Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1896 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

More Protection for German Meat. The agitation for the exclusion of American meats from Germany has recently been renewed in the Prussian "Legislature, a story of an old woman who was alleged to have been made ill by eating too much American corned beef serving as an excuse for an attack on all kinds of our meat exports. A strong sentiment against American meats was shown to exist among the representatives of the German landlords.

From the standpoint of the German meat producers, who are simply trying to carry out the doctrines of the American McKinleyites, it is, of course, highly desirable that the importation of the cheap meats of the United States should be forbidden. With a monopoly of the entire home market the German meat raisers would be enabled to charge much higher prices, and the landlords would get bigger rents. But the forty-five millions of Germans who are not engaged in the meat business would find the exclusion of American meats a serious hardship. Each and everyone of them would be compelled to pay more for an important article of their daily food, and the poorest classes would find it impossible to get as much meat as they need. The result would be that the masses of the people would be underfed, or robbed, by monopoly prices, for the sole advantage of the rich aristocrats who own the soil of Germany. While thus injuring the great majority of the German people, the exclusion of American meats would also severely injure our own farmers. With the loss of an important market the price of meats in this country would quickly fall, and a large number of our stock raisers would find themselves unable to dispose of their products. This would mean ruin to many farmers who are now prosperous, and .who would have only protection to thank for their losses. The American farmer has only to figure out for himself the probable result of all the countries to which he sells his products enacting trade-excluding laws, to see that protection is a dangerous system, which curses both the people adopting it and those against whom it is aimed. When it becomes sound public policy to shut our cheap wholesome meats out of Germany, then and then only will there be any justification for the protective swindle. A Sample Calamity Yawp. Under the scare heading “Wilson Law Prosperity” the New York Press published a number of news items referring to strikes and business difficulties in the textile industry. This was intended to show that the Wilson tariff has not given business to incompetent mill owners, nor has it enabled factories using old out-of-date machinery to compete with more enterprising mills. Among other alleged effects of the low tariff was the following: “A strike was inaugurated at the works of the Firth Carpet Company, West Cornwall, N. Y., the latter part of last week, by Six boys, who refused to work on the new fast machines, and were promptly dismissed. The action of the superintendent, who, it is claimed, also discharged the relatives of the boys, so incensed the operatives that they all went out.” Nothing can be clearer to the muddled protectionist mind than that this strike is due to the wicked Wilson law. If good Mr. McKinley’s-tariff was in force the bad boys would never think of refusing to work on new machines. So there would have been no strike, and the Press would have had no calamity howl to use as an argument for restoring a panic-breeding tariff. Great is the wisdom of the pessimistic weepers Who run Republican organs. Fat Friers in Front as lienal. The fat-frier of the present seems to have the call in the Republican party pver the Credit Mobilier statesman of

long ago. Mr. Allison has been respectable too long to make him a hot favorite for Republican honors. The most prominent man in the latest “iniquity” stands the best chance. William McKinley leads all the rest. He commands the most “fat.”—Utica Observer.

Trying to Tax Foreigners. The New Hampshire Republican State convention distinguished itself by inserting in its platform the old hightariff chestnut: “The foreigner pays the tax.” After some sterotyped abuse of the Democracy for “three years of disappointment, privation and distress,” the Granite State Republicans deinanded “the speedy repeal of the Democratic tariff and the substitution thereof of one based upon the principles of the McKinley act, for the procurement of national revenues as far as possible from foreigners who market their merchandise in competition with our productions.” . It is just possible that the benighted McKinleyites of New Hampshire are still living in the mists and darkness of the ages when it was believed that taxes on imports were paid by the foreign producer. Whether real or assumed their ignorance shows that in spite of our great public school system there is still a deplorable need of the study of elementary arlthemetic. If the men who talk of collecting revenues from foreigners were able to add and subtract correctly, they would not try to impose their theory on the public. The notion that duties on goods are not paid by the consumer cannot be honestly held by any one who understands that two and two make four, or that five from six leaves one.

The facts of every day business experience show so plainly the absurdity of the delusion that we can tax the people of other countries for the support of our government, that it is unnecessary to seriously argue against it. A mind so constituted that it believes that although the importer adds the customs duties to the price of the goods he buys from abroad and the retailer charges the tariff tax to the price at which the goods are finally sold, the foreign producer pays the additional cost due to the tariff, cannot be influenced by facts or logic. The idea put into the platform of the New Hampshire Republicans is not a doctrine or a theory, but a superstition, and will only disappear when the people become generally enlightened. In 1892 a majority of more than a million Americans by their votes showed that they knew who pays the tariff taxes. In 1896 the majority against McKinley scheme for higher duties should be even larger. By 1946 even the New Hampshire protectionists may find out that taxes are always paid by the consumers of the goods on which they are imposed.

International Trade. A protectionist, whose letter to the Herald was printed in full on the 14th Inst., seeks to bolster up the old theory that if the value of a nation’s imports exceeds the value of its exports it has an adverse balance of trade, and is impoverished to that extent. To make out this proposition he relies upon the supposed case of a farmer who sells $2,000 worth of his farm products in a year and buys $3,000 worth of goods from outside. The writer assumes that merchants in the international trade are simpletons, such as he depicts his imaginary farmer. The two cases are essentially different. Our importers do not import what they cannot sell, and the people do not buy 50 per cent, more of imported goods than they need. If our importers import more than home consumption demands, their capital enables them usually to hold the surplus till the demand equals the supply. Moreover, in iifternational trade, any country’s Imports are what it gets in return for its exports of Its surplus production—which if not exported would in some cases perish or rot. If our agriculturists and mill owners cannot produce and export more than the home market consumes, they must at times let their lands and mills lie idle. Every tariff duty or restriction on our imports necessarily injures our export trade, and is therefore a blow dealt at both our capital and labor. Is it not perfectly clear that when the ascertained value of our imports most exceeds that of our exports our foreign trade is, as a rule, most profitable, and the balance of trade is not adverse but really favorable?—New York Herald. Responsibility Already Located. It is somewhat amusing to note the efforts of Republican papers to put the blame of the do-nothing policy in Congress on the Democratic minority. In legislation the minority cannot be blamed for anything. The majority has the power and is responsible for the legislation. Some days since Speaker Reed announced that the Republican party had the responsibility for the legislation of this session and was ready to accept it. The people will recognize no other responsibility.—lndianapolis Sentinel.

Harrison as the Bogy Man. There begins to be a tinge of seriousness, especially to the McKinley forces, in the candidacy of Harrison, which refuses to be downed. The New York end of the political wires is becoming much agitated, and the leaders have convened to discuss the new condition of affairs.—Dubuque Tim’S. No Colored Delegates. If there are any colored delegates going to the Republican national convention from the North we have not yet chanced on their names. And yet the Northern Republicans claim the ownership of the negro vote in the North.— Peoria Herald. Too Near the Fire Alarm Statesman. The managers Of the McKinley boom will make a fatal mistake if they permit Mr. Foraker to sit too near that large consignment of fireworks they have ordered for their St. Louis display.—Washington Post.