Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 December 1892 — Unauswered Questions. [ARTICLE]

Unauswered Questions.

Perhaps some of the big Republicans can now find time to answer the following questions. They are some of those prepared by Mr. I>. Webster Croh, President of the Chicago Question Club, and fired from all points of the compass at McKinley, Sherman, and the other tax-yourself-into-pros-perity professors, if they will now give satisfactory answers, they will be forgiven for neglecting to do so in the rush before election, when the salvation of the nation was at stake and all protectionists were engaged in repelling the threatened invasion of pauper labor, pauper-made goods, and Cobden Club gold: Would Carnegie and other shrewd protectionists desire a tariff, if it cheapened what they sell—goods—and made dearer what the buy—labor?

Why more laborously make tinplate itself instead of its cheaper exchangeable equivalent? If toil itself is more desirable than its fruits--labor products—why not destroy all labor-saving tools and machinery? If the tariff is no tax, why refund to exporting manufacturers tit) per cent, of the duty on their imported raw material? Unless protective tariff enhances domestic prices, why give sugar producers a baunty in lieu of the removed sugar duties? If a tariff on articles cheapens them, should it not be placed lightest on the finished product and heaviest on raw materials to cheapen them, and thus widen our manufacturers’ margin of profit? Why does the McKinley tariff invert this order? If protective tariff is good, would not prohibitive tariff be still better? If international trade is economically Jujurious, is not interstate trade equally hurtful? Can “trusts” be Injurious and the tariff fostering them beneficent? Can foreign trade be injurious yet shipping subsidies doslrablc? Can tariff cheapen an article yet simultaneously raise its producers' wages?