Our Protective System

The following atticle was wrltten by Mrs. Hazlett, to the Grand Kapids World, and is the cluarest, keencst, mostcompreliensive statement of facls we have yet seen : You asfc me why I believe in a protective tariff and courteously offer me your culiiirins through which to nnswer the question. Well, Mr. Editor. I do believe in a tariff - a protective tariff - and I had almost said with Horace Greely, "the hiffber the better." I believe in it because I believe in America, because the Fathers of the Kepublic believed in it, fouglit for it, established it, and pronounccd it good. I helieve in it because the history of the Nation shows prosperlty under t and disaster and distress witliout it. I believe in it because it sustained the Nation whlle struggling with rebelhon and is paying the great war debt. I believe in it aecause it makes the foreign trader who comes for our yellow gold, pay Into Jncle Sam's money box the entire f200, 000,000 requlred aunually to kep the governmentiil machinery all running smoothly and satisfactorily, because without the tariff there would be no way of ruisini; lliis vast sum except by atax upon roperty, reitl and personal, which tax would f 'all most heavlly ou the poor - experience having shown that the rich u m is prone to tilde bil money and liis securities to avoid taxation - while the oor man's all, his little home, is ahvnys n sight of the assessor. I believe in the ;ariff because it stimulates our manufacurllng interest?, builds factories and nills, and turough tliem employs and )ays hundreds of thousands of men at ïijjher wages than they would recelve without it. I believe in the tariff beeause it keeps jack a horde of European commercial lrummcrs who would otherwise scour the country for orders for foreign goods and vares sold cheaper because made more theaply than oms by half paid labor, imd o draining this country of cash; discouriging manufacturera, closing milis and casting the workmen out idle and needy. believe in it because the tariff, if it be a urden on auy class, falls upon the i icti vho boy foreign goóds, and notuiion the oor who donot buy them. I believe in i: lecause it foters home industries, cauniiL tliem togrow and multiply and choke monopolies to death, ml thaa by cometing with each other bring down prices o a fair percentage on the cost of production. I believe in tariff bec.iuse Old ¦jiiglaud ilon't ! Great Brittain is, and las always been, a commercial leech upon lie world. She lias scarcely standing room at home for her millions, much less erritory on which to raise their bread. Tliüt must be wormed out of the rest of Wv wiU nfaiifihnffi and the national stutly of Englalid lias Deen, nnxi i=, iow to do it. Earlier in her hiscory she protecteü üer owii inciusnes ry me nignC8l tarlffsever known; but when her rich mines had beenopened, when her macbinery was perfect, her people down to the 'serve England or starve1' point, tlien Mr. Iluskisson - a member of the Britisli Ministry - was applauded for saylng: 'Now my Lords and Gentlemen, we are ready for free trade, and capital must be nade to pay by keeping labor down. England to-day is cited as an example f the beneticeut workings of free trade, while its "Lords and Gentlemen," its monied king3 and land owners, form to„'dlier witli ita Hoyal Family as a Usure licail, a vast corporation, and the rank and file of the people are simply servants :o be workcd upsoul and body into cloth, railroad iron, jiottery and Slieflleld cutery. Ask poor down-trodden Ireland how England cares for her working classes! And we are asked to teur down the wall if protectlon tlut alone saves this country f rom being flooded withgoodsand wares made, in many instances, at 25 cents a day against America's $2.00; to compel our manufacturera to sell as cheaply as English traders or not at all, and make as cheaply as England or be bankrupted ; while to make as cheaply down must come labor to the English pnces. And our working classes who tind Ufe a burden al ready, are being told to rote for this thing, to "jump trom the frying-pan into the fire'' over and over again, they ure told about that Canadian coat tliey could bny so cheaply if it were not for tlie duty. The story is not true as the coat can be bought as cheaply In Deiroit as in Winsor, tarift'counted In. But f it were true, the difiérenos In wages under t tal ff system will in a few monthsbuya dozen Canada coats, or American either. If any working-mau don't believe it, let hiui help to bring about the experiment at.d see if within a year he does not say "Woe is me, that I should haye brotight upon myselt and family this great oalamIty." We bad free trade within the inemory of soine of us. Does not tlie Michigan farmer remember how he sold li is wheat, raised amoug the stumps, reaped with a eradle, threshed with a ftail, and carried üfty miles or more to market, for 50 cents a bushei, and brought home to his wife a calicó dresá at 25 cents per yard, and black, dirty muscuvado eugar at 18 cents or more a pound? Does not the farmer remember when he paid $2.00 a