Show THE BLESSING OF DEAR FOOD There is a somewhat striking evidence of the perversion of mind common to nearly all protectionists in this significant statement state-ment of our morning contemporary If food was a little dearer in England the sales of manufactured goods would be so much more that the manufacturers would be able to pay a little better prices to their working work-ing people If food a little dearer enables manufacturers manu-facturers to pay a little better prices r then food a great deal dearer would enable them to pay immensely better prices and so on indefinitely The dearer the food of the people in England the better off the English people will be is the argument I for the reasoning is good for this case if it is good forany case An article is dearer when wo have to work longer for it than before if wo must work two days for what we received be fo for one days labor then the article is twico as dear as it was formerly Now our dense neighbor asserts that if the people of England had to work twice as hard and long for the same amount of food they now get they would be just that much better off because bread raisers would have that much more money to spend on manufactures Of course the organ failed to notice that the people who buy the food would have just that much less to spend on manufactures manufac-tures so that the latter class could not by any possibility sell more goods by reason of any pain the agriculturists might make in this way The doctrine of the protection organ is that if food were as free as air that is if it grew of its own accord without requiring requir-ing any expenditure of human effort this would be an awful thing for then a large part of the pecple of the globe wouldnt have to work and could cither play ball or go afishing By a very natural error mistaking labor itself for the result of labor it imagines that we raisefood simply sim-ply for the sake of the work there is in it whereas we work simply for the food The more the food and the less the labor the better off we shall be the Tribune to the contrary notwithstanding |