Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1888 — PLAIN TARIFF TALK [ARTICLE]

PLAIN TARIFF TALK

A Concensus ot American Manufacturing Opinion. Glodstone s Comment on Excessive Prote iiori—English Press Comments on the Mills Bill. Etc. To the Rocky Mountain (Denver) News: The Democratic platform has not only taken up the flgl>< of th“ masses against the clasr-es. It not only contends for the reduction of taxation on the necessarle of life instead of on luxuries, but it comprehends in its scope the removal of those impedim 'nts wit’v which tiriff trusts and robber barons have blocked what would otherwise be the irn Bistable progress of our eoun ry, Our nation is a giant, able to dominate the com w merce of the great globe itself; and they keep her in swaddli g clothes Mr. Gladstone in his address to the English manufacturers and merchants at Leeds, said: “Notning in the world c«in wrest commercial supremacy from you while America continues to fetter her own strong hands and arms, and with these fettered arms is content to compete with you, who are free, in neutral markets. You are perfectly safe and you need not allow, any of you, oven your slightest slumbers to be disturbed by the fear that ’• merica will take from you your •• mmercial supremacy.” ■ G. Sanford of Bridgeport, Conn., a i.r- iong Republican, whose manufactory of woolen hats pays $3,000 a week in duties, says: “Our home market cannot buy all the goods we can make and the result is that part cf the time our factory is closed, and our labor is idle, We cannot sell to other countries, not because their goods are better made, but simply and solely because they can get free wool and we have to pay an excessive duty.” They could, he says, with free wool, compete successfully “with any country on the face of the earth,’ because their machinery is better and their labor “better, q”icker and more intelligent."

THE MANUFAETDRERB TALK . Robert BJeakie, a large woolen manufacturer of Maine, says: “Under the Mill’s bill we get tree wool, and a protection of 40 per cent, which are equal in amount to double the whole labor cost of making woolen goods. If European manufacturers were to g«t their labor for nothing,under t is bill we would still have the advantage of them.” J. B. Sargent of New Haven, Conn, the largest manufacturer in the world of some hardware specialties, employing 2,000 men, sa>s that his works have an output of fifty tons daily. He declar s that with free raw material he could send eut to foreign markets alone 180 tons daily. Stephenson, the world known car builder of New York, and a recent convert to Democracy on account of its position on tariff reform, main-, tains that the markets of the world would be oden to him if raw materi* als were free. The old Republican firm j’ J. B Brewster & Co., of New York, carriage manufacturers, say that the war tariff is a positive nindrance to the development of our foreign trade and a menace to our home market, consequently they wili vote this year the Democratic ticket. That tariff reform in this country is dreaded in England may be seen by the editorials published in t ose great manufacturing centers, Manchester and Birmingham. Our folly in beeping up our high war tariff—that Chinese barrier—is apparent to them. Tne geography of the southern countries would give us immense additional markets but for our fatuity.

SOME ENGLISH EXPRESSIONS. The Birmingham Gazett says: “It is a ridiculous mistake to suppose that English manufacturers are pleased with any reduction of duty which has for its object the free admission of those things which America requires te strengthen her manufacturing resources. We shoul d not only lose she American market te a larger ex ent than we have lost it already but we should in a few years be elbowed out of the colonies, out of South America, Squth Africa, China, and te some de* gree out of India also. We o nnot afford to pit our resources against thoseof Connecticut and Pennsylvania on equal terms.” TkaManehester Guardian of July 23, says: “Far-seeing persons among us Io not look upon President Cleveland’s policy with satisfaction: Having regard to their own interests alone they.would much rather see the pres* ent system of high protection main* mined,”

The Birmingham Daily Poet of July 28. says: The main object of the Mills bill is by lightening and in some instances removing the duties on raw materials to lessen tne cost of the production of American me nufac. <rers, and of course any step in that direction will snake the Usited States a more dangerous competitor of England in ah neutral markets ’ The Democratic party in national council assembled has offered to take a step towards fulfilling our manifest destiny. Sha 1 a

FEW BOBBKR BASOKS o nitrolling a rival party lo id us down with burdensome taxation, and cripple our forward march? A Mr. Carnegie makes $1,500.0U0 in a single year, while his poor laborers are ob a succession of strikes to obtain living wages. He buys cast es in Eu* rep? where Mr. Blaine passes a de liehtful time. He returns to Maine and states that neither President Cleveland nor any private individual should interfere with trusts. On the floor of ihe house Mr. Butterworth, the able Republican from Ohio, e aid in i egard to these trusts: “1 am no alone on this floor in the conviction that unless they a;e speedily throt tied they will have upon rhe throat of the republic so firm a grip that nothing short of a revolution will compel them to relax their hold.This is strong language, but 1 mean ev ry word of it.” So says the Democratic party, and next November the revolution will begin.

W. F. SHARPE.

Gheyeune. August 23,1888.