The Tariff in a Nutshell; Containing the Whole Question of Protection, Tariff Reform and Free Trade (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888. Excerpt: ... twenty-five years, and that any reduction in the tariff, even though so small as 15 per cent, will work incalculable damage to them. This proves that those protected industries are actually weaker to-day than twenty-five years ago, else they would not now need more protection than then. They therefore have received no permanent benefit from protection, but only such transient benefit as charity money usually brings, --i.e., lasting so long as the money lasts and no longer. It also proves that this claim of protection having reduced so rapidly the price of protected products is utterly false; for if the price of such articles had declined more rapidly inside than outside our protected borders, they would not now need as much protection as they did then. They enumerate clothing, blankets, and other protected articles, which they say are as cheap here as in England. If so, will they please tell us what need we have of a protective tariff on goods that are as cheap or cheaper here than anywhere else? But, notwithstanding the unjustness of a protective tariff, the immediate abolition of all tariff and the adoption of free trade is not advised. The change should be'gradual and conserva tive, for when the laws of the land legalize certain enterprises, unjust though they be, into which the capital of innocent investors has been drawn, it would be unjust to those investors to suddenly, at one blow, destroy or cause a large shrinkage in the values in which that capital is invested, without allowing it some opportunity to hedge and cover itself. Besides, there may be a few such charityneeding occupations now afloat that free trade would entirely sink without the protection of this charity money, and they too deserve some consideration. This conservative and gradual r...