Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/603

Rh nearly carried out; for the mode of procedure is just that which best fits the solution of scientific problems. The same mental habits are required in both directions; and, other things being equal, the man best trained in such habits will succeed best in handling either class of questions. Secondly, a tariff most directly affects manufactures; for the articles which it considers are either manufactured or used in manufacturing. Nearly every important manufacture of the present day involves applications of science, which ramify from industry to industry in the most complex way. If, therefore, we wish to study intelligently the relations of manufactures to each other, we must bear in mind the principles of the sciences so applied. Or, to speak more moderately and to the point, a knowledge of science is of direct use in attacking the tariff question. Two illustrations may serve to emphasize this argument:

Sulphuric acid is used in vast quantities in various manufacturing industries, and in this country it is mostly made from Sicilian sulphur. Some years ago a committee of Congress, adjusting a tariff, proposed to tax the sulphur, but to admit the acid duty free; the two things being considered separately, and without thought of their industrial relations to each other. Fortunately, the mistake was pointed out and corrected in the committee-room; but, if the error had become law, the production of sulphuric acid in the United States would have been stopped, and every industry using the acid would have been affected. For instance, the manufacturer of fertilizers would be directly concerned in the consequences of such legislation, and through him it would touch the farmers.

My second illustration is of a different kind. When a tariff is to be framed or modified, the old strife between free-trade and protection is renewed. The advocates of the latter policy urge that in the long run protection, by favoring competition, lowers prices and benefits the consumer; and, for evidence, they cite the present cheapness of iron and steel. A man of scientific education, working upon a tariff scheme, would hear this argument, and ask two questions concerning the case in point: First, is the alleged cheapening of iron real, or only apparent and due to a redistribution of ratios? Secondly, if it is real, how much of it has been caused by tariff legislation, and how much by the improvements which science has made in the production of iron? Upon the answers to these questions his final action will depend; for no intelligent estimate of the relations between the tariff and the iron industry could be framed independently of such answers. The fact that science is all the time modifying industrial processes complicates the issue between different tariff systems to an extent which only a man of scientific knowledge can fairly appreciate.

In 1794, during the Reign of Terror, Lavoisier, the greatest chemist of his time and an able statesman as well, was sentenced to the guillotine. Futile attempts were made to secure him a reprieve, in order