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PRACTICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION,
AN AIDDRESS
IBY
ROBERT P. PORTER,


Member of the late Onited States Zariff Commission.
Author of “The West in 1880, " &c.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
FAIR TRADE CONGRESS,
LEAMINGTON, ENGLAND,
NOVEMBER 10TH, 1883
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INORWICH :
STEVENSON AND CO, PRINTERS, “NORFOLK CHRONICLE " OFFICE, MARKET-PLACE
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A PRACTICAL VIEW OF PROTECTION.
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As an inquirer into the economic condition of the United
States and some of the principal European countries, and not
as one in the interest of the abstract doctrines of the econo-
mist, I accepted the kind invitation of the distinguished
Baronet who represents you in Parliament, to attend the
opening of the Fair Trade Congress in South Warwick-
shire. For my own part I do not accept Free Trade as
a revelation, nor am I able to believe by any process of
reasoning, that hostile Tariffs can successfully be fought
with widely open ports. Indeed, the industrial progress
of the United States during the last twenty years, under
a highly protective Tariff, shows the opposite to be true.
After the Morrill Tariff, which was a war measure, had
been in successful operation for twenty years, and under
it the revenue from Customs alone had nearly reached
£40,000,000, it became apparent that a revision was neces-
sary. The question with us was one that rarely troubles
Luropean Statesmen, What to do with the surplus revenue P
The larger proportion of the National Debt was in bonds
that did not mature until 1891 and 1907, and to redeem
these the Government would have been compelled to go
into the market and buy them at a premium of from
16 to 22 per cent. The yearly surplus was sufficient to
pay the bonds that could be called in within a few years,
and unless the revenue was quickly reduced we were in
danger of having an immense surplus accumulating in the
Treasury, with the alternative of keeping it in the vaults
or paying a high price for our own bonds. The advocates
of Free Trade saw their opportunity, and the cry was
raised, “Abolish the Tariff.” Passionate appeals were
made to the Farmers. At one time a haphazard reduction
of duties seemed possible if not probable.
atºvº
4
After a protracted arid heated debate in Congress,
those who had the national interest at heart carried the
Tariff Commission Bill, of May, 1882, which was practically
a decision to delay action until inquiry could be made
in relation to all the various questions bearing upon
the thorough revision of the existing Tariff, by means
of taking testimony in relation to the agricultural, com-
mercial, mercantile, manufacturing, mining, and industrial
interests of the Country. The Commission consisted of
mime members and we held public sessions for hearing
testimony in 30 of our industrial centres, travelling over
7,000 miles, and examining upward of 600 persons of
different political and economic faith. The testimony pre-
sented a photograph of the various economical opinions
of the principal business centres. Upon this testimony,
combined with the special knowledge each Commissioner
brought to the work, the present Tariff law was framed,
though it was somewhat modified before the final passage
by Congress. The aim of the Commission was to reduce
the duties whenever it could be done without injury to
Our home producers. Raw Imaterial, so far as it was
not likely to stop the development of the natural resources
of our own country was set free. Few changes were made
in the duties on articles of luxury, such as laces, silks,
the finest grades of all-wool dress goods, kid groves, wines
and spirits. Care was exercised to make the New Tariff
bear the lightest on the classes of goods consumed by the
wage-workers. In some branches of industry, not yet firmly
established, the duties were slightly increased, by more
specific classification. -
This, in brief, is what has been done with the Tariff.
Excepting a few minor changes it will probably remain as it
is. The Democratic Party, which will have a majority in the
next Congress, has the happy faculty of what we call in
America “straddling the question.” It raves about absolute
Free Trade in Kentucky, and Mississippi, in a way that would
delight Mr. Bright himself; in Louisiana, it favours Free
Trade in everything but sugar; in the Carolinas it would
except rice; in Virginia, iron ore, and peanuts; in Georgia, the
coarser grades of Cotton manufactures; and in the sheep
raising districts of Texas, raw wool. Free Trade ardour cools
5
as it approaches the North. The farmers of the North-west
are too prosperous to listen to changes of any sort, so little
headway has been made in Iowa, Minnesota, and the Territories.
Illinois and Ohio have been benefitted too much by
Protection to heed theories, and by the time the great
exponents of Free Trade reach Pennsylvania, the platforms
are what the followers of Mr. Cobden, here in England, would
consider vigorously protective.
The Republican party has never been able to discern the
advantages of Free Trade, though some of its newspapers
advocate it. The Protective principles seem to be inherent
with the party itself and its long career, its brilliant fiscal
achievements, and the satisfactory material progress of the
country since the war, can all be directly traced to the
Protection policy. Under it we have grown from an
agricultural country, largely dependent upon Europe for Our
manufactures, to a nation teeming with important industries.
