Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 December 1888 — SOME SOUND PROPOSITIONS. [ARTICLE]

SOME SOUND PROPOSITIONS.

We have "our years to agit re tariff reform and no opportunity for debate should bo lost. During the campaign J have learned that nine out of every ten proteerionists uo not understand the simdlest laws of trade, Ih- ard one protest against “ i flood ofcheap foreign goods,” and a moment later declared th.it the tariff did not, raise jrices; that prices in England are about the same as prices here, and the tariff wus ssmply intended to exclude foreign goods. In his blind partisan zeal ho forgot that goods are never taxed except to get a higher price. Another declared that all Europe was under free trade, thereto! ein poverty. Apparen ly all protectionists believe that we might buy trom foreign countries eternally and never sell them anything. The* think cheap goods a great evil, and that if all foreign countries should send us food and qlothing at cost, frolghi p .Id. it would be a dire calamity. They all have childlike confidence in the employer, believing that he is anxious to share any Increase in price with his tmployes, and would not hire “foreign panperlibor” (driven here by high tariffs) on any aceount. I offer a fsw arguments which I have found to ).*e invulnerable te protectionists’ sophistry, thoush perhaps they are familiar to all tariff reformers:

1. Import duties protect only those whs have something to sell; laboiers have only labor to sell, but this com-* modity is not protected. It is reduc« ed in value by competition from all the world 2. A decrease in price causes in l * crease in consumption and consequent increased demand for product* ive power; hence higher wages. A low tariff would lower prices and ln u crease wages. 3. Heavy imports would not de crease demand for labor, because Im* ports must be 1 alanced by exports of commeditiea. 4. To buy in the cheapest market is natural and So-called “protection” denies this ri ht and vlo lates true freedom; 8. “Protection” restricts trade.— Restriction of trade is restriction of production and the demand for labor; hence, protection lowers wages. 5 • Prices are now Inflated oy monopolies and trusts that grow up because competition is made unlawful by ti e tariff, Considerable reduction could be made that would come out «f exhorbitant profits, no* out of wages. 7. If it bo right to compel Americans to buy American goods, it is also right to compel employers to hire only American laborers; and all immigtation should bo prohibited. I should like to have any of these propositions refuted. Rrxcruit

A good colored brother in Georgia recently wrote to bis Bishop for a clerical supply as follows: “Send no a Bishop to preach. If you can’t send us a Bishop, send us a sliding el* dor; if you can’t send us a sliding elder, send us a stationary preacher; if yu can’t send him, send us a circus rider; if you can’t spare him, send us a locus preach r; if you can’t spare a locus preacher, send us an exhauster.” That settled it and he got a preaches. ———i m —— Poor Lieut. Gov. Robsrtson. He was elected to the office of Lieut. Governor of Isdlana when there was no vaeatcy, failed to get his seat, failed of vindication when his own party refused him renomination, and now Judge Taylor, of the Superior Court in Indianapolis, decides that he cannot recover damages and costs from Green Smith for the time, money and a; ony spent and endured in trying to get passesslon of the State Senate. Alas, poer Robertson, his name Is Densis.