Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 June 1888 — FREE RAW MATERIALS. [ARTICLE]

FREE RAW MATERIALS.

Congressman Warner, who represents the Kansas City district, is a republican and a red-hot protectionist. The other day, however, when the Mills bill was under co sideiation in the house, he moved an amendment, adding burlap to the fre * list. Burlap is a cloth woven from juie or hemp,' and is largely used in the manufacture of bags. Why Maj Warner wants the duty removed from it is explained by a stockholder in the Kansas City bag company: “The manufacture of bags is one of the greatest industries of the state. Missouri makes more bags and sacks than any other state m the union. She makes the bags for the agriculturalists of the great southwest. The uses to which the burlap bags are put to in this western country are too numerous to mention. They take the places of barrels and boxes for the transportation of vegetables, c< rn wheat and coal. The reduction of the tariff or the putting of the burlap on the free list will make the bags cheaper, and the demand would be greater. The burlap industry is a great •ne|locally.”

All that this gentleman says is no doubt true. Free burlap means cheaper bags for the farmer, and a better market for the bag manufacturers, The government does not need thefrevenue derived from the tax on burlap, and whether it benefits anybody or not, it certainly injures an important industry and imposes a needless burden upon the agricultural interests of the country. What is true of burlap is true of all other ra v materials. Let them come in free and an immense and healthful impetus would be given to the manufacturing interests of the country, while the cost of living would be materially re dttced to the people. The only legitimate protection which the government can afford to iron manufacturers is to give them their raw materials duty free. This will enable them to compete on even terms with their competitors in other countries. It will make a large demand for their products, both. at home and abroad, and a correspondingly larger demand for labor. Coal, lumber, salt, iron and copper ought to be free. It is nothing less than a crime that these raw products should be heavily taxed for the I enefit of a handful of monopolists who control the American source of supply. Free raw materials will do for the manufacturing interests of the country what free burlap will do for the bag-making industry in Protectionist Warner’s district— Indianapolis Sentinel.

Opposing Tax Reduction.—ln a word, the republican party goes to the country as opposing tax reduction except upon whisky and tobacco, or the alternative plan of reducing the revenue by increasing the tariff to a prohibitive point on goods that may be produced in this country. • They would also obviate the necessity of tax reduction by larger expenditure. Here is a plain issue, easily understood, and there is nothing else id question. —Philadelphia Record. “Pet Banks.”—lt was indiscreet in Maj. McKinley to call attention to the “policy of 1c aning the government’s money without interest to ‘pet banks’.” Calling it “democratic” will not ma<e New Yorkers, at any rate, forget that one of the most stately bank buildings in this city, built largely from the profits of that policy, is known ns “Fort Sherman.”—N. Y. Times. Plunder and Monopoly.—Subsidy and plunder, trust and monopoly, animates every sentence of the republican platform.—Pittsburgh Post. In the bright lexicon of Chicago platform makers there is no such vord as reform.—Wheeling Register.