During twenty years of Protection we have added twenty
millions to our population; the number of our cities and
towns (with over 8,000 inhabitants) has actually doubled—
from 141 to 286. The population of our cities has more than
doubled—5,000,000 in 1860 to upward of 11,000,000 in 1880.
The important industries have developed in the same
proportion. The annual product of Our coal mines from
14,000,000 tons in 1860 to 80,000,000 tons now, or five fold.
Our iron mines in 1860 produced 900,000 tons of ore, but the
stimulus of Protection has brought up the annual yield to
nearly nine times that amount, or 8,000,000 tons. The
various metal industries of the country were, in 1860, em-
ploying about 53,000 hands, consuming £20,000,000 worth
of material, and producing £36,000,000 of annual product.
To-day, these same industries give employment to 300,000
hands, consume £76,000,000 of material, and produce every
year £120,000,000 in value of manufactured goods. In
1860 about 130,000 persons were engaged in the indus-
tries relating to wood and its manufactures, to-day 340,000
are so engaged, while the value of the annual product
has increased three-fold, exceeding now £100,000,000
sterling. A judicious Tariff has increased the number
employed in the woollen industry from 60,000 to over
160,000, while the value of the yearly product of our home
6
mills has risen from £16,000,000 to £54,000,000. In the
cotton industry need I say that we have practically robbed
England of fifty millions of customers, increased the number
employed in our mills to 200,000 persons, and, in the last two
decades, doubled the value of the product. Imports of cotton
goods have steadily declined from 227,000,000 yards in 1860,
to 23,000,000 yards in 1881, while exports reached the same
year, 150,000,000 yards.
Eſas the consumer been injured 9
No! With the exception of a few special lines which we
do not manufacture, cotton goods are as cheap, and even
cheaper, with us, than in England. A more remarkable
progress has been made in the silk industry, which before
the Morrill Tariff, gave employment to 5,000 persons; in
1880 it employed over 30,000, a six-fold increase. The
importation of silk goods has remained stationary since
1860, at about £6,000,000, the production of our own mills
increasing from £1,200,000 in 1860, to over £8,000,000 in
1880. Yet the cost of the manufactured goods to the
consumer, estimated on a gold, basis, has steadily declined
at a much greater rate than the cost of the raw material.
The manufacture of Pottery, Stoneware, and Glass employed
12,000 in 1860, against 35,000 now. The Chemical industry
was in its infancy twenty years ago, 6,000 persons were
engaged in it, to-day there are five times that number, or
30,000. The extension of cities, the opening of mines, as
well as the cultivation of larger areas of land, have constantly
called for better means of internal communication, and the
30,000 miles of railways we had in 1860, will have reached
120,000 miles at the close of this year.
And if we have not made equal progress with the world’s
carrying trade, may it not be for the reason that we have
been more profitably engaged in our own, for the extent of
mileage just named nearly equals the aggregate of the
railway mileage of all the rest of the world. And this to say
nothing of the increase of internal water communication and
coasting trade.
So much for the development of our manufactures.
The Free Trader, however, urges that all this capital has
been diverted from Agriculture, and that our Agricultural
7
interests must have suffered in proportion to the increase of
manufactures.
Let us see. After all manufactures have only followed
closely along the line of Agriculture, strengthening and
supplementing it. The number of farms has doubled,
2,000,000 in 1860 to 4,000,000 in 1880; their value has in-
creased in that period from £1,200,000,000 to over
£2,000,000,000. The production of cereals has increased
under Protection from 1,230 million bushels in 1860 to
2,700 million bushels in 1880, an increase of over 100 per
cent. The value of live stock has risen from £200,000,000
in 1860 to £300,000,000 in 1880, while the annual products
of the farm has reached £600,000,000. The number of
sheep, owing to the duty on wool has doubled—22 million
in 1860 to 40 million at the present time: the home pro-
duct of wool has increased from 60 to 240 million pounds.
