every new undertaking and in every person's daily life the cost of building, food, clothing, etc., etc., is increased unnecessarily in price through this "protective" tariff.

SUMNER ON THE SOPHISMS OF PROTECTION

What neater way can there be to show the sophisms of the doctrines of protection than that presented by Professor Sumner on page 47 of his spicy little book called Protectionism?

If a protectionist shows me a woolen mill and challenges me to deny that it is a great and valuable industry, I ask him whether it is due to the tariff. If he says no, then I will assume that it is an independent and profitable establishment; but then it is out of this discussion, as much as a farm or a doctor's practice. If he says yes, then I answer that the mill is not an industry at all. We pay sixty per cent tax on cloth simply in order that that mill may be. It is not an institution for getting us cloth, for if we went into the market with the same products which we take there now, and if there were no woolen mill, we should get all the cloth we want; but the mill is simply an institution for making cloth cost per yard sixty per cent more of our products than it otherwise would. That is the one and only function which the mill has added, by its existence, to the situation. I have called such a factory "a nuisance." The word has been objected to. The word is of no consequence. He who, when he gets into a debate, begins to whine and cry as soon as the blows get sharp should learn to keep out. What I meant was this: A nuisance is something which, by its existence and

presence in society, works loss and damage to the society works against the general interest, not for it. A factory which gets in the way and hinders us from obtaining the comforts which we are all trying to get, which makes harder the terms of acquisition when we are all the time struggling by our arts and sciences to make those terms easier, is a harmful thing, and noxious to the common interest. Hence, once more, starting from the protectionists' hypothesis and assuming his own doctrine, we find that he cannot create an industry. He only fixes one industry, as a parasite, upon another, and just as certainly as he has intervened in the matter at all, just so certainly has he forced labor and capital into less favorable employment than they would have sought if he had let them alone.

IN

CHAPTER XI

PROTECTION (CONTINUED)

PROFESSOR SUMNER'S ILLUSTRATION OF

"PROTECTION"

N his Protectionism Sumner gives an excellent illustration of the fallacy of what is miscalled "protection."

A farmer goes to Washington to tell a statesman he has found iron ore on his farm. The statesman replies: "That's good news. Our country is richer by another new and natural resource." The farmer agrees with him and tells him he wants to begin getting out his ore and making iron. The statesman tells him to go ahead and he hopes he will prosper. But the farmer doubts if it will pay, and thinks he can make more money if he keeps on farming. He still wants to mine his ore, however. It doesn't seem right to leave it in the ground and to keep on importing iron. So he suggests to the statesman that a duty be placed on imported iron, to enable him to get more for his American iron. Then he could see his way clear to give up farming and go to mining his ore and making iron. The statesman does not see it yet. He suggests that this would

be authorizing the iron-maker to tax his neighbors and to throw on them the risk he is afraid to take himself. The farmer sees he has not talked the right dialect, so he begins all over again, and says: "Mr. Statesman, the natural resources of this country must be developed. American industry must be protected. The American laborer must not be forced to compete with the pauper labor of Europe." The statesman answers: "Now I understand you. Now you talk business. Why did you not say so before? How much tax do you want?" Of course he gets the duty he modestly (?) asks for, and the price of iron goes up, although the supply has increased, and the protected iron-maker does not raise the wages he pays. Just as he did before he secured protection, he acts as any prudent man entering into business would act, and he pays as little as he can for wages; i. e., he pays the market rate as determined by the demand and the supply, and this is not determined by protection. The next time another farmer wants to buy any iron he finds that it takes thirty bushels of his wheat, instead of twenty, to buy a ton of iron. So he asks what has happened to make iron so dear. "O, have n't you heard? A new mine has been found in Pennsylvania. We have got 'a new natural resource,'" is the reply. "I haven't got a new natural resource," he replies. "It's as bad for me as if the grasshoppers had eaten up one-third of my crop."

And Sumner concludes:

The mine owners say they want to exploit their

mines. They do not. They want to make their mines an excuse to exploit the taxpayers.

This is "protection!" The extra wheat, or its value in money, is forced, by law, out of the possession of the farmer into the possession of the artificially created iron miner, who wants to make more than he can at farming. The government gets little or nothing, for the protective import tax is placed so high that the home ironmaker can supply the market at a little lower price than the price of the imported article with the duty added, which stops or nearly stops the importation. Yet every user of the article, iron or whatever it may be, that is "protected" pays nearly as much as if he used the foreign article and helped the United States revenue by paying the import duty. This sum, many times as much as the duty actually paid, perhaps twenty times as much, goes into the pockets of the protected manufacturers of the country. The new natural resource is not protected—that is, conserved; on the contrary, its exhaustion is stimulated (in the case of nickel it is said to be already about exhausted). The laborer is not protected, for he gets no higher wages than he did before the duty was imposed or was increased, the manufacturers naturally obtaining labor wherever they can find it at the lowest rates, as was shown by the facts brought out after the Lawrence strike of 1912. The only parties left to be protected are the