THE 
 
 337 -^ 
 
 £. 
 
 TRUTH ABOUT 
 
 u 
 
 PROTECTION. 
 
 5J 
 
 BY 
 
 JOEL BENTON. 
 
 * 
 
 5f eui |3ork: 
 
 CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO 
 1892. 
 
Copyright, 1892, 
 
 CHARLES L. WEBSTER & CO. 
 
 {All rights reserved.) 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 Jenkins & McCowan, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 It is impossible to discuss a topic exhaust- 
 
 ively, which requires an octavo, within the 
 limits of a brief essay. I have therefore been 
 obliged to omit much from this tract that 
 might have been forcibly said on behalf of my 
 contention. The college boy, who had for his 
 subject “ Infinity,” and but five minutes to 
 treat it in, represents my situation. 
 
 < ) 
 
 But I trust I have given here proper atten- 
 tion to the fundamental points that are the 
 basis of “ Protectionism.” When the whole 
 American people shall once thoroughly under- 
 stand them, a better day will dawn for the re- 
 public. To contribute slightly to that end has 
 
 been my chief purpose in writing this essay. 
 
 \ 
 
 The Author. 
 
 Poughkeepsie, N. Y., 
 
 Aug. 18, 1892. 
 
 J 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/truthaboutprotecOObent 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION. 
 
 “ Protection,” so called, is the sugar-coated 
 label for a vast and complicated system of 
 high taxation applied to commerce. This 
 taxation is not placed for purposes which make 
 taxation just and lawful, but for the benefit of 
 certain special firms and businesses. While it 
 is put directly upon imports, so that all goods 
 foreign and domestic are raised in price by it, 
 it is also a burden upon exports, since this en- 
 hancement of price, both upon manufactured 
 articles, and the raw material from which they 
 are produced, makes competition in the world’s 
 markets either very difficult or utterly impos- 
 sible. It has been called the “ American Sys- 
 tem ” for it reaches out always for high-sound- 
 ing names and phrases ; but it is no more 
 American than the Mohammedan religion is. 
 It was the invention of foreign and despotic 
 governments, and came down from ancient 
 and mediaeval times. In a free government 
 like ours, where the people are declared to be 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 
 
 equal, it is an anachronism and a stinging in- 
 justice. 
 
 “ Protection ” is an anomaly in our govern- 
 ment, for it is a species of socialism, no coun- 
 terpart to which exists under our constitution 
 and laws. It has, in fact, no direct warrant in 
 law. Whenever and however it has been 
 established here, it has got into existence as a 
 parasite, and consequently by a fraud upon the 
 people. Before every tariff bill the introduc- 
 tory or enacting clause says : “ An act to raise 
 revenue,” or words of tantamount meaning. 
 It is only by this swindle of professed intention 
 that “ Protection ” lodges itself in our legisla- 
 tion, or can possibly get a foothold — if you 
 omit the one provision in the McKinley bill 
 whereby direct bounties are given to the sugar 
 producers. It is hardly necessary to cite this 
 exception, however, for “ protection ” by boun- 
 ties is not likely to be repeated. Even the 
 “Protectionists” dread the open character it 
 gives to their theoretical and esoteric nostrum 
 which works best the more its modus operandi 
 is kept out of sight and is unknown. Fortu- 
 nately, this instance of “ Protection ” has been 
 legally defined to be a proper part of the sys- 
 tem. This, while it settles the fact (which 
 your “ Protectionist ” gets red in the face in 
 denying) that the tariff is a tax, also contro- 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.” / 
 
 verts in another point the unanswerable decis- 
 ion of the late Justice Miller — one of the clear- 
 est-minded men ever on the United States 
 bench — who said in the celebrated Topeka case 
 (Loan Association vs. Topeka) : 
 
 “ To lay with one hand the power of the government on 
 the property of the citizen and with the other to bestow it on 
 favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up 
 private fortunes is none the less robbery because it is done 
 under the forms of law and called taxation. This is not 
 legislation. It is a decree under legislative forms.” 
 
 This brave and honest decision makes one 
 thing plain : Wherever there is “ Protection ” 
 there is robbery. In imitation of a certain be- 
 lief of theology, the government under this 
 system is made to show preference to a few 
 and impose preterition and reprobation on the 
 mass. By its operation the tariff beneficiaries 
 are bountied while the great multitude of the 
 people are bled for their benefit. The favored 
 producer represents but a comparative few, 
 while the plundered consumer represents every- 
 body. 
 
 “ Protectionism,” as has been well said, is 
 the doctrine that waste makes wealth. 
 
