Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 April 1893 — SHAMEFUL ADMISSION. [ARTICLE]

SHAMEFUL ADMISSION.

WORKINGS OF A HIGH TARIFF BROUGHT TO LIGHT. Another Industry Admits that Protection Enervates and Pauperizes the Business and Results in Higher Prices—Commercial Freedom Would Stop Canadian Exodus. An Open Confession. Willett atd Gray's Sugar Journal of April 6 puts on an in jured look and asks why the sugar refining industry should be singled out “for special attack on the ground of too much protection.” It Quotes the latest statistics to show that in over twenty principal manufacturing industries the p otcetion varies from 27 to 113 percent., while it is but 13.98 per cent on refined sugar. This certainly does look unfair. While Uncle Sam is lending a helping hand to the manufacturing indu-tries, he should endeavor to be impartial. Then the Journal proceeds to make a confession which it is well for the country to understand. It says: “The advantages derived from the above noted discrimination against refiners are not very apparent. Contrary to general opinion, the prosperity of refiners is probably owing in a considerable degree to the small measure of protection accorded them compared with all other manufacturers. This small protection forces economies of management an 4 concentration of manufacture, by means of which profits can only be made and dividends maintained, and prevents competition from the building of new refineries.”

This is not the first industry that has made this shameful admission. The window glass manufacturers have admitted, iu the National Glass Budget and other glass journals, that too much “protection” has made them careless and wasteful in tlieir methods, so that instead of making good use of our abundant natural opportunities —cheap gas, fuel, sand, etc., —and making the best and the cheapest glass in the world, we have become so slothful that we can make only inferior glass at nearly twice the European cost of good glass. The Budget frankly avows that if it had not been for “protection” and the absence of natural competition, the unsurpassed facilities for glass production coming from free natural gas would have given us the markets of the 'Western, if not of the Eastern, world. With protection we are still using antiquated pots instead of modern tanks, used all over Europe, and with the declining supply of natural gas we will have lost the opportunity of an age. Nature is withdrawing her bounty; protection has defeated it. Other countries less favorably situated and supplied With raw materials will continue to supply the markets that should now be ours. The woolen men claim to be in the same nasty, measly predicament. Not long ago. when they were clamoring for more protection, they were pretending that it would stimulate home competition and cause prices to decline. Now, since the jig is up with them and their shoddy claims, and considerable of their protection is to be withdrawn, they are ready and willing to go back on all past statements and to make the most shameful admissions to save as much as possible of their unconstitutional and unholy bonus. Here is what the American Wool and Cotton Reporter of Feb. 23 said:

“Were the Mills bill put in operation to-day the measure of protection afforded by it, so far as pertains to the woolen industry, would be less than would have been realized at the time the bill was formulated. Conditions have changed considerably during the past four years, and what would have been a sufficient measure of protection then would be inadequate to-day. The foreign manufacturer, Because of the obstacles of higher duties, has been forced to a lower plane of economy, while the domestic manufacturer, with a wider market than formerly to cater to, has had less incentive to restrict and economize. These conditions have widened the difference between them, and has increased the advantage the former has over the latter.”

Higher prices and slovenly methods of manufacture, then, are the heritage of thirty years of protection and high taxation. Instead of strengthening our weak industries and titting them to stand alone and to produce goods at competitive prices, it enervates them and makes them a heavier and heavier burden upon the taxed consumers. Like indiscriminate charity it increases the 4 evils it seeks to remedy. Once pauperize an industry and allow it to draw its support from honest, self-suppoiting industry and it will soon lose that self-reliance and independence which is the piainspring of success. If, as the Sugar Journal says, “small protection forces economies of management and concentration of manufacture, by means of which profits can only be made and dividends maintained,” the Journal ought to be thankful at the prospect of continuing and increasing this economic and profit-producing system, which the present Congress will surely inaugurate, by greatly reducing the amount of protection now enjoyed, or rather wasted, by their spendthrift pauper industries. They should rejoice at .the prospect of earning an honest living, and sixty millions of consumers will join with them in the chorus.—Byron W. Holt.

