Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1893 — SWEEP THEM ASIDE. [ARTICLE]

SWEEP THEM ASIDE.

“PROTECTIVE" TARIFFS, BOUNTIES, AND SUBSIDIES. Object LeMon Furnished by the “Protected” Plate Glass Factories at Irwin. Fa. —Finance and Tariff Changes the Objects of the Administration. Stop Government Paternalism. Every honest, self-supporting man, like every honest, self-supporting industry, is a blessing to any community or country. No one will dispute thii statement. But few also will dispute the alternative statement that every pauper industry is a curse to a community, to a country and to mankind. Before our country got started in business on its own account, several of the Federal States, imitating the policy of the mother country, attempted to introduce and foster certain industries —mostly manufacturing ones—by levying duties on certain imports. Thus Pennsylvania in 1785 pasted an act entitled “An act to encourage and protect manufactures of this State, by laying additional duties on the importation of certain manufactures which interfere with them. ” This system of protection worked to poorly and was such a nuisance to trade between the States that all were glad to abolish it with the adoption of the Constitution in 1787. Immediately thereafter the manufacturers began to ask for national help for their struggling industries. Some attention was paid to their appeals, and the first tariff act g;ave slight protection to certain industries. Instead of making them self-reliant,this charity only made them clamorous for more assistance. Duties became higher and higher as the industries grew older, until the non-pro-tected industries were forced to defend themselves from the hungry and ungrateful pauper industries. The noisy infants were weaned and were thriving on solid food when our civil war made it necessary to again put them on the bottle while they were being bled to provide a war revenue. The bleeding Erocess lasted but a few years and the ottle should have been discarded long ago, but the sucklings—now mostly centenarians—not only refused to let go, but have demanded and obtained Digger bottles. Through their cries and screams they are informing U 3 that they are incapable of existing on even the high tariff of 25 or 30 per cent., and they lay claim to permanent support on the ground that we, having so long fed them on pap and brought them to their present helpless state, must not now desert them. The woolen and glass manufacturers actually have the audacity to tell us that the assistance which we have given them has made them indigent, careless, and slovenly, so that they cannot exist on the same Government rations a 3 might suffice a few years ago, thus confessing that they lied to us when asking for temporary help to make them stronger. The effect of granting aid by means of Government bounties or subsidies is almost as great a curse as “protection.” Our shipping industry never declined so rapidly as when we were trying to aid. it by means of gratuities and to shield it from the severe competition of Europe’s unassisted lines by prohibiting the importation of foreign-built ships. continued use of both of theee methods fails to wean back any considerable portion of the carrying trade, of the world which was once ours, when our ships asked no aid from any quarter. The bounties we are now giving to sugar producers are having the same weakening effect. It is for this reason that Governor Hogg, on behalf of the State of Texas, spurned the bounty to which Texas was entitled as a sugar produoer. He knew the evils industrially and politically sure to flow from governmental “encouragement” to industries properly the subjects of private enterprise. Paternalism as applied to the silverproducing industry is also beginning to manifest the same evils. The shameful contract which, for political purposes, the last administration made with the mine-owners, to take their silver at prices which are now twice the actual worth of this metal in all other markets, may have stimulated this industry for a long time and added a few' more to our already long list of bounty-fed millionaires, but it will soon be clear that it has hurt the industry of extracting silver from our ores and that it has rendered almost helpless and homeless thousands of miners whom it has draw’n from farms and shops.

All of these evils are the result of attempting what is impossible. Protection cannot become universal. When all industries are “protected” the benefit to each is more than annulled by the assessments necessary to aid all of the others. Protection may for a time stimulate a few industries, but it is always at the expense of the self-sup-porting industries. All industries cannot become paupers any more than all men can become paupers or pensioners. They must have others upon which to lean or they will be in the impossible position of leaning upon themselves.— Byron W. Holt. Tariff Raised; Wages Lowered. The Pennsylvania Plate Glass Company, at Irwin, Pa., made the generous proposition to their employes during the latter part of last week, that if they would accept a 10 per cent, reduction in wages the factory would not shut down but continue in operation the year round. A meeting of the employes was called at the works at which it was decided not to accept a reduction under any consideration. This, we think, was a proper move, as the plate worker is now the poorest paid of skilled mechanics in the country, and to ask a reduction in wages is simply adding insult to injury. The conceding of a reduction at Irwin would mean a reduction at all the other plate works, and would be placing the wages of the plate glass worker on a par with common labor. Any fair-minded man will admit that the wages paid the average plate glass worker to-day is not above actual living expenses, and a reduction eould not be conceded without reducing him to want. It is rumored that this company is becoming dissatisfied with the central selling agency and may withdraw from that concern in the near future. If this straw at Irwin is any indication of how the plate glass trust intends to make the wind blow after a two months’ shut down, the plate glass workers of the United States had better all {jet together and resist, firmly and unitedly such contemplated reduction. There is neither sense, reason nor justice in any proposition to reduce the wages in this industry. The tariff was increased on certain small sizes in 1890, and since 1864 (or for 30 years past) there has not been a single reduction of the tariff, which has been uniformly kept at 141 per cent, on sizes of 24x60'and above. This protection has has been kept at this enormous figure ostensibly to protect the American plate glass worker against the cheap product of European labor. If added to the present pauper wages paid the American worker is to receive