 If a son should ask his father for capital to 
 assist him to do an unprofitable business — the 
 fact being known to both that for a period of 
 
8 THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 
 
 fifty or a hundred years it could not be made 
 profitable, so that at the expiration of that time 
 it would still need the father’s fostering purse, 
 with no predictable epoch in sight when the 
 subvention might cease — the father would 
 promptly decline the request, even though he 
 were a “ Protectionist.” Yet this is precisely 
 what he, as a faithful son of the Government, 
 asks the Government to do for him or for 
 somebody. If a business by a careful outlay 
 of capital, by wise economy and by Yankee 
 shrewdness and inventive wit cannot possibly 
 be made to pay, it is a positive loss to under- 
 take or continue it. And the Government, in 
 this case, should not be asked to tax the peo- 
 ple for its support. If it can be made to pay, 
 as the large multitude of manufactories and 
 crutched-up industries can of themselves, then 
 “ Protection ” is an impertinence and uncalled 
 for. In any event it is a swindle, though it be 
 embodied in a hundred statutes. The suppo- 
 sition that a country can be forced into un- 
 profitable businesses with ultimate gain, which 
 individuals cannot contrive to make successful, 
 is one of the fundamental errors which under- 
 lie “ Protection.” 
 
 But this is only one of its many hallucina- 
 tions. It is a dogma of pseudo-political econ- 
 omy which seems to have been born on the 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 9 
 
 pupil’s side of the kindergarten or nursery, for 
 it is a distinct attempt at compassing the child’s 
 desire of being able to “ eat your cake and 
 have it too.” But the proverb says,, and says 
 rightly, that this feat cannot be done. The way 
 the “ Protectionist ” thinks he can do it is by 
 trying to sell without buying. He does not 
 perceive that all trade, reduced to the final 
 analysis, whether between individuals or na- 
 tions, and whether money or commodities are 
 used, is nothing more nor less than barter. 
 And what is called trade between nations is 
 really nothing more than so many individual 
 bargains. If they can be profitably made they 
 go on and benefit results. If they cannot, 
 they stop, and the individuals who engaged in 
 them find other ways to attain their ends or 
 satisfy their desires ; so that the nation is not 
 called upon to see what kind of trade or how 
 much or how little trade is done. It has no 
 business to compel trade by a bribe, or to pun- 
 ish it by penalties. It does its whole duty 
 when it takes its hands off, and looks the 
 other way. The “ Protectionist ” bogy, there- 
 fore, of the “ unfavorable balance of trade,” 
 which for fifty years and more he has been 
 evoking to scare the people with, is a pure fic- 
 tion of a perverted political vision. There is 
 p.o such thing (in other words, no such a 
 
IO THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.” 
 
 “ Mrs. Harris ”), and any tendency to such a 
 danger meets constantly a self-limiting brake 
 in the mechanism of commerce that reverses, 
 at a certain point, the whole movement. 
 
 There is really no more need of the Govern- 
 ment’s putting itself into a state of concern and 
 anxiety about the amount we buy of other 
 nations than there is of its settling up the bal- 
 ances of the far larger aggregate — inconceiv- 
 able in amount — of our purchases and bargains 
 at home. Every single bargain with a for- 
 eigner is a purely individual one, and it is either 
 good or bad as any particular bargain is which 
 one of us makes w T ith a fellow-citizen. If we 
 find a profit in the bargain, in either case, we 
 are apt to repeat it ; if we find injury we go 
 elsewhere or desist. If this were not so there 
 could be no possible remedy. Any attempt to 
 call in the aid of Congress to adjust matters 
 like these — or to fix tariffs except strictly for 
 revenue — is to introduce untold mischief an<f 
 confusion. No Congress that ever sat 2 ^ 
 Washington is any more qualified to tinke r 
 with trade and private businesses and regulate 
 the incidences and intricacies of its acts than i- 
 would be to patch up a supposed error in th*- 
 precession of the equinox. 
 
 “ Protectionism ” has really no correct con. 
 ception of what “ trade ” is. It treats foreign 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION/’ I I 
 
 trade as it does the cholera, or yellow fever, 
 by building a quarantine against it in the style 
 of a Chinese wall. But it relents in part, and 
 inconsistently, by allowing some of the noxious 
 j germs to pass over the wall and so endanger 
 our economic health. Its only logical position 
 | was set forth by Henry C. Carey, who had a 
 1 clear vision on some points of political econ- 
 ^omy, who said that it '‘would be better com- 
 mercially for this country if the Atlantic Ocean 
 Were a sea of fire.” This was truly brave and 
 Consistent. It is exceedingly refreshing too, in 
 these days of fraudulent cries for “ Protection 
 and Reciprocity ” — two things that, where they 
 are not purposed shams, go together with pre- 
 cisely the same effect that is produced by pour- 
 ing a hogshead of water on a garden bonfire, 
 j There is no “ Protectionist ” living, or that 
 ever did live, who can tell what difference 
 |;here is economically, in the act of a farmer 
 who lives in southern Vermont, who goes to 
 Massachusetts and buys a horse and takes it 
 jjiome with him, and that of a farmer in north- 
 ern Vermont who steps over into Canada, on 
 tihe next farm to his own, and buys a horse 
 which he takes to his Vermont stable. The 
 transactions are precisely the same in essence 
 and character. It is possible though, that the 
 Canada horse was bought at a lower price 
 
12 THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION." 
 
 than the Massachusetts one was ; but then, it 
 may not have been — and either way, the tran- 
 sactions do not differ. But, because it is prob- 
 able that horses can be procured cheaper in 
 Canada to the extent, say, of $15 apiece, “ Pro- 
 tectionism ” says they must not be purchased. 
 If you do purchase one you will be fined at 
 least $15 ; and you must thank your stars that 
 both fine and imprisonment are not meted out 
 for so heinous a crime. 
 
