A Moral Question

Thornton A. Mills, Ph.D., thus discusses the tariff in a recent issue of the New York Independent. Hesays: The soldier can easily overthrow the man of straw he has himself made. It is the game kind of work to prove a theory from postulates of our own stating. If black is white, the snow is black as a matter of necessity. But the difflculty with such reasoning is to show that black is white. The oonclusions are all right if the first Btatetnents are all right. This is just wher3 the free trader falls into error. He starts from au incorrect basis. At the bottom of his theory lie the ideas that every man has a right to buy where he can buy the cheapest, and that to prevent the poor foreign methanic from offering you the product of his labor is to do him an injury in the hope of benefiting our own artisans. These ideas are only particular applications of the principies of human rights and of human brotherhood. The principies are correct; the aDDlications of them are incorrect. No man has a right to injure his neighbor. If it can be shown that not to protect our manuíacturing industries from foreign competition is to injure our fellow men, then tho right to buy where we choose becomes subservient to the welfare of all, and ceases to be a right. A man has no more right to trade in a way that will injure others than he has a right to build a frame house in the crowded city or to put a slaughter-house next to the school-house. His right to do these things is limited by the welfare of all. The question is not one of absolute right, 'but only as to what will bring the most good to the most peopls. All laws restrict the right of the few for the good oí the many. At this point the free trader passes over to the other principie and declares that we have no right to limit our theories to National boundaries, and that even if protection were for the good of our Nation, it is only at the expense of the rest of the world. This is asserticn. The question is as to the fact. If the free trader is right, if a protective tariff in the United States is to make us rich while it makes other nations poor, our right to prosper upon the poverty of other lands would be questionable. But he is not right Here is where we take issue with the whole theory of free trade, or of tariff for revenue only, for in this country the terms are used interchaneeably. You, as an individual, might be able to uuy your cioimng cticaper under free trade, but the gain to you would be at the cost of a much greater loss to thousands of others, and in the end you would yourself suffer by the decrease of your income under a freetrado polioy. A protective policy in this country is at once greatly to the interest of the laboringman here aud abroad. This is not yet argument. It is only assertion. But it is as worthy of acceptance as the statements on the othor side. The very statement of the case entirely alters the face of it. The question is as to which statement is correct. I do not remember to have seen a single argument by the free trader to establish the statements upon which his thcory rests. When he begins to search for reasons he finds only assertions, and, unfortunately, the assertions ire contrary t the facts If he starts with lis assertions he reasons out a freo trade ;heory without difflculty from whieh there s no escape; but if he seeks for reasons to support his assertions ho is lost. The ques.ion, then is simply this: Is the sale of 'oreign-made goods in this country in cometition with goods made here an advantage to the world as a whole? The free trader says it is, because it is an advantage to the juyer to get his goods cheaper and because t is an advantage to the seller in the other country to have a larger mnrket for his roods. The protecUonist saya that itis a detriment instead of an advantage to the world as a whole in that it does not help labor in the foreign country, as the addcd protperity, if an.v, goes to tho manufacturar, and that it reduces at once the laborer hereto the level of the laborer abroad. Novv, in deciding which of these claims is correct we must bear in mind Ihat the laborer abroad is paid less wagos than here for the samework; that be can buy abroad very mucn less goods for bis wages than here, and that he lives in a vastly inferior way abroad The testimony of travelers and immigrants uponthi point is almost unanimous. As the foreign laborer works for more hours and loss wagei eaeh day than the laborer here, the product of his labor can be sold for less monoy than that of the laborer here who works fewer hours for more money. lf that product is admitted to our country freo of dutv, or nearly so, the laborer here will have to work for as small wages as the laborer abroad and live In the way the laborer lives there. This is disaster to our laborer and no holp to tho foreign one. The only way in which the foreign laborer could be beneiited at all would be for the work men hero to refuse the lower wages and so compel the manufacturar to close his faetones and thus cause a greater demand for the Koods made abroad. If the industries abroad should thus be greatly stimulated, it might raise the pnce of wases slightly until such time as the laborera in this country should see that their only chance to escape starvation wou ld be to return to work at the lower wages. At that time, and it could notbe long there would be a corresponding depression abroad and wages would return to as low a rate as before. Actually, they would soon sink to a lower rate, for, with the reductiou of wages in America, the murket would lose a very large number of buyers in the workmen, who would not then have money enough to buy comforts and luxuries. The introduction of the free-trade theory into our Government, then, would not elévate a single foreign laborer out of his misery and poverty, but would reduce to the same misery and poverty every laborer bere, and would evcntually reduce them botn to a still lower Btago of existence. On the contrary, a prote;tive tarift helps the laborer in the protected industry by giving him good wages, and it helps the laborer in every other industry in the same proportion by maintaining.a high Standard of wages, which ineans agood markot for all kinds of products. And instead of leavingthe foreitm laborer in Dis pitiful ocmdition it helpg him in two ways. It provides for biin a borne to which he may emiKrate and in which he wil] and liberal rcward for faithful work, and as far as emigration take place the labor market of the forelgn country is relieved and the rate of wages must riso as laborers become fewer. A philanthropist must begin byhelping those who are noar at hand und within his reaeh. If hc spread his means over all the misery m the world he would accomplish Dothlng althoDgh he spnnt millions in the effort. But u rar rb he relieves indiriduals behelps aU by transforming pauper into lelf-supporting citizens who In turn may keip othrrs. The proteetitnist by helping the peopleof kis own country helpt all the world. The immer shai-es the marvelous fertiUty ef his soil with the man who makes his clothinff. And the man who makes the clothing shares with the farmer the good wages made possible by protection. Thus alltheallied industries of our country mutually help and support ono anothcr, while, at tho same time, they offer work at a liberal revvard to all the world who will como and take it, and by lessening the number of laborers abroad, as they emigrate to us, make more work for thosc that are left For love to our fcllow-men now living in miserable poverty abroad and for love to our fellow-citizen living in plenty at home, for the maintenanco and enjoyment of our individual rights and prospcrity to the utmost and for tho help of our brothers - everyvvhere we must maintain our policy of protection for our industries.