Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 April 1891 — The President on McKinleyism. [ARTICLE]

The President on McKinleyism.

President Harrison has recently had a talk with the correspondent of the New York Tribune. He gave his views of thetariff agitation and the McKinley law thus: “Most decidedly, I think there should be no more agitation upon this subject until the McKinley bill has been fairly tried. It has been charged with numerous faults. There is no reason why its workings should be prejudiced by malevolent predictions. The bill has been already long enough in operation toindicate that much that was charged against it is untrue. A period should be permitted to pass long enough to test, fairly the character of the measures Then, if it can be shown by such fair and impartial trial that it has faults, letthem be eliminated, but until such period is passed, I should bo strongly against, any further agitation of the tariff question.” But the tariff agitation cannot. be stopped. The President can no more stop it than Mrs. Partington could sweep back the rising waves of the Atlantic Ocean. The President dilated upon one of the beauties of the McKinley law as follows: “Under this act the American merchant can get raw material, for the duty is not charged where such material is imported to bo manufactured into articles for exportation, and so the American merchant will be able to sell at the same point of advantage as the English merchant, with the additional advantage of free entry into ports whore treaties are made. ” But this Is a singular position for a protectionist President. The Republican party keep reiterating, with parrotlike simplicity, that the tariff is not a. tax;,yet this Republican President points out that the drawback on raw materials enables the American merchant “to soli at the same point df advantage as the English merchant.” A drawback is a refunded duty; but if “the foreigner pays the tax,” it is not necessary to refund the duty on raw materials to our* manufacturers in order to place them on the same footing as their English competitors. Is it not a strange piece of legislation, too, to give our manufacturers untaxod raw materials when, manufacturing for the foreign market,, and to exact ho.avy taxes upon materials to be used in making goods for the home, market? “The homo market is the best market in the world,” say the protectionists. At least it is long-suffering and slow to wrath.