 It may be interesting to see, at this point, 
 just what damage this one obstruction in the 
 tariff does to the nation economically. If we 
 may conclude, from the incomplete census 
 reports, that about twenty million horses are 
 needed by us for constant use, then a tariff* 
 clause which compels them to cost us $15? 
 more per head than they need to cost, inflicts 
 a loss upon the country, in the purchase of one 
 article, of $300,000,000. If the reader should 
 take any “ Protectionist ” tariff schedule, line 
 by line, and see what other things of equal! 
 importance or of more abundant use are made 
 also irrationally dear, he will very soon find 
 that our “Protection” Juggernaut is running 
 over the necks of the people at a prodigious 
 cost. And there is, positively, not a particle oil 
 compensation for this phlebotomy, as I shall 
 show further on. 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION/' 1 3 
 
 I have said that the “ Protectionist ” does 
 not have an accurate conception of what 
 “ trade ” is. Its mutuality of benefit he either 
 does not perceive, or else willfully perverts. 
 To be consistent (which is a virtue “ Protec- 
 tionism ” has no alliance with), he ought not 
 to kiss his wife if he is sure she takes any 
 pleasure in the osculation, since some benefit is 
 conferred on another party by the transaction. 
 In economics, and in affection too, however, 
 no one ever considers a benefit to another, con- 
 current with his own, a damage to himself. 
 But you constantly hear this consideration ex- 
 pressed in mock terror by the High Tariffite — 
 in this form perhaps : “ Do you want to give 
 England your market ? ” as if that were a 
 stumper, or had the slightest conceivable rela- 
 tion to the subject. 
 
 All this confusion of mind comes from the 
 idea that to trade with a foreigner is to help 
 him, and hurt ourselves. What we know is, 
 that it does help us, and that is enough to 
 know, though it should be a mental satisfac- 
 tion, at least, to us, to notice that because it 
 helps him, it may for that very reason enable 
 him to make our future bargains still better 
 and better, the more he gains by them. But 
 that he has, or can “ have our market,” in any 
 exclusive sense, as is claimed by the “ Protec- 
 
14 the truth about “protection. 
 
 tionist,” I totally and unqualifiedly deny. The 
 truth is, we do not have it ourselves when we 
 shut it up. Trade consisting of exports and 
 imports resembles a pair of shears. To re- 
 duce or obstruct either is to decrease the value 
 of the instrument. We cannot buy of foreign 
 tradesmen the $890,000,000 of wares a year 
 we now buy, without paying for the goods. 
 And it must be remembered that these are all 
 paid for by goods or services of our own, not 
 excepting the small amount of cash we may 
 sometimes pay on balances, which is, itself, a 
 commodity that some one, no matter who, has 
 previously paid to us for goods or services. 
 
 Now, if we should hereafter import $1,400,- 
 000,000, by battering down the tariff walls, it 
 would only be done because we could do so 
 with advantage. The citizen doing a foreign 
 trade, whether he be a “ Protectionist ” or a 
 “Free Trader,” would first look at his oppor- 
 tunity. It makes no difference which faith he 
 holds ; he would act precisely as his antago- 
 nist would. If there was a better bargain 
 within his reach, from abroad, he would take 
 it, and the payment consummating it would 
 send away some production made here. This 
 law is as unvarying a one as that of hydro- 
 statics, which makes water seek its level. The 
 “Protectionist” knows that domestic trades 
 
I 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.” 1 5 
 
 | are self-balancing, but owing to some species 
 j of color blindness, he cannot see that the in- 
 terception of a State boundary or an ocean in 
 no way changes the economic result. He is 
 alarmed at the increase of imports to even the 
 extent of $1,000,000; and yet he ought to 
 know that such a purchase additional by us 
 compels other nations, also, to buy an extra 
 $1,000,000 worth of our commodities. 
 
 And the balance is sure to be kept, without 
 invoking a Congressional panacea, which can 
 do nothing but injury. It matters not that 
 the balance, one way or the other, is com- 
 pleted without reference to calendar months. 
 The fact that we seem to buy more than we 
 sell one year, is pretty good evidence that 
 some other year we shall sell more than we 
 buy. Our domestic balances do not act differ- 
 ently, and whether trade be foreign or domes- 
 tic, it is always a matter between individuals 
 solely ; is not the proper concern of any Gov- 
 ernment ; is, in its entire nature, beneficent, 
 and the more beneficent, the more it is left 
 untrammeled and let alone. The day is swift- 
 ly coming when the Government will no more 
 be permitted to tell its people where, and of 
 whom, it shall buy its goods — under tariff 
 fines for disobedience — than it will be per- 
 mitted to tell its young men and young 
 
1 6 THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 
 
 women whom they shall marry. A direction 
 in the one case is fully as offensive and im- 
 pertinent as it would be in the other. 
 
