Q. Can our manufacturers sell goods abroad?
A. They do very largely over other tariff walls, and bear the expense of transportation and insurance and secure handsome profits. But the question is too delicate a one to enlarge upon.
Q. Does Mexico have a protective tariff?
A. She does. The plea for it there is that it is a defense against our high-priced labor. The Mexican peons work for very low prices and at a more than correspondingly high cost. It is one of the beauties of Protection that, whether labor costs little or much, you can plead for it for either reason.
Q. Does Protection help Agriculture?
A. It puts a tariff on hay, grain, potatoes, eggs, etc. Very little of any of these commodities are imported by us. When they are imported to any extent the farmers are the chief buyers, as they are of peas, beans and other seeds for planting. By paying the duty on all these things themselves they not only feel certain there is a duty, but they have the satisfaction of knowing they are not forgotten in the great “protective” scheme.
Q. Why is Protection called the American System?
A. This was the question Daniel Webster asked Henry Clay, who so named it, when they were not in accord upon the tariff. Webster was puzzled by the name, for he knew the system was European and medieval; but “American” sounds well and makes us consistent in berating foreign things and ideas.
Q. How does Protection help commerce?
A. Commerce is so foreign we don’t need to help it. So we let it go to the miserable foreigners—what we permit to exist. It is really better to pay the two hundred million dollars we pay them yearly to carry our goods than to let that amount of money pervert our high and noble doctrine.