now the “protection” of a further 10 per cent, reduction, the 12,000 toilers from whose labor the colossal plate glass works have been built, and millions in dividends have been squeezed, had better make up their minds to tako a hand in practical politics themselves. —Natic al Glass Budget, July 1. Must Be Studied by AU. I wish to go over all the ground upon which protective tariffs are advocated or defended, to consider what effect the opposite policy of free trade would have, and to stop not until conclusions are reached of which we may feel absolutely sure. To some it may seem too much to think that this can be done. For a century no question of public policy has beon so widely and persistently debated as that of Protection vs. Free Trade. Yet it seems to-day as far as ever from settlement—so far, indeed, that many have come to deem it a question as to which no certain conclusions can be reached, and many more to regard it as too complex and abstruse to be understood by those w'ho have not equipped themselves by long study. This is, indeed, a hopeless view. We may safely leave many branches of know ledge to such as can devote themselves to special pursuits. We may safely accept what chemists tell us of chemistry,or astronomers of astronomy, or philologists of the development of language, or anatomists of our internal structure, for not only are there in such investigations no pecuniary temptations to warp the judgment; but the ordinary duties of men and citizens do not call for such special knowledge, and the great body of a people may entertain the crudest notions as to such things and yet lead happy and useful lives. Far different, however, is it with matters which relate to the production and distribution of wealth, and which thus directly affect the comfort and livelihood of men. The intelligence which can alone .safely guide in those matters must be tho intelligence of the masses, for as to such things it is the common opinion, and not the opinion of the learned few, that finds expression in legislation. If the knowledge required for the proper ordering of public affairs be like tho knowledge required for the prediction of an eclipse, the making of a chemical analysis, or the decipherment of a cuneiform inscription, or even like the knowledge required in any branch of art or handicraft, then the shortness of human life and the necessities of human existence must forever condemn tho masses of men to ignorance of matters which directly affect their means of subsistence. If this bo so, then popular government is hopeless, and, confronted on one side by the fact, to which all experience testifies, that a peoplo can never safely trust to any portion of their number the making of regulations which affect their earnings, and on the other by the fact that the masses can never see for themselves the effect of such regular tions, the only prospect before mankind is that the many must always be ruled and robbed by the few.—Henry George, in Protection or Free Trado.

“■Free Trade Incendiary Torch.” It might be supposed that protection manufacturers and. editors would some day learn that the people of this country can no longer be fooled by a pretended comparison of “protected” with unprotected countrios, which stops when it has mentioned Great Britain and tho United States. The Manufacturer (Philadelphia), of June 24, says: “The picture drawn by our correspondent in London of the great crowds of men assembling at Liverpool on the chance that they might be sent to Hull to get work on the docks there, at the time of the dockers’ strike, shows what it must be hero as soon as the free-trade incendiaries successfully apply to the fabric of our industries the torch of destruction which they have been brandishing.” Are there, then, no other countries on this big round earth? If there are, they must, of necessity, be protection or free trade countries. As a matter of fact there are a half dozen countries, all in Europe, which for age, degree of civilization and natural opportunities are far better adapted for comparison with each other than with any newer or bigger country. These countries are Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Turkey. Each of these countries has at some period been master of Europe, and held the ascendency in commerce. Until near the middle of the present century it was not certain which of the first three countries would take the lead in manufactures, commerce, and trade. The free-trade incendiary torch was first applied to England's industries. Instead of destroying, it fired them with new life and energy. England chose freedom and light, and the growth of her industries is without parallel on the Eastern continent. She is supreme in commerce. She is overflowing with wealth, and loans capital to the rest of the world. She pays higher wages than is paid by any of her old country rivals, and yet undersells them all. She is the only country of the old world to which emigrants turn with a hope of bettering their financial conditions. The other countries mentioned chose restrictions of commerce, and are still wandering in darkness and misery. Italy and Spain, with most restrictions, have sunk almost out of sight in the commercial world. France and Germany are losing step with the march of progress, and must soon fall out of line if they do not imitate the example of Great Britain. The idleness in London is partly due to the congestion there of the miserable wretches who have been squeezed out of continental Europe by commercial bandages which decrease earnings and increase the cost of living.

The Platform Not Forgotten. If there are persons who believe the silly stories now going the round of the Republican press, charging that President Cleveland and the other Democratic leaders have abandoned all idea of making any radical changes in the tariff at the coming session of Congress, they had better begin to prepare themselves for a great disappointment. There has been no change in the program mapped out by the Democratic leaders before Mr. Cleveland was inaugurated, except that caused by the financial stringency throughout the country, which has given financial reform the first place on the program, but has by no means displaced tariff reform. Ever since President Cleveland’s election he has been discussing these two reforms with every man he met who might be supposed to have practical and valuable opinions upon either, and he has lost no opportunity to obtain suggestions from those whose practical experience or special studies have made them tariff experts. A perfect tariff bill has never been prepared and probably never will bo, Dut unless present indications are all wrong the tariff bill to be prepared this winter will be nearer perfection, from the standpoint of the Chicago platform, than any of its predecessors, and that it will be a radical change from the McKinley law is as certain as that Congress will meet. —Saturday Budget. Durable show for men are now of ylyalrii^