 It is thought by the “ Protectionist ” to be a 
 specially American thing to refuse to buy a 
 foreign commodity. A certain apparently 
 paretical individual, in addressing his “ Pro- 
 tectionist ” confreres at Rochester the other 
 day, declared that he “ would not buy a pair of 
 French calfskin shoes if he could get them 
 for ten cents,” so devoted was he — we are led 
 to infer — to American leather. But it would- 
 n’t do to trust him to fulfill that declaration. 
 Unless he is really an imbecile, he has always 
 done as Tariffites do equally with others : he 
 has — when not hindered — bought what is 
 cheapest in relation to real value. He would 
 both injure his country and himself if he did 
 otherwise. It would not only be unpatriotic 
 to do what he claimed was patriotic — it would 
 be simply idiotic. Not even “ Protectionism ” 
 has got to this low stage of paresis yet. 
 
 It was Henry Clay who gave the name of 
 the “ American System ” to “ Protection ” in 
 1824. Webster was then opposed to it, and 
 denied the applicability of the name. He re- 
 sented the assumption that one form of Tariff- 
 ism was any more patriotic than another, or 
 that any man or party had other aims than to 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.” I 7 
 
 promote American interests. “ If reasons are to 
 be given,” he said, “ it is a little curious to know 
 with what propriety of speech this imitation 
 of other nations is denominated an ‘ American ’ 
 policy; while, on the contrary, a preference of 
 our own established system as it now actually 
 exists, and has always existed, is called a For- 
 eign policy. This favorite American policy is 
 what America has never tried; and this odious 
 foreign policy is what, as we are told, foreign 
 States have never pursued." 
 
 If any one will calmly sit down and read all 
 that Hamilton, Clay and Webster have written 
 and said about “ Protection ” (for they have 
 all, at certain periods, spoken against it), he 
 will see that they only favored it — when they 
 did favor it — against the hostile tariffs of other 
 nations, and freely admitted the beneficence 
 of unrestricted commerce. “ I, too,” said Clay, 
 ‘‘am a friend to Free Trade, but it must be a 
 Free Trade of perfect reciprocity.” This was 
 equivalent to Garfield’s belief “in a ‘ Protec- 
 tion ’ that leads to ultimate Free Trade.” When 
 they spoke for “Protection,” it was always 
 with the qualification that it was to be tenta- 
 tive and temporary ; and if they were living 
 to-day, and should demand double the rate of 
 their highest Tariff, our modern “ Protection- 
 ists” would dub them hideous “ Free Traders.” 
 
1 8 THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.’" 
 
 Not one of them ever asked for “ Protection ” 
 to keep or to make wages high. 
 
 “Protectionists” claim that manufactures 
 could not exist in the United States without 
 help from the Government. The fact is that no 
 manufactures of importance, or of large extent, 
 exist here now (except of newly invented wares), 
 which did not exist before, or while “ Protec- 
 tionism” was in its homoeopathic infancy. 
 Some of the most prosperous manufactures 
 we have, have either grown up without tariff 
 help, or have continued to thrive with a tariff 
 withdrawn from them. The whole history of 
 this talk is the history of a deceptive pretext 
 used in some other countries, as well as here, 
 to obtain Government help to swell profits al- 
 ready sufficiently remunerative. A high tariff 
 on raw materials, in which this country spe- 
 cially indulges, is an absolute hindrance and 
 handicap to manufactures. It has actually made 
 wool, which sold for $i a pound and upward 
 twenty-eight years ago, sell for less than twenty- 
 eight cents now. The history of wool Protection 
 alone, furnishes a model object-lesson of the re- 
 sult of a “false philosophy” freely exploited, of 
 which the public should be constantly reminded. 
 “ Protection ” has done more than any other 
 maleficent factor to destroy agriculture, to 
 make abandoned farms, and to blanket the 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” I9 
 
 most fertile states of the West with an almost 
 continuous carpet of mortgages. It has practi- 
 cally destroyed commerce under the American 
 flag, and made ship-building a lost art. It is 
 estimated that we now pay annually $200,000,- 
 000 in freight charges to foreign ships, that 
 we ought to be able to pay to ships made here, 
 which the protective delusion has prevented us 
 from making. And one disgraceful result of 
 this policy is the fact that ships built through 
 the employment of American capital, abroad, 
 can be used, in case of a war, by the nation 
 whose flag they sail under, against our own 
 country. Was there ever a more scathing 
 irony than to call the doctrine whieh does this 
 the “American System?” 
 
