Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 September 1891 — TARIFF JOT. [ARTICLE]

TARIFF JOT.

The tariff tax on sugar was repealed not to relieve the consumer, but to fasten on him the “protective” system more firmly. With the abolition of the sugar tax, the bounty to the home sugar makers (costing this year about 812,000,000) went into effect, and the average of protective duties on other necessaries of living was raised from 49 to 67 per cent. The tax on sugar went into the public treasury and I helped to pay the public expenses. The added protective taxes, on the contrary, never reach the treasury. They go into the pockets of the “protected” few for whose benefit they are laid. But will not the people be taught this: If they paid 7 cents a pound for sug r and are now getting it for 4J cents, can they be convinced that the tariff on a thing is not paid by the consumer? Won’t they understand that if the tariff tax is taken off of coal, salt, lumber, wool and other things of use and necessity, that thev will reap the benefit of it?—lndianapolis News, rep. Secretary Foster announces that the McKinley law has cheapened pretty nearly everything “The law,” he says, “has not alone put down the price of sugar. It has inspired confidence in all kinds of manufacturing to the extent of raiding prices.” What a wonderful thing is this law! It seems to equal the patent medicine that cures consumption taken Internally, drives rheumatism away rubbed on externally, has no superior as a stove polish, and is the only thing known that will banish cockroaches. Thus: The McKinley law cheapens sugar bv taking the tariff off of it. It cheapens other articles of manufacture by increasing the tariff on them, for it stops foreign competition and thereby stimulates home manufacturers, who, by their competition, put the price down. The foreign competition that existed before the McKinlev iaw, it seems, kept prices up. When our manufacturers had to meet that the result wks high prices; but when they do not have to meet it, but only to meet competition among themselves, lo! prices go down. And ic we have the McKinley law cheapening a thing by taking the tax off; also cheapening it by putting the tax on, causing competit on which formercy made high prices now to m ke low prices.— Clearly, patent madicine is “not in it* with the McKinley law. —lndianapelis News, rep. * * * * Have oub REPUBLICAN FRIENDS NEVER STOPPED TO REFLECT THAT INDIANA’S PROPORTION OF THE APPROPRIATIONS OF LAST CONGRESS WILL COST THE TAX-PAYEBS OF THE STATE NEARLY SEVENTY TIME AS MUCH A 8 THE INCREASE OF THE STATE LEVY BY THE LAST LEGISLATURE?