Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1886 — The Senate and Subsidies. [ARTICLE]

The Senate and Subsidies.

The Senate, with its Republican majority, still continues by long odds to lead the House in the present Congressional treasury raids. By a vote of 23 to 12 it has saddled on the postoffice appropriation bill the SBOO,OOO steamship-subsidy clause which was overwhelmingly defeated in the House. The best speech on the treasury-plunder side of this measure was made by Senator Hale, of Maine. His contention is that originally created by Mr. Blaine, of the same State, which is that the American had become an overproducing people, and if they had a fair field and a fair opportunity they could obtain the trade of Central and South America, and could furnish products as cheaply as Great Britain, France, and Germany. Curiously, however, Senator Hale fails to see that if we could furnish products as oiieaply as these European countries the fact w ould prove to a dead certainty that we needed no tariff ns against their products. If, on the other hand, Senator Hale w’ants subsidies to build and run ocean steamships, liis object, if attained, would secure cheaper transport for both imports and exports, which would, of course, act directly against the protective principle cf the tariff. The real fact in the case, however, is that the protective tariff, not the absence of subsidies, impedes any trade of ours with Central and South America. To engage in that trade on equal terms with Great Britain, France, and Germanv, we must sell as cheaply as they do. If we do not, no subsidy would benefit us, for what we might gain by subsidies to South American steamships we would lose by subsidies to European steamshij s. Senator Hale says that Great Britain expends large sums of money in steamship subsidies. But, aver; this true, which it is not, the fact that Great Britain in thus doing is working in the line of her freetrade policy, while we in so doing would be working in opposition to our protective policy, would entirely vitiate the Senator’s parallel.— Chico go News.