 “ Protectionists ” never see that labor and 
 manufactures are not things in themselves 
 valuable. It is only their useful or desirable 
 results that we care for. To labor to no end, 
 or to manufacture something absolutely worth- 
 less, would be worse than to have no stimulus 
 to labor, and no manufactures. Since it is re- 
 sults only that we want, it is most to our profit 
 to obtain these results where we can procure 
 them to the best advantage. If everybody 
 had Aladdin’s lamp, our best business would 
 be to press the button, and get our desires 
 gratified without further effort. As we have 
 
20 THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 
 
 no such device, the next best thing is to be 
 permitted to buy where we can buy the cheap- 
 est, and sell where we can sell the dearest. 
 
 One of the difficulties which would still in- 
 here in “ Protectionism,” if it were a good sys- 
 tem, is the fact that a committee of miraculous 
 wisdom and goodness could not apply it equi- 
 tably to those supposed to be entitled to it; and 
 if it could once be so applied, the derangement 
 of equities by changed commercial conditions 
 would call for a new adjustment every year. 
 
 One of the worst results of the system is the 
 corruption it is sure to breed, and which would 
 alone condemn it if it were wholly based, as it 
 is not, on a correct theory. The alliance of 
 the Government with special businesses, employ- 
 ing hundreds of millions of capital, whereby 
 the Government puts a siphon on the public 
 treasury, and turns a liberal portion of its con- 
 tents, which are the people’s hard earnings, 
 into the pockets of private individuals, is the 
 most positively vicious and immoral perform- 
 ance that legislation can be guilty of. The 
 party which proposes to do this, and does do 
 it, can command untold millions of campaign 
 money from these beneficiaries, and can practi- 
 cally destroy the integrity of the ballot and 
 free Government itself. 
 
 It can easily be seen, by a study of the way 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 2 1 
 
 taken to secure high duties, that the duties 
 will inevitably go to the log-rollers who will 
 pay most in an election quid pro quo to get 
 them, and who will join hands at Washington 
 to help each other. As it happens, men whose 
 businesses cannot plead even a “Protectionist’s ” 
 excuse for having them applied are favored, 
 while those not rich enough to maintain a lobby 
 or render the election service must go without. 
 In any event, it is the beneficiary of the tariff 
 who makes it what it is, and the consumer who 
 is its victim, and pays the ultimate bill. The 
 threadbare argument that “ Protection ” makes 
 high wages is one of the most astounding fal- 
 lacies of modern times. All trustworthy statis- 
 tics in the civilized world contradict it. Here 
 are a few facts in proof of my position : 
 
 i. The wages of carpenters, masons, black- 
 smiths, and various other craftsmen in our 
 country, which is under the influence of “ Pro- 
 tection ” throughout its entire territory, vary 
 from nearly two-thirds to one-half of the max- 
 imum price paid for their labor in various cities, 
 from Portland to San Francisco. They not 
 only vary greatly through spaces of territory, 
 but they vary through different points of time 
 under precisely the same tariff. These two cir- 
 cumstances could not possibly happen if wages 
 were fixed by “ Protection.” 
 
22 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.’ 
 
 2. In every fair comparison of countries with 
 each other, wages can be shown to rise as the 
 customs duties are lowered. Free-trade Eng- 
 land to-day pays the highest wages known in 
 Europe ; and France, Germany, Austria, and 
 Russia pay in an order exactly related to the 
 lowness of the tariff — ending with Russia, where 
 the highest tariff assures the lowest wages. 
 (One should be fair enough to say on this 
 question, though, that there are other factors 
 than the tariff which help to make wages what 
 they are, some of which I will call in evidence 
 soon.) 
 
 3. Where statistics on this point have been 
 presented, it can be proved that wages in the 
 unprotected industries, side by side with those 
 which are protected, have for half a century 
 together been higher than those “Protection” 
 gives. 
 
 4. But it must be always remembered that 
 nominal wages and real wages differ. The dollar 
 unit of wages under free trade does not need to 
 be clipped in its effort to buy scores of commodi- 
 ties commanding prices artificially high. The 
 real wage dollar, therefore, is likely to be worth 
 a dollar and a half where trade is not restrict- 
 ed, while the dollar and a half under “ Protec- 
 tion ” may be reduced in purchasing value to a 
 dollar. 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.” 23 
 
 5. Finally, of the things that go to make 
 wages high in the United States the following 
 are most potent : The beneficence of a free 
 government ; the absence of a standing army ; 
 the immense breadth of country, with its fertile 
 soil and diversified climate ; superiority of race, 
 and the sparseness of population to a square 
 mile. It really makes some difference, taking 
 this latter point in view, whether there are eigh- 
 teen persons to a square mile, or from two hun- 
 dred and fifty to upward of three hundred, 
 which is the ratio substantially between this 
 country and Europe. It is always true, as the 
 proverb says, that “ where two laborers seek 
 one employer, the employer fixes the price of 
 wages ; but, where two employers seek one 
 laborer, the laborer fixes the price.” In this 
 country the laborer has had a much larger voice 
 than laborers elsewhere in fixing the wage- 
 price, no matter what our tariff for the time 
 might be. He had his relatively high price 
 here in respect to foreign labor, even as far 
 back as colonial times, when there was no tariff 
 to punish or afflict him. 
 