barrel for salt and sold hiscorn and pork at half the present pnces? Is the tariiï Uien the enemy of the farmer? Iron, does that still need protection? to Englaud and get the answer; visit but one of ihe great iron centres there, where Newcastle coal is floated on tlie Ulythe, the Tyue and the Weare almost without expense to the very doors of the iron works, and which one región alone produces more iron in a given year - four times as mach in fuct as all the Lake Superior mines of Michigan together, aud where the English iron masters boast that they could crush out tho iron and steel interests of all the rest of the world. if they could only reach lts markets without encountering a tarift'. The iron men of America carry coal a thousand miles to ïnt-lt the ore of Lake Superior. Tliey carry Oonnelsville coke 050 miles to the blast furnaces of Chicago and 750 to those of St. Louis - they pay twlce as mueh a day for labor - they pay rnilroads for transportation, and through them a multitude of workingmen, they scatter their money over the entire land and support thousand of families, and yetthe heads of those very families are being told to destroy the iron interest through a free trade system. Michigan is told, not only to cripple her irou interests, but her lumber interests, her salt interests, and why? The answer given is, "soine men are gettlng rich too rapldly." Hundreds of thousands of dollars were sunk in salt wells before Ihey began to pay an interest on the investment. Are we willing tlie manu facturera of salt shall flnally reap a fair reward for tlieirlnvested capital and their risk of loslug all? Especlally as tbey glve U8 alt 80 cheaply it never enters into an estímate of fainily expenses. Suppose we cripple tliis great business, would Michigan be the riclier for it? Would the laborer eet more pay ? Suppose we eripple the lumber interest, would we likt; the lumber lords- as they are called - to retalíate, by transfering their capital to anotlier State, silence the milis, ruin the lumber towns and seud into lower Michigan the thousands of men at work in the lumber camps? Suppose y ou say to the iron men of our Upper Península, "You shall not reallze present prlces, we are sjoing to turn In upon your market all the iron England chooses to send." You cannot compel men to liold their capital in any given place, capital will go where it pays best, and when the ironribbed sides of tliose Upper Peninsula hills are green wlth stuuted cedars and tcrub oaka. Then you men of Michigan will beg of iron men to come and open upyour hidden wcaltu, and they wlll reply, "We did that for you once and you deserted us, and now f we come again andeink our fortunes in your bleak hills, how do we know but what ust as we begin to reap a fair return up011 our invested capital you will take away your tariff and leave us bankrupt." Why not dig our own iron from our own Ui lis pay our own men for dolng it, and pay them well, so that they will have enou}h with which to go to our ïnercliants for goods and family supplies, and :be merchauts will go to our own manufacturera for their animal stock. The manufacturéis will in turn pay the money to producers of raw material, and then producers will buy machinery and susain our schools and coUfjfes by fitting their sons and daughters for good and noble citizens; and so round and round will go the sblning sllver and the yellow gold, and it Is all kept in the country. Let 3!d England chafe and fret, and organze Cobden Club?, and send prteM to our colleges for the best orations iu favor of 'ree trade. It is English, that is all. Away back, belore the revolution, she iriod to make out ot America a back lot, on which to raise, and grain, and potatoes br lier own use. Thesclienie feil through jecause our Fathers dld'nt like it. There were EngJish warsliips, guns and soldie is; ;here was war, and carnage, and sufferiiíís and out of it all carne the Stars and Stripes. During all this time "that tried nen's souls" the God of the Universe was sinilhig down on this vast Continent, whire In Ilis own good time He was to levelop an ideal Hatlon, on waving "ore8ts and untlulating plains, which were (o be transformed into broad cultivated field?, on rivers like avenues of silver, and noble lakes where boats should )ly and cominerce float on thousands of niles of sea-boanl "P'Vlruf in and out ino natural harboi 9' "iijing, manuiictories along all its strèahjS, "cattle upon a thousund hills," railroads, telegraph wires. the telophone, the electric ligbt, with millions of happy peopla nlad iu their own silk and wool and fine linen, leacelully cultivating their owu grains and fruits, and flowers, and best of all, with the tixed reíolve to preserve, inviolate, to developstill further and transmit to the still happier millions of the future ! Mr. Editor, you will frown, I think, at this long letter, but you asked my reasons for a belief in the protective tarïfl', and you must know that when a woman has any reasons beyond the traditional "because" 9he is likely to have a lot of them, and I have not told you half.