Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 September 1888 — The Reduction of the Tariff. [ARTICLE]

The Reduction of the Tariff.

Every reduction of our tariff has been followed by a decrease of domestic production, and a decrease, or litter loss, of the wages of labor. No exception to this invariable relation of cause to effect can be found in the history of the United States. Dead sure is it that if Mr. Mills’ tariff reduction bill . becomes a taw, the English, Belgian, German and French manufacturers will take off from,the prices of goods they send here just the amount of the tariff reductions. “On you, workingmen, then, will fall tluTcrushing“weigtrt of tire president’s first step toward free trade. For our -manufacturers will liave to meet those reductions in price or go out of business. If they keep their establishments open, they will be compelled, however much they may hate to do it, to reduce your wages to the level of the wages paid by tlieir competitors in England, Belgium, France and Germany. They will be obliged to do this or be bankrupt. You know the difference in the wages paid tor skilled industry in America and in Europe. It is killing. The difference is one-half, ves. often mote tliao one-half/ —New York Sun (Dem). Hugh R. Crawford, a strong anev man. of New York, was appealed to and for the third party managers. They received this scorcher in reply: “I would consider it a shame and a disgrace to aid the Unloyal free trade Democratic rarty by voting with the Prohibitionists. have given my limited means to the cause of temperance, hut 1 do not projtose to aid and al>et the promulgation of all kinds-of crime by assisting the Democratic party and the whisky ring of auf state, as led by Governor Hill and its exponent, President Cleveland, by throwing away my- vote on Fisk and Brooks.” Things are very cheap to consumers in free trade India. You only have to pay 15 cents for a whole leg of mutton. The only drawback is if you work for wages it will take you three and three-fourth.} days to earn the 15 cents. Then you will eonglude that a leg of mutton is too rich for your stomach and will dine on boiled rice and corn cake. To buy a leg of mut-, ton for Sunday dinner would bankrupt a family of laborers in India; and yet Mr. Cleveland anil the Democratic house of representatives want free trade so that the farmers of this count rd will have to compete with this cheap lands. Chief Arthur, of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, simply corroborates the views of all sensible men when lie says "that Gen. Harrison's course in f-lie railroad troubles of the west was consistent, and his record satisfactory to railroad men. If Gen. Harrison possesses one characteristic which is preeminent, -it is a keen sense of justice, and this hits made him at all times an intelligent frieud of workingmen.”—Buffalo Ex- ,, . . . Cheapness is the bait they hokl out to catch voters. The wage worker is to work all the year for cheap wages that he may buy once- a year a cheap suit of cloth«>s. When he comes to Compare What he has saved by that operation we don’t believe he will be Very much •dated pv«r hi* profit#,—lrfeh World,