 6. The influence of labor unions, and of im- 
 proved automatic machinery, which we can 
 point to as something dominating here, has 
 worked distinctly to keep labor up. 
 
 7. Where disastrous strikes and lock-outs and 
 
24 the truth about “protection.” 
 
 labor tumults occur you may expect to see the 
 “ Protection ” Grand Lama standing behind 
 the spectacle as their visible creator. The loss 
 of time alone caused by the attempt to put 
 business on an artificial basis, and outside of 
 natural laws, is a heavy draft upon the wages 
 laborers secure under “ Protection*” 
 
 A further indictment against “ Protection- 
 ism ” is the facility it makes for the formation 
 of trusts, of which we now have a hundred and 
 over. I am aware that, when pinched for argu- 
 ment, the “Protectionist” tells us that there 
 are trusts in England where “ Protection ” does 
 not exist. If this is so, England has the con- 
 solation of having done nothing through legis- 
 lation to make them. Everybody knows that 
 you can catch a spirited horse that is confined 
 to a high-fenced door-yard much easier than 
 you can when he has his full liberty on a Da- 
 kota prairie. And, in the same way, a trust 
 can more easily corral the public to its com- 
 manded high prices inside of a tariff wall. The 
 most noted “Protectionist” papers admit this 
 fact, in cool moments, by frequently urging 
 the reduction or entire removal of duties on all 
 articles that are exploited in price by a trust 
 for robbing the public. 
 
 “ Protection ” creates substantially a new 
 crime, which could not exist without tariff du- 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 25 
 
 ties. It is the high duty, in fact, that makes 
 smuggling feasible. It was estimated by Secre- 
 tary McCulloch twenty-six years ago that 
 the frauds upon the revenue at that time were 
 nearly $100,000,000 annually. Smuggling is 
 the sure effect of this system, which treats the 
 laudable effort and natural right of men — and 
 particularly women — to buy goods at a low 
 price as a crime. The mental process of the 
 smuggler is not connected with a feeling of 
 turpitude at all. He feels mainly that he has 
 rescued for himself a natural right, of which 
 he has been unjustly deprived. Is it right to 
 make it possible to confuse the domain and 
 practice of morals in this way ? 
 
 It is one of the delusions of the “ Protection- 
 ist ” that free trade is a theory. It is often said 
 by him, when troubled to straighten out his 
 own absurd philosophy : “ Oh, well — free trade 
 is very good as a theory, but it isn’t practical.” 
 But this double statement is contradictory. 
 Either one-half of the assertion or the other half 
 is wrong. If it is a good theory, it will work 
 well ; and if it will not work well, it is not a 
 correct theory. The truth of the matter is, that 
 “ Protectionism ” itself is the theory. It was 
 not the foxes in the fable who kept their tails 
 who were the theorists : the theorist was the 
 one who lost his in a trap, and who went about 
 
26 THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.” 
 
 trying to persuade the others that it was much 
 better to change the natural law, and go with- 
 out a tail. Free trade preceded “ Protection,” 
 and is nothing but an observance of laws as 
 nature made them. It is “ Protectionism ” 
 which is the usurper, the nostrum-proposer, and 
 which has a theory of action it calls better than 
 natural law. On it, therefore, falls the duty of 
 proving that commerce with its tail cut off is 
 an improvement on commerce as the Creator 
 intended it should be. 
 
 A very fallacious argument which it uses to 
 make this doctrine accepted may be called 
 the fallacy of heterogeneous comparison. 
 I give a sample below which was used by the 
 “Protectionists ” in 1888 : “ In Norway the peo- 
 ple have free trade, and laborers get about 29 
 cents a day. In the United States we have 
 ‘Protection/ and laborers get $2 a day.” The 
 moral drawn was : See the beneficence of “ Pro- 
 tection.” Now the syllogism would have been 
 precisely the same, and the premises and con- 
 clusion would have been equally true if the 
 argument had read as follows: “In Norway 
 the people do not have rattlesnakes, and labor- 
 ers get about 29 cents a day. In the United 
 States we have rattlesnakes, and laborers get 
 $2 a day.” Moral : See the beneficence of rattle- 
 snakes. The fraud in this argument lies in 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.” 2*J 
 
 heterogeneous comparison — in the fact that 
 Norway differs in almost every possible respect 
 from this country; the points of difference being 
 in climate, government, size, soil, educational 
 and other equipment of the laborer, etc. Now, 
 if Norway had had a high tariff and we had had 
 free trade, the disparity would still exist in com- 
 paring ours to a small, inhospitable country — 
 the southern boundary of which is as far north 
 as Labrador, and the arable area of which is 
 not greater than that of Illinois — that exists now. 
 The free trader has a right to believe that the 
 disparity would be far greater, and overwhelm- 
 ingly against “ Protection.” But you hear such 
 shallow and self-stultifying arguments ad nau- 
 seam . The “ Protectionist ” never takes two 
 countries that are homogeneous for his com- 
 parison ; for, when he does, the comparison 
 trips up his protective conclusion. Chauncey 
 Depew found that London was the dumping- 
 ground of Europe for those who had failed to 
 succeed on the continent. But he forgot to say 
 that they all failed in countries giving “ Protec- 
 tion,” and went to one devoted to free trade for 
 betterment. Probably they are largely the off- 
 scourings of the earth, and worthless wherever 
 they are ; but when any really find labor in 
 England, they find a higher price for it than 
 they could get in any “ Protection ” country 
 
28 THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 
 
 that they left. And this is a comparison of na- 
 tions mostly alike. 
 
