canadians now do in almost 

 every instance ; somecimes, and this is oftenest the case, they pay 

 part; and sometimes the entire burden falls upon the American 

 consumer. These representations run parallel with long experience. 

 The operation of the principle involved is thus stated by John 

 Holmes, of Maine, in a speech delivered by him in the United 

 States Senate, in 1832 : 



If any one rule more than another is to be relied on, it is this ; that, as soon as 

 Protection begins to operate, and in proportion to its operation, the tax is re- 

 flected back from the consumer to the producer. Take the case of bar iron in 

 the years 1818, 1826 and 1830, when the tariffs of 1816, 1824 and 1828 were 

 in full operation. I recur to the price current in Boston, and select for an ex- 

 ample "Old Sable." In 1818 the duty was $9 per ton, and the price, including 

 the duty, $104. In 1826, duty, $18 ; price, including duty, $100. In 1830, duty, 

 $22.40; price, including duty, $96. Thus, while the duty has been constantly 

 increasing, the price of the article taxed has been as constantly diminishing. The 

 reason is as manifest as the fact is true the domestic article has been increasing 

 in quantity. Suppose the foreign manufacturer furnished three-fourths of your 

 consumption, the greater quantity would command the price, and this tax would 

 fall on the consumer. But let the domestic product increase to one-half, the 

 competition between foreign and domestic producers will be more equalized, and 

 the tax will be divided between the producer and the consumer. Let the do- 

 mestic product be three- fourths, and your own producer governs the whole 

 market, and the foreign producer bears the tax or nearly so. 



Our Protective system is the only plan of taxation by which for- 

 eigners, who do not bear any part of the burden of supporting our 

 free institutions, can be made to contribute to the revenues of our 

 Government, as an offset to the privilege of sale in our markets. 



