In the full and legitimate consideration of this subject the range
should extend beyond the things immediately attaching to the capitalist
and the laborer as persons, and merge into the question of Philosophic
Equality, out of which consideration arises the true relations of the
extremes of it represented by these two classes. Under a true republican
form of government the inherent right to equality on the part of all its
citizens should not only be recognized but guaranteed. Equality, except
as a mythical name, does not exist in practice in this country; nor for
that matter in any country, except where each individual is his own
governor, to the extent of his power to maintain such authority; and
each individual being possessed of this right to maintain it, comprises
that equality. Philosophic Equality presupposes the right of each
individual to exercise all the powers possessed by him, in which
exercise the rights of no other individual would be interfered with, but
which exercise should not be aided or protected by any device of law.
The moment a law is made to assist an individual, or any number of
individuals, in the performance of his or their undertaking, that moment
equality on the part of all other citizens ceases. Not only is this true
specifically, but it is a great deal more; it is true generally that if
an individual or a class of individuals receive aid, comfort and
protection from the law, in their pursuits, all other individuals of all
pursuits are rendered unequal in their competition with them in all of
their respective pursuits.
That is to say, if a person is protected in the manufacture of salt by
the law, which imposes a heavy tax on all foreign salt imported into the
country, the manufacturer or producer of grain is at once placed by the
law in a condition of inequality with him, and in a double sense if he
be a consumer of salt; for not only is the price of the home
manufactured salt increased by the imposition of the tax, while the
price of the home grown grain is not proportionately increased, but the
producer of the grain is obliged to pay the increased price for the salt
which he consumes. The same rule is applicable to all things wherein
individuals are obliged to seek protection from foreign importations, to
be able to produce the same at home.
The argument in favor of this course is, that while protection, extended
to certain interests, increases the prices of their productions to the
consumers of them, the consumers by it are also enabled to obtain higher
prices for what they have to place upon the market. This is all very
well so far as it has any application, but what is the effect upon the
very large proportion of the working people of the country who are not
producers of anything in their own right, but are simply laborers for
such producers? If there is only an equality maintained to the employers
of such labor, how can the benefit extend to the employed?
In making this complex argument, it is forgotten that real wealth and
real prosperity do not consist in high prices for everything, but in the
quantity which is actually possessed. Prices under protection must ever
fluctuate, and a person rich this year may be rendered poor next year,
by the depreciation of his property. Witness the fall of real estate in
this city for an exemplification of what we mean. High prices are not
the ultimatum to be gained by any people of any country; but, on the
contrary, the true point to attain is the employment of the industry of
a country in those directions, wherein _the most can be produced at the
least cost_, in the accumulation of the proceeds of which the country,
as a whole, must become wealthy more rapidly than in the pursuit of the
other extreme, which is the production of the least at the greatest
cost; or in any modification of this proposition.
The result of continuous protection to any interest of the country may
be exemplified by the application of it to something which comes
directly home to us. Suppose that there are some gardeners on the upper
part of Manhattan Island who appeal to the city authorities for
protection against the gardeners of Long Island, New Jersey, &c.,
because their soil being not so fruitful as that of Long Island and New
Jersey, they cannot afford to sell their vegetables as low as those can
be sold which are produced outside. Thereupon a tax of twenty-five per
cent. is levied by the city upon all foreign vegetables sold in the
market. The result is, that all purchasers of vegetables in the city are
forced to pay the additional cost merely to enable a few insignificant
persons to pursue a calling which they would otherwise abandon for some
other which they could pursue without protection. This, though a common
illustration, exemplifies the operation of special protection in all its
phases. It enables the few to pursue callings at the expense of the many
without returning to that many any adequate benefit.
The trouble with our manufacturers is, that they want to get rich too
fast. They are not willing to begin a new business in a way
proportionate to their small means, and from this grow gradually into
large producers as the manufacturers of other countries have done. They
want to be able to employ labor and pay much larger prices than are paid
to those laborers who toil in unprotected industries. Nor is the laborer
any better off in the general result. The laboring classes of the
country are not so well off under the present system of high prices as
they were before the war, which indicates that the advance in wages has
been more than counterbalanced by the increase in the prices of the
laborers’ necessities. As a general proposition, it is true that low
prices are more favorable to the laborer than high prices; and that,
under a system of protection to special favored interests, those
interests become rich at the expense of the laborer; or, in more general
terms, the rich become richer and the poor poorer with each succeeding
year.
Such is the general argument against protective duties; but it does not
by any means follow that all protection should be immediately abandoned
and Free Trade become at once and fully inaugurated. This would be as
grossly unjust to all these interests which have been encouraged into
existence by the present system, as that of protection was to the common
industries. What should be done is this: Unrestricted commerce, which
would allow of the natural demands of a country being supplied, without
restrictions of any kind, should be laid down as the true principle, and
a gradual approach from present protective measures to freedom be
inaugurated. No immediate jump—nor even rapid advance that would produce
misfortune to any branch of industry, should it be attempted—but an
approach, running through a sufficient number of years to allow of the
adjustment of industries, should be the course. Under such a system all
the various industries of the country would gradually equalize, and the
laborers and employers in each would approach an equal footing. The
farmers of the rich Western prairies would no longer be able to complain
of the discrimination of government in favor of the cotton, woolen and
iron manufacturers of the sterile East. Whether this policy is
immediately adopted by government or not, it certainly will be, when the
rapidly increasing West shall become the dominant power in it. Better
that steps looking to it should be at once adopted than that it come
after awhile upon an unprepared country, which course has been so often
erroneously pursued to the destruction, demoralization and
discouragement of those classes of industries which require
consideration in their youth from the strong arm of the government; to
accord which is not only for the interests of the country, but which is
also its duty to its acknowledged citizens; the error heretofore having
been that the consideration thus extended has been at the expense of a
_part of the citizens_ of the country and not at the expense of the
country as a whole.
Equality to all the citizens of the country can only be possible where
there is no special discrimination on the part of government toward any,
whether that discrimination is in the form of specific protective
duties, unequal levies of taxes, or through devices of law; or, in other
words, equality is an impossibility so long as special legislation is
allowed either in our State or National councils.