The number of persons returned as employed in the gainful
Occupations has increased in the last ten years from
12,500,000 to 17,500,000, the rate of increase being in excess
of that of the entire population—the former being nearly
40 per cent. while the latter has slightly exceeded 30 per
cent. Exports have more than doubled since 1860. Not-
withstanding that they had that year reached the highest
point (£80,000,000), the increase has been £100,000,000
aggregating to-day £180,000,000. Imports of merchandise
have also increased in this period £60,000,000, reaching a
total of £130,000,000 in 1881. Of this amount it must be
borne in mind, over £40,000,000 in value comes in free of
duty ; over £20,000,000 in value consists of articles of
luxury, and £20,000,000 sugar and tobacco. Here is the
actual progress of two decades under a highly Protective
Tariff. And yet such able, though prejudiced writers, as
Brofessor J. E. Cairnes, devotes 30 pages of his “Principles
of Political Economy” in an effort to prove the disastrous
results of Protection in the United States on the false
assumption of the “slackened rates of progress, the arrested
commercial growth, and above all the diminished reward
for workmen.” Nothing can justify such a statement. It
is contrary to all the statistical facts I have given. How can
the Political Economists of England expect to gain ground
in the United States when the ablest among them are in-
8
capable of divesting themselves of prejudice long enough to
base their speculations on something akim to facts. Practical
men seeing they are not masters of the facts naturally dis-
trust their theories. - -
With this manufacturing, mining, commercial, and agri-
cultural progress has come a great improvement in the
social condition of the masses of the people. From actual
observations I can say that our operatives, as a class, dress
better, live better, more often own their houses, and are far
more prosperous and happy than the same class of persons
in any of the European countries I have visited. The Lord
Chief Justice of England during his recent visit was struck
with this, and in his last speech in New York, October 11th,
said:—“It is not your colossal fortunes that have interested
me. I can see them at home. What I do admire, what I
long to see and never shall see in my own dear England, is
what may be called your upper and lower middle classes. I
have seen among them men who would do credit to any
capital in the world. I have seen tens of thousands of houses
occupied by the owners of them. I am told that in general
your farmers own their farms, your cultivated gentlemen own
their houses, and your artisans own their cottages. What a
state of satisfaction and content this produces in time of
peace | What an irresistible force in time of war.”
I have this year made a careful comparison of the average
earnings of labour in the important branches of industry in
Great Britain, Germany France, Belgium, and Holland, with
the average earnings of the same classes of workers in the
United States. In prosecuting this inquiry I have visited
the industrial centres of these countries, and am pre-
pared to further substantiate my conclusions with details if
necessary. I find that in the United States wages are from
60 to 150 per cent. higher in the various industrial pursuits
than they are in the above mentioned European Countries.
At the , same time the difference in the purchasing
power of a dollar between Free Trade and Protec-
tion Countries is absurdly exaggerated by the Cobden
Clubites. In Germany and France, especially in the
former country, the workmen can live far cheaper than in
England. Rent, in the great iron, and steel, and coal
centres, such as Essen, Dortmund, Bochum, Osnabrück, and
9
half-a-score other places, I found varied from £2 to £5 per
annum for comfortable houses with gardens. For less than a
shilling a week rent the laborer enjoys a good house and
garden. The vilest hovels in South Wales, and in the
Staffordshire mining districts, or Worcestershire nail regions,
rent for 2s. 6d. a week or about three times as much.
Improvement is being made in this respect in France. In
some of the iron and Coal Centres, Small towns, consisting
entirely of workmen’s houses, have been built. I have
obtained samples and price lists of a variety of manu-
factured articles in these countries, which may be called
Inecessities of civilized life, and find the difference in
the prices of commodities, in a condition to use, small
indeed. The purchasing power of a dollar, so far as the
wants of the working man is concerned, when the cost and
quality of the food is taken into consideration is about the
same in the United States as in England, though wages are
often 100 per cent. higher in America.
In France and Germany the industrial progress during
the last ten years has been more marked than in Great
Britain. The most dangerous of England's Continental
competitors in the textile industries may be found at Lille,
Roubaix, Tourcoing, Rouen, and St. Etienne, in France ; and
Crefeld, Aachen, and Chemnitz in Germany. The Rhenish
and Westphalian Coal and Iron Districts, with such works
as those of Essen and Dortmund, and those at Seraing,
Belgium, can produce Iron and Steel as cheaply as England
can, and the certainty of a home market gives these Protective
Countries the advantage in the contest for foreign trade. In
view of this you will not be surprised when I tell you that I
have found shoddy manufactures from Batley and Dewsbury
established in Aachen, Prussia; Lancashire and Scottish
spinners in Rouen; Leicestershire hosiery manufactures in
Saxony; Yorkshire wool-combing establishments in Rheims;
Dundee jute mills in Dunkerque; all-wool stuff manufactures
in the vicinity of Roubaix; English iron and steel mills in
Belgium ; and English woollen mills in Holland. I conversed
with some of the gentlemen owning or superintending these
mills, and was told that they can manufacture cheaper in these
Protective countries than in Free Trade England. Removing
their capital to the Continent had secured a profitable home
10
market, while England was near with widely open ports, to
serve as “a dumping ground ’’ to unload surplus goods, made by
foreign labour, superintended by English skill. In this way
the English markets are swamped and her labour undersold.