 Equally fair and significant is it to say that 
 wages in modern free-trade England are higher 
 than they were when England was devoted to 
 “ Protection.” The unfair comparisons “ Pro- 
 tectionists” always employ in trying to show 
 what “ Protectionism ” does can be made to 
 prove any absurdity true. Suppose I say that 
 in a boxing-match a man will do better to have 
 one hand tied behind his back. The statement 
 would be absurd ; but I bring John L. Sullivan 
 on the platform, and pit against him a rickety 
 dwarf. As a matter of course, in spite of the 
 dwarfs two arms to Sullivan’s one, the dwarf 
 is knocked off the stage on the first encounter, 
 and my contention is proved. To compare 
 other countries with the United States is like 
 matching one physically incompetent with Sul- 
 livan. 
 
 A serious loss which “ Protection ” inflicts, is 
 the obstruction which it puts upon invention. 
 So long as it makes it possible to employ dilap- 
 idated and ramshackle machinery at a profit, 
 there is no motive or incentive to devise better, 
 or to introduce economic methods of manufac- 
 ture. The American nation, with its Yankee 
 wit and boundless resources, does not need to 
 plead the baby act, or ask odds of any nation 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT *' PROTECTION.” 2g 
 
 in the world. But, while the government in- 
 sists upon helping manufactures, and paying 
 money also to have new manufactures estab- 
 lished, the largess will undoubtedly be greedily 
 accepted, and additional props will be asked 
 for. “ Protection ” is like the camel which first 
 stuck its head in the Sheik’s tent, then its fore- 
 feet and shoulders, then half its body, and, 
 finally, went entirely in and took possession 
 by driving the owner out. In like manner has 
 this fraudulent system dealt with the temple 
 of the American government, and dispossessed 
 the people of their most sacred rights. 
 
 I may be asked why it is, if “ Protectionism ” 
 is so harmful a system, that it is maintained in 
 various countries and for long periods. Two 
 reasons sufficiently account for this: (i) Gov- 
 ernments, whether monarchical or republican, 
 have need of vast sums of money, which must 
 be raised by taxing the people. But human 
 nature is so constituted that taxes are specially 
 odious. Now, it was long ago discovered that 
 a government can raise ten dollars through in- 
 direct taxes, like imposts, without the people’s 
 knowledge or complaint, where one dollar of 
 direct taxation would excite their dislike and 
 resentment. (2) In addition to this, the ben- 
 eficiaries of “ Protection ” are invariably picked 
 and powerful allies of a government or party. 
 
30 THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 
 
 And when a government or party wants sup- 
 port, these purchased friends can be depended 
 on to help it by helping themselves. 
 
 It must be remembered, too, that the name 
 under which this system masquerades is of it- 
 self seductive. It is so pleasant to be “ pro- 
 tected,” or to think you are, to obtain some- 
 thing for nothing, which is what it promises, 
 that this alone gives it a presumptive claim. 
 
 As it depends for its consideration wholly on 
 a superficial reasoning that looks plausible — 
 and the great multitude reason, when they 
 reason at all, superficially — adherents to it are 
 easily gained and easily made fanatical. 
 
 One of the reasons why “ Protection ” is so 
 imperfectly understood at this time, and is 
 taken at its own estimate by so many is, that 
 for thirty years and over it was hardly an issue 
 in political contests. For fifteen years before 
 the civil war broke out, the country, by a gen- 
 eral consensus, had seen the tariff adapt itself 
 to a revenue basis, and had seen great pros- 
 perity as the result. High “ Protection ” had 
 received its death-blow, and would never have 
 been successfully heard of again had it not 
 been for the war. The prosecution of this re- 
 quired money, and plenty of it; and when it 
 came to raising revenue, both parties were 
 practically agreed. The only question was, not 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.” 3 1 
 
 how low or how high the tariff rates should be, 
 but how much money could be got by imposts. 
 The free trader did not object to any combina- 
 tion of specific and ad valorem duties upon any 
 article, even if the full duty equaled 300 per 
 cent., so long as the requisite revenue resulted. 
 On the other hand, the “ Protectionist ” could 
 see with complacency the duty low, if in that 
 way more money came to the public treasury. 
 It was not disputed then by anybody that 
 the tariff was a tax. It was known and felt to 
 be. But under this state of things, and the 
 continued necessity of revenues long after the 
 war had ended, a generation grew up knowing 
 nothing of the philosophy and effect of a tariff, 
 but accepting “ Protection,” for the simple rea- 
 son that to them, no matter how absurd and 
 great was the anachronism, nothing better or 
 even different was familiar. The topic had 
 been put in a poultice. But we are changing 
 all that very fast. 
 
