Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1892 — FRUITS OF M’KINLISM. [ARTICLE]

FRUITS OF M’KINLISM.

“Wherever Competition In Not, Monopoly I*.“ [W. L.Wilson,M.< ; „ in St. Louis Republic.] Wherover wo follow tho working of the protective system wo are sure to And that it tends to tho one thing, so incompatible with a government of equal rights, the fostering of monopoly. Protection is merely a more or lohh complete interference with the free play of competition. “Wherever competition is not, monopoly is.” said John Stmart Mill, and so say all writers on the history of laws and trade. In a recent conversation with an importer doing a largo business in New York city, I was told that the enormous duties imposed by the McKinley bill, something over a hundred per cent, on the goods which he imported had not materially lessened the quantity of his importations, because the people still demanded and needed such things, but they forced him to employ a much larger amount of capital in his business. For every dollar's worth of goods bought and imported he had to pay an additional dollar at the custom house, and he added with a significant smile, “I don’t lose that dollar,bntget it l>ack from somebody with profit upon it. But in order to do a busings of three millions now I find I must have a thpital of eighteen hundred thousand dollars. Now, what is the effect of this? All the small importers are being driven out of business. Only men who have large capital, or command of large capital, can successfully carry on business under the McKinley bill. Gradually, as in the protected manufactures, the business of importing will be concentrated into a small number of great establishments. The owners of those great establishments, relieved from competition, will finally become satisfied with and supporters of the tariff that secures them such relief, and as long as the consumer is the only unprotected individual in the country, a legitimate object of spoliation for the manufacturing or importing monopolists, there will be increase in the great moneyed interests marshaled to the support of the tariff. ”