Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 December 1895 — HOLD IT TO ACCOUNT. [ARTICLE]

HOLD IT TO ACCOUNT.

REPUBLICAN CONGRESS MUST NOT TINKER WITH TARIFF. Cooler-Headed Men in Their Own Party Will Protest Against the Introduction of Bills Calculated to Demoralize the Country's Business. A Friendly Warning, The Republicans in Congress are not to be allowed to bring forward tarifftinkering bills without being Jjeld to account by the cooler-headed men of their own party. We have already noted the admonition of the press and some of the representatives of the Northwest A still more striking, though indirect, warning was given by ex-Senator Miller of this State last week at the annual dinner of the Home Market Club of Boston. That organization was formed to advocate tariff legislation to keep foreign goods out of the American market. Its guiding principle was aptly stated by one <>f the speakers: ”(>ur home market is worth Incomparably more than all other markets.” Most of the gentlemen who addressed the club pictured the country on the brink of ruin in consequence of the present tariff. Mr. Charles Emory Smith, for instance, painted the situation in the gloomiest colors; “The shriveled values, the shrunken work, the diminished wages, the decreased consumption, the foreign goods taking the place of home products, the mills and factories of New England and Pennsylvania struggling against a new British invasion —all this is the natural and inevitable harvest of the noxious seed that was planted in an hour of madness and delusion in 1892.” The only way to treat such a state of things is, of course, a heavy dose of protection "along McKinley lines.” But Mr, Warner Miller sees things in a very different light, and in denying the correctness of the diagnosis destroys all excuse for the proposed remedy. He finds the country in a state of vigorous health, and improving daily. There is in “the last two years” an “increased output of all our leading industries;” there is “re-employment of a large number of laborers at wages nearly or quite up to the standard of 1892;” we have “an increased demand and advanced prices Jor our agricultural products, wheat and cotton,” and especially we have “the return of confidence in every department of business which is the necessary forerunner of the return of the era of prosperity.” The future —not the remote future after the tariff lias been changed back to the old rates, but the immediate future —looks very bright to the ex-Senator, and, so far from thinking that we shall have to light for the home market against a “new British invasion,” he Bees that we can and must get out into the open markets of the world and fight British trade on what has always been Its own ground: “The value of our agriculture and manufactures exceeds that of any other nation by many millions of dollars annually. We are able, not only to supply all the necessities of our own people, but in many lines of production we can and do produce a large surplus, which can only find a profitable market beyond the limits of our shores. We are compelled to seek a foreign market for our surplus cotton, wheat and meat products. In the manufacture of many grades of cottons, of iron and steel, machinery, railroad supplies, agricultural implements, and many other kinds of goods we can now compete successfully with tlie older nations. We must, therefore, look abroad for an outlet for our present surplus and for the increase which will come with returning prosperity.” These are the wortfs of one who is a business man first and a politician afterward. Mr. Miller speaks from observation and experience, and not merely to enforce a party cry. It is true that he advocates Federal subsidies to steamship lines as a means of more cheaply and readily reaching the foreign markets which we need. That, however, is a minor matter. It would be a tough job at present to raise enough money by increased tariff taxes to pay subsidies that would have any effect on our export trade. The important fact is that the vast commercial reservoir of the United States is fed by productive streams that are capable of filling it beyond the home demand. There is no doubt that outlets will be found, and while the business men of the land are engaged in this labor they will not patiently submit to disturbing tariff agitation on the absurd plea that we cannot hold our own markets. —New York Times.

A Sign of Prosperity. Bradstreet’s, a leading financial journal, publishes detailed statements of the gross and net earnings of the railroads of the country for nine months of the years 1894 and 1595. A summary of the figures shows a stpadily increasing growth in the volume of business done by the railroads during this year, and affords another proof of the general improvement in trade conditions under the Wilson tariff. The net earnings of 141 of the principal railroads, embracing over 75 per cent, of the railroad earning capacity of the country, were nearly 8 per cent greater than in 1894, the proportionate gains being much larger for the last three months of the period for which returns are given. While the earuings of practically all the railroads have been largely increased, the wages of thousands of employes have also been advanced. The improved feturns to capital have in no case been secured by lessened wages to labor. This unquestioned improvement In the business of the great railroad industry, representing an investment of $10,000,000,000, will, of course, be denied by the pessimistic preachers of protection. They are paid to howl that the country is being ruined by low taxation and free trade. Little things such as facts furnished by impartial financial authorities will not prevent professional weepers from wailing. But all fair-minded citizens should be convinced that if railroads are earning a great deal more money it is because they are carrying more goods, and that If more goods are being transported more are being manufactured and sold. Could there be better evidence that prosperity has returned ? Cackling Protectionists. It would be well enough, if tariff changes are to be urged in behalf of the manufacturers of Pennsylvania, to

