trade between the inhabitants of two or more countries that is profitable to them all. John Bright said:

Protection has upon it a taint of the great wrong of slavery. It does not steal the laborer, but it steals his labor, it taxes it cruelly, it lessens its results and its profit, and turns it into channels less useful to the laborer.

Free trade (that is, a tariff for revenue only) has no such results, does none of these things, yet brings in the necessary revenue to the government without interfering with commerce.

PROTECTION IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH A TARIFF FOR

REVENUE

Protectionism advocates the imposition of taxes on imports for other purposes than the production of revenue, on the ground that incidental advantages will result. Yet it claims that the protective tariff yields a revenue, forgetting that the protection sought is secured only to the extent to which foreign commodities are kept out by high duties, while revenue to the Government is secured only to the extent to which low duties encourage the letting them in.

A DIMINUTION OF TARIFF RATES WILL INCREASE THE REVENUE THEREFROM

If by a reduction of tariff rates it be reckoned that receipts will be diminished $75,000,000 or more, it must be remembered that lowered rates will cause an increase in imports and consequent increase in tariff duties receipts that will in part, and may entirely, prevent this diminution in receipts.

We see, therefore, that a protective tariff is not adopted for the purpose of yielding a revenue to the Government. It is adopted and maintained for the benefit of the pauper manufacturers of this country, who cannot carry on business without this power to tax all the consumers of their products in this country to keep their unprofitable businesses alive.

PROTECTION IS A SYSTEM OF UNENLIGHTENED SELFISHNESS

It is an attempt so to arrange business that all the profit may be made by Americans and all the loss may be met by the foreigners with whom we deal. This results from ignorance or neglect of the fact that in commerce both profit by the exchange or it would not be made, for it is voluntary, not compulsory. If interfered with by an artificial law (protection), commerce will be impeded. In the minds

of many protectionists, what is really meant by protection is protection of my industry, not of yours, unless I must consent to protect yours in order to gain your consent to protect mine. The very object of protection is to confer a special privilege on somebody or somebodies. Protection and special privilege mean the same thing. Both are undemocratic and un-American.

PROTECTION CONSULTS THE INTERESTS OF THE FEW

It is but natural that those who are enjoying a special privilege (protection) should maintain vigorously and believe sincerely that the system that enables them to prosper is the best system possible. Therefore they support the system that consults the interests of the few, comparatively, at the expense of the many, that is, the whole body of the consumers in the United States.

CHAPTER IX

PROTECTION (CONTINUED)

PROTECTION, A SPECIAL PRIVILEGE TO A FEW, CANNOT BENEFIT THE MANY

IT

T IS a fundamental error of protectionists to suppose that all the inhabitants of a country can be benefited by granting to a few of them the special tribute of exacting a tribute from all. This is equivalent to holding that, although no one can lift himself by his boot straps, yet, if we grant the privilege to a few of exacting help from others in the attempt, it can be done if all pull together.

Protectionists forget that all the inhabitants of a country are supported by all the inhabitants of the country. They think that, by a cunning device they call protection, they can cast part of this burden of supporting all the inhabitants of a country upon the inhabitants of another country. It cannot be done. Even if it could, and all countries adopted it, we should only be in the condition of the row of monkeys in cages in a menagerie, each one of whom neglects his own food to reach around into the next cage to get his neighbor's food. When the cages are in a circle, as nations are, no one gains by this

manœuvre.

PROTECTIVE DUTIES BENEFIT THE FEW AT THE

EXPENSE OF THE MANY

Protective duties are the tributes or tolls the Government forces all consumers to pay by law into the treasuries of the protected manufacturers. "prize money," the division of part of which is It is quarreled over through strikes. But the real question that concerns the great body of consumers, the American people, that pay these tributes or tolls, is, how does it benefit all Americans to tax all Americans for the benefit of a part of all Americans who are, comparatively speaking, only a few? Of course it benefits all the Americans who are thus enabled to put some of the money of all Americans into their own pockets, but how does that benefit Americans generally? Of course it benefits bank robbers to rob banks and put the money into their own pockets, and it would greatly facilitate this operation if a law protected them in so doing, but how would that benefit all banks as a class? Of course, as before stated, it benefits pickpockets to pick pockets, especially if a law protects them in doing so, but how does that benefit all those whose pockets are picked?

PROTECTION IMPOSES A BURDEN ON EVERY

CONSUMER

Protective taxes prevent every man's income from going as far as it would were there no such tax. He