OBJECT-LESSONS IN PROTECTION. [To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR."
j
SIR,—I send you some more object-lessons in Protection from an article in the Winnipeg Free Press. Comment is
"Some years ago a New York jeweller bought his supply of American-made watches through a London agency. The watches were shipped across the Atlantic and back again in the original boxes to New York, where they passed the customs without paying duty. Owing to the slaughter prices at which these watches were sold in London he was able after paying freight both ways across the Atlantic to lay the watches down in his store for less than he could buy them at home. The facts, as set forth at that time and commented upon in Congress, were very displeasing to the tariff standpatters. Leading hardware dealers in the Eastern States have now duplicated this achievement. They ordered their nails from United States factories through a Liverpool agency. The nails were shipped to Liverpool and brought back under the clause in the American tariff permitting the free return of American products in original packages. The freight charge for two ship- ments across the Atlantic was less than the overcharge the tariff allowed the nail manufacturers to levy at home. Again the publication of the facts is disconcerting to the tariff barons who
are massing their forces at Washington in defence of the sacred schedules of the Dingley tariff. Facts like these are more con- vincing than the most elaborate arguments. They show how the high tariff permits the spoliation of the home consumer. That is what the high tariff is for, every time."
[The phenomena of Protection are always the same. When we enjoyed a system of Colonial Preference—i.e., up to 1845— Baltic timber was taken to Canada and reshipped as Colonial timber. In the same way, Brazilian coffee came to London and was thence transhipped to the Cape, to be returned as Colonial coffee, and this though no coffee was grown at
the Cape.—En. Spectator.]
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