 We have got rid of chattel slavery in this 
 country. The next duty is to get rid of our 
 commercial bondage. All predictions by 
 “ Protectionists ” of the dreadful things that 
 will happen when their Grand Lama ceases to 
 inspire worship are never realized. Our best 
 eras of prosperity were when we had the least 
 “ Protection.” England gained all her modern 
 
32 THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 
 
 commercial supremacy by throwing “ Protec- 
 tion ” off; the French thought thirty years ago 
 that the Cobden English treaty would ruin 
 their manufactures, whereas it greatly extend- 
 ed the French markets; and Germany was 
 fairly lifted up when the divisive tariff walls of 
 the various states were swept away for a com- 
 mon Zollverein. The whole history of trade 
 is, that the freer it is the better it is. It was the 
 vexatious domination of England in our colo- 
 nial trade arrangements — a complex and tor- 
 menting body of restrictions — that furnished 
 the just cause for the American Revolution. 
 
 It may sound strangely to “ Protectionists ” 
 — whose sincerity on behalf of their faith in the 
 main I do not question — to be told that their 
 wall between nations is in its nature barbaric 
 and immoral. So far as it breaks down the 
 solidarity of humanity and seeks selfish bene- 
 fits and rejoices in crippling the trade and in- 
 dustry of other nations, it antagonizes the fun- 
 damental groundwork of Christianity — the 
 brotherhood of man. Perhaps “ Protectionists ” 
 may make a better world, in their own estima- 
 tion, than the one now existing, which the 
 Creator designed. They at any rate hold up 
 the ideal of a different one. If their scheme 
 were made universal and complete, we should 
 have every nation on the earth in separate 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT “ PROTECTION.” 33 
 
 compartments. The oceans, economically 
 speaking, would serve as seas of fire: instead 
 of peace and brotherhood, and the wholesome 
 trade relations Nature intended, by giving to 
 each people differing gifts and endowments, 
 we should have jealousies, irritations and wars. 
 The forces that make for civilization would be 
 seriously handicapped, or crushed. An isola- 
 tion like that of China in the twelfth century 
 would be the condition to covet and admire. 
 
 This is the exact reverse of Emerson’s wise 
 injunction, to “ hitch your wagon to a star.” 
 It would be to put Diabolus in command. Does 
 not every sane man really know that human 
 fellowship, business comity and close friendli- 
 ness between nations are factors not only of 
 economic value, but something that money 
 solely cannot buy, favoring an enlightened 
 in place of a sordid selfishness, and helping to 
 bring about the true federation of man ? Let 
 us, then, break down and not establish hateful 
 barriers — remembering the fine spirit of Cow- 
 per’s lines: 
 
 “ Lands intersected by a narrow frith 
 Abhor each other. Mountains interposed 
 Make enemies of nations who had, else, 
 
 Like kindred drops, been mingled into one.” 
 
 Elsewhere, upon commerce, he adds: 
 
34 
 
 THE TRUTH ABOUT “PROTECTION.” 
 
 “ Again — the bond of commerce was designed 
 To associate all the branches of mankind; 
 
 And if a boundless plenty be the robe, 
 
 Trade is the golden girdle of the globe. 
 ********* 
 
 “ Each climate needs what other climes produce, 
 And offers something to the general use; 
 
 No land but listens to the common call, 
 
 And in return receives supply from all.” 
 
 The crowning absurdity of “Protectionism ” 
 is its antagonism of the natural instinct of man. 
 Instead of seeking plenty and abundance it 
 directly opposes what every man is secretly 
 striving for, and aims to produce scarcity and 
 deprivation. Instead of promoting cheap- 
 ness — which means the easiness of getting 
 things — it works on behalf of dearness, and 
 difficulty of attainment. It is very much 
 afraid of finding “a cheap man” if the man 
 finds “ a cheap coat.” It thinks that “ cheap 
 and nasty go together ” — to quote its greatest 
 American apostle. After establishing a costly 
 governmental machinery to produce these mon- 
 strous and unnatural results, it sometimes 
 turns around and tells us that things are really 
 very much cheaper than before (as thefy have 
 once said they should not be); and that our 
 imports have greatly increased under the high- 
 er duties (which is a result they generally pro- 
 
THE TRUTH ABOUT u PROTECTION.” 35 
 
 fess to be as afraid of as Satan is reputed to be 
 of holy water). 
 
 It should only be necessary to state these con- 
 flicting postulates of this singular philosophy, 
 with which we are all now familiar, to show its 
 worthlessness, and to prove that there is not 
 and never was a beneficent “ Protection,” and 
 that there has not been and never can be a 
 maleficent Free Trade. 
 
 Joel Benton. 
 
 
i