consult the manufacturers before preparing the schedules. The bulk of the manufacturers are very busy, thank you, and very well satisfied down in their boots and in the depths of their bank accounts, with things as they are. The cackle of protectionist newspapers must not be mistaken for the call of the country.—Philadelphia Record. Good Reason for Thankfulness. Thanksgiving Day was observed this year with joy and gladness, to which the people had been strangers for several years past. In 185)4 the country was still suffering from the effects of the terrible McKinley panic, which two years before plunged millions into idleness, debt, bankruptcy or poverty. Although the protective tariff which had brought about such a deplorable condition was repealed in August of last year, the business and industrial interests of the country had only commenced to revive by the end of November. There were still many thousands of households over which the trade depression cast a shadow, and many thousands of unemployed workers who had little reason to be thankful that the Republican policy which had impoverished them was at last struck from the statute books.

This year the conditions are greatly changed. The improvement in business which immediately followed the adoption of the Wilson tariff has steadily increased during the past eleven months, until now the country is prospering as never before. Good crops of almost every staple farm product have given the farmers abundance for their own needs and a large surplus for foreign markets. The transportation of these crops has brought good times to the railroads, which have in turn purchased large supplies of rails, rolling stock and other equipments. In consequence, the Iron and steel industries have reached the heights of prosperity, the total output of their products exceeding that of any other period In the history of this or other countries. In all the principal industries of the country the same condition of great activity prevails. The best proof of prosperity is found in the wonderful series of wage advances which have taken place during 1895. According to the admission of the New York Tribune over one million workers having had their wages increased from 5 to 20 per cent. Factories and mills, closed down for years unfler McKinleylsm, have started up again; hundreds of new factories, especially in the textile industries, have been established, and in e>-er y branch of trade there is a strong demand for manufactured goods. With this unequalled business boom came, of course, a greatly increased demand for labor. Instead of marching through the country in “Coxey armies,” as thousands of workmen did while the McKinley tariff was in force, the unemployed found opportunities to work in reopened factories, in the mines, or on the railways. At a modest estimate one million workers who were idle before the enactment of the Wilson tariff, have now steady employment and are earning good wages. These are some of the reasons why in American homes there was this year so much of thankfulness. Protection hard times have given place to low tariff prosperity. McKinley idleness has disappeared, and the Democratic business revival has given more work and higher wages. Capital is earning good returns and merchants and manufacturers look forward to an even greater demand for all kinds of goods. For all these things the American people are truly thankful.

Kxports to Belgium. The New York Journal of Commerce notes the remarkable fact that last year we exported to the little kingdom of Belgium goods valued at $26,928,069. About one-fourth of this amount was paid for manufactured goods, including manufactures of iron, steel, textiles, leather, paper, rubber and paper, and for chemicals, glassware and earthenware. Commenting upon this fact, the Journal of Commerce says: “For most of these manufactures the ratv materials may be assumed to be cheaper in Belgium than here. Wages are not only lower there than here, but they are lower there than in England. S till the economy and efficiency of American manufacturing methods permit some of our manufactured goods to be sold in that country even in lines that are particularly Belgian, and in other cases the superiority of the American article offsets a higher price. “It is not to be expected that we shall ever export very great quantities of manufactured goods to a country with so small a population, and that population so generally engaged in manufacturing as Belgium. The significant thing about these figures is that if we can compete at all, and in any lines, with the Belgians at home, we have a much greater chance of competing with them in those foreign markets to which their exports, like ours, must bear the cost of transportation, and where their exports and ours encounter the same customs restrictions.” It should please those Republicans who believe that the Chief object of international trade is to secure a cash balance in our favor to know that our imports from Belgium last year amounted to but $8,609,819.

Foreign Pauper Labor. The ignorance of the workingmen of England and other European countries lias long been a stock argument of the protectioniSts, who describe all foreign workers as paupers of a very low degree of inteligence. A sample of the English operatives’ terrible degradation is given in a late issue of the American Economist, organ of the Protective Tariff League. Desiring to show that the British woolen industry has been benefitted by the Wilson tariff a correspondent of the Economist inserter an interview with an alleged Bradford weaver, who is quoted as saying: “The policy pursued by our firm is one which dispenses with as much overtime as possible. While we are now exceptionally busy, yet the great bulk of the operatives are not to-day working over-time.” This is the way in which the ignorant pauper Englishman talks. Strange to say, his language is better than that of the average editor of American hightariff papers. The Economist must either admit that its interview was merely a “fake” intended to deceive its readers, or that the alleged Bradford pauper is an intelligent gentleman. Which is it? Men ain’t apt to get kicked out of good society for being rich.