Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 January 1888 — FOR THE ESTATE. [ARTICLE]

FOR THE ESTATE.

A Washington’ special to the Indianapolis Journal presents an interview wrth Representative Owen lon the tariff question, in which lie expresses broad an I sensible views which are Worthy of careful consideration by every candid and unprejudiced citizen. Mr. Owen said: “A protectionist believes in levying the tariff so as to protect American interests. A tariffreformer believes in levying the tariff so as not to protect American interests. He denounces protection as a robbery, and assails all protected industries. He is therefore insincere in professing to want a reform of the tariff; lie is a free-trader masquerading as a reformer. We are surely forming the lines for a contest next year of far-reaching importance--on the one side will be marshaled the men who stand for the growth and developement of Aifierica,and arrayed on the other side are the tariff reformers and the manufactures and unemployed men of Great Britain. There ought to be no question of the result, although the Democrats are even now trying to hedge on the President’s message, and Congress is sitting in an anticipation of his sending in a supplement. • It was a mistake in the President to seek to array one industry of the country against another. I’his is the very worst kind of M ctionalism. He seeks to incite the farmer that doesn’t grow wool against the farmer that does grow it, and sets men who are not employed in manufacturers against the men who are. The fact is the farmer who raises wool adds to the price of the wheat and corn of the other farmer. An employe 111 the factory adds dollars every month io the*wages of the men who are not employed in the factory. If the reformers succeed they will find out how sadly true this is, when hundreds of factories are closed, and discharged men are Hooded over the country. The Republican policy is each for all, the Democratic policy, each for himself.

Poor Hancock uttered a Democratic truth when he said the tariff is a local issue. There is n.y friend Sayers, who is dreadfully displeased with the free wool in the President’s message; he says it is ruinous to the farmers. Sayers’ district in Texas, is full of sheep. Senator McPherson wants free trade throughout the country, but says it is necessary to protect the porcelain and pottery workmen of New' Jersey. Pugh, of Alabama, another leading Democratic Senator, is a bold reformer with an iron-ore attachment, lie strikes for free trade in every direction except Alabama. There he says iron must not be touched; it would cripple the development of one of the greatest industries in the Nation. Dougherty of Florida; demandsja high tariff to protect his orange constituents. A demand has just come in from the thirty-five thousand lumbermen of California which puts the Democratic members, us well as the Republican members, of that State, for the protection of lumber. The Rhode Island wool cloth manufactures want the tariff taken off wool, but want the manufocturedarticl.es protected to the fullest extent, while Beiiah Wilkins, who has the largest Democratic majority of any Ohio Congressman/demands an increase in the wool tariff. “What a mix they are in.” “A partial and selfish view is wholly inadequate to so greaT a question; the only way to handle it successfully is to consider all the industries of our country as a unit —as one common industry—the various branches of which are to receive attention as they relate to the whole.

Let the President recognize himself as the administrator of an estate for a term of years, and let his administration be such as befits any great estate of varying interests. It is the duty of the administrator of a continued estate to collect only such moneys into the treasury as are needed for tlie current expense and needed improvements. Beyond this its in.nagenient should be given to improving tlie value of the estate. AV here there are large andvalued interests it requires the exercise of considerable business common sense to to adjust them SO as to bring ought not to give assistance, direct or incidentally, to any of its parts that can not be supported to the profit of all. torf* ‘ “Suppose there are linen factories that can not raise the flax and

make the linen as cheap as pan be bought from a neighboring , es--1 tate, than the factories ought to be closed up and flax raising cease, [and thb neededlineii be bought in the cheaper markets., J The difference in value between leach piece/ <sf linen purchased and what it would,Fost to make it by tire estate, is so much saved to the estate. Theadministratoi/s duty in quell cases is clear. It the administrator ascertains that Ihe can not produce linen .as cheap- ■ ly as his neighbor, because his industry, is in a crude condition, but that if he will defend his workmen from the injurious competition of his neighbor, he can in a ’ short time produce linen even i cheaper than his neighbor, his dutyin tnat case is also very plain. j After a few years of this business ' venture, if it proves that he makes “all his Own linen at a much cheapI er price than was paid the neigh- . b »r, and that Lis workmen receive ( nearly double the wages of his ! neighbor’s workmen, and |in addiI tion thereto he has developed an 1 industry that has added immensely to the value .of the estate, he ; certainly £shows himself to be a 1 prudent administrator, ■ In iB6O we jiroduced cotton at j great cost and little profit, but through defending the industry we are to-day selling cotton prints

(calico) at 7 cepts a yard that were then selling at 12 cents a yard and the workmen get nearly double the wages received at that 'time. Woolens costing 75 cents per yard were defended by the same law, now we buy them for -10 cents per yard, and the workmen are getting double the wages as before. At that time we bought two-thirds of our cot ton. and woolen goods abroad, and our own v,’. .rknn n went unemployed ami our fields tin tilled, but to-day we produce nearly al Lour cottons and woolens and give remunerative employment to* a million men. What is true of cottons and woolens is also true of iron and many other industries. They have in addition increased the wealth of the estate from sixteen thousand

millions dollars to nearly fifty thousand million dollars. - The administrator who would remove the defense behind which all these industries are thus developing ought to retire at the close of his first term. “As every citizen is' a consumer of cotton, woolen and iron goods, every one is benefitted, and as the workmen’s wages have been ii> creased, and a vast majority of our people are workmen, then the majority are doubly benefitted.” “Now I know you want to ask if these favorable results have followed every assistance to home Indus try/’ con t i ntied Air. Owen, “and 1 will answer, no. Each one is a separate business venture. The failure of some of them ought to be expected. The spirit of the movement is an economic one. It is to develop the estate so that it can produce its own wares and live within itself. Whenever it is found this cannot be done profitably the same spirit of economic administration demands the effort to cease. For instance, a heavy protection has been levied on sugar, but after twenty years it has not increased the growth of cane an acre, nor added anything to the common wealth. Only a handful of men are growing it, yet the tariff costs us a year. ..As. the defense of this interest has

for twenty consecutive years failed to develop it, the experiment has proven a failure, and the 850,000,000 has become a burdensome tax. On such a showing a faithful administrator has but one line of duty left. . Woolens are discarded in the South half the year, and cottons are almost unused in the North the other half of the year, but sugar is on the table of every family three times a day the year around. If the State needed revenue the sugar tariff ought to remain, for it is the most universally distributed burden in the government, but as we don’t need it, its continuance is legalized robbery of 850,000,000 a year in the interest of 17,000 planters.’’ . " - • “There is bound to be an unequal developement in the industries of so great a country and there should be, as a business measure free from all politics,-'a continous adjustment of these affairs. Free sugar with a few other commodities of smaller consideration would give us the needed reduction.” “Levying the revenues on business principles has furnished us all the moneys needed up to date, and the present-surplus is because we maintain one vast protection and some minot ones that have failed in their purpose. Cut these off and we have about the required revenue. The future may continue to develop that the maintainftnee of this estate on business principles will produce only the receipts needed for it® proper administra*

tion. The victory of statesmanship is to adjust tax so that it is no burden on fht citizen, and its operation adds to the prosperity and wealth of the people-and thejr government.’' L