The Germans, of late years, and, in a lesser degree, the
French, are taking better care of their workmen. The
employer builds good houses for them, insures their lives
against accident, pensions those unable to work, provides for
the widows and orphans. The State, the employer, and the
workmen all contribute to this fund in Prussia. The workman
is thus encouraged to help himself, and not depend on the work-
house. Then the manufactories are not so frequently crowded
in large and compactly built cities as in England, but are
located in the country where the workman enjoys a bit of land,
the green fields, the fresh air, and sunshine. Wages in the
important industries of Germany average about the same as in
England. In the Iron and Steel industry since the return to
Protection, official figures for the whole of Germany show 33
per cent. more persons employed; 57 per cent. more money
disbursed as wages, and an increase in the earnings of each
worker of 17 per cent. for the twelve months ending last
April, than for the year ending the same months in 1879.
The average dividends of the various Corporations have
increased from less than two per cent. to over five per
cent. in the last four years. The other important industries
give evidence of improvement.
Turning to England the industrial outlook is less satis-
factory. Within a few miles of this beautiful spot there are
thousands of women and children reduced to the most shocking
slavery—compelled to work twelve or fourteen hours a day at
the forge, and often the aggregate wages of a whole family
insufficient to provide the necessaries of life. Better pay a
trifle more for nails and chains than bring such degradation on
human labor. At Coventry and Macclesfield I found the silk
industry was dying out, that the importation of raw silk had
decreased from 8,000,000 pounds in 1871 to less than 3,000,000
now ; the iron-workers of Staffordshire were losing money, while
the coal workers of South Wales were certainly living in squalid
wrétchedness—common labour having been reduced to half-a-
crown a day. In the Cleveland and Barrow districts wages
were higher and the laborers better off. Bradford was lament-
11
ing the loss of the all-wool stuff trade. The cotton
manufacturers of Lancashire say they are consuming their
capital, while the weaker industries in Scotland are being exter-
minated. Leicestershire hosiery hands were emigrating. The
export of linen yarn is less than half what it was in 1871.
Twenty thousand persons have been thrown out of work in
this industry since 1861. And lastly the migration of the
English Watch trade to Switzerland, France, and the United
States. In short, under Free Trade the producer in England
is rapidly losing ground, because the fiscal policy of the
Government is against him. Every year Great Britain has
to mine more tons of coal and iron ore ; Smelt more tons of
metal; spin more pounds of yarn; and weave more yards of
cloth for the same money. While the great industries are
thus struggling for existence against the combined industrial
forces of the world, the woollen industry, the silk industry,
the linen industry, the watch industry, and what is of more
importance than all of them, the agricultural industry are
suffering severely from foreign competition, and the starving
artisan and labourer is told to “try something else ’’ or
“ emigrate.”
Mr. Cobden's visions have not been fulfilled, the Tariffs
of Continental Countries have been increased rather than
diminished ; the United States is further from Free Trade to-
day than in 1846; Protection Countries that were to be thrown
out of the race if they did not accept the new light, have
gone on prospering commercially, agriculturally, and in-
dustrially; the British Colonies have built up manufactures
and improved their condition by Protection. The Doctrine
which was to bring universal peace and brotherhood to
the Nations of the Earth is likely to cause the next great
war, for both Russia and Austria are hungering after com-
mercial ports on the Balkan Peninsula that they may share
with the United States the wealth of Great Britain, and
the advantages derived from its so-called Free Trade, which,
as Sir Eardley-Wilmot has so ably shown, is not even Fair
Trade. While the practical success of Free Trade is thus
being called in question on both sides of the Atlantic by
practical men, the College Professors are quarrelling over the
abstract economic theories, each in turn denouncing “ the mazy
and preposterous assumptions” of the other, until they confuse
IIII
12
rather than elucidate the great industrial questions they are
trying to solve. Professor Henry Sidgwick, who has
given the Doctrinaires the last shock in his “Principles of
Political Economy,” just published, has been generous enough to
admit that “if a practical man affirms that it will promote the
economic welfare of England to tax certain of the products of
foreign industry, a mere theorist should hesitate to contradict
him without a careful study of the facts of the case.” Is it
too much to expect that other theoretical Political Economists
will follow the good advice of Professor Sidgwick, and if so
may we not hope at least for a more careful study of the
facts that will be presented during the coming winter by this
Congress. a
STEVENSON AND Co., PRINTERS, MARKET PLACE, NORWICH.