Why Canadians Emigrate. We are told by the Mail and Express, and other high Republican authorities, that the Canadian Government is unable to stem the exodus of its people from tbe eastern provinces into our New England and Middle States, and that, to counteract this loss, “nearly three hundred agents are constantly employed traveling about the Western States to encourage emigration to Canada, and offering $lO bonus to a head of a family and $5. for each member. Besides this, free homesteads are provided.” Yet the tide is running strong from Canada to this country and the last census shows that there are nearly 1,000,000 Canadians here. The Mail and Express says Canadians come here because “they are convinced that on this side of the dividing line lie opportunities for thrift and industry.” This is undoubtedly true. W hy, then, are

there greater opportunities for thrift and industry here? Both countries have high protective tariffs, and both have millions of unused and fertile farm and timber lands. It is not nature’s fault that opportunities are greater in this country; it is man’s fault. The artificial restriction of trade and commerce by ‘'protective” tariffs is mainly responsible for the present exodus. It would drive the oppressed out Of any country which has no greater variety of climate than has Eastern Canada. “Protect” Michigan or Maine from the- rest of this country, as Canada is now protected from it. and the cost of living will go up and wages down so much that thousands will emigrate to the other States and great offers of cash will be necessary to allure them back to their “protected” homes. The pinch of * protection is felt more in small countries, which lack a great diversification of soil and climate. Germany, Austria, Italy and Russia are being depopulated by protective tariffs, and their oppressed come to this country because it is the greatest free trade country on the globe; trade being absolutely free from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, and from Canada to Mexico. Five years of McKinleyism would cost old England one-fifth of its population and the manufacturing and commercial supremacy of the globe. One decade of high protection has started Canada on the down grade and has brought about a reaction there which it took three decades to bring about in this great country. The sentiment for annexation is growing rapidly there. On April 4 the Hon. Honore Mercier, Prime Minister of Quebec from 1886 to 1892, addressed an immense audience in Montreal,“On the Future of Canada.” He pictured the great advantages that would follow union with the United States, and advocated political independence as the first step to annexation. The meeting passed a resolution in favor of immediate independence. Practically all to be gained by annexation, of real benefit to the people, could be obtained by the removal of the two tariff walls between the countries. Canadians are respensible for one of these and could remove it any time. We will promise to remove half of our wall and to take the McKinley barbed wires off the top during the next two years. It is not likely that we will stop the good work at once, and who knows what may happen before the twentieth century arrives? Slaves who realize their condition and who could appreciate freedom, are already half free; and freemen, who do not appreciate their liberty and cannot govern themselves wisely, are half slaves. When Canadians have studied their conditions and understand the nature of their bonds they will virtually be free, even though politically and nominally subject to Great Britain.

Who Ig Afraid? The Tribune remarks that “a 25 per cent, tariff on woolen goods aiarms people, quite naturally.” Indeed! What people? Are the people who wear woolens alarmed at the prospect of a reduction in the taxes upon them? Or is it the manufacturers? If so, why should they be alarmed? They will get their raw material free, as they did under the tariff of 1816-19, when the duty on manufactured goods was 20 to 25 per cent. If that was sufficient to protect this “infant manufacture” seventy-five years ago, why is it not adequate now? The duty on manufactures of wool was only 25 to 30 percent, in 1861, under the original war tariff, and but 30 to 35 per cent in 1862-63. Why should the people pay two or three times as much now?—New York World. The Hon. John De Witt Warner gives some sound advice and strikes straight from the shoulder when he says: “No one will question the right of a party to put as many recommendations in its platform as crammed the one adopted at Chicago. It was perfectly understood, however, that tariff reform was the issue we made. In that sign we conquered. If we permit ourselves to be diverted from it before our pledges are fulfilled we shall be horsewhipped at the polls the first time the people get a chance at us. ” Possibly Gov. McKinley’s recent experience nas convinced him that tbe foreigners don’t pay the tih-plate tax. Dr. W. W. Alley, who died at Moravia, N. Y., aged 91 years, was the oldest homeopathic physician in the country. He had been in continuous practice for sixty-six j ears.