Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1888 — The Specious Plea for Raw Materials. [ARTICLE]

The Specious Plea for Raw Materials.

While their organs and orators are repeating the President’s later assurance that he and his followers are not engaged in a crusade of free trade, it still not do to overlook the tactics by which -they assail the- policy... or protection. These, like their arguments, will be found to emanate from the Cobden Club, whose patron saint advised that in assailing the protective policy some one point supposed be the most vulnerable should be singled out, as, when this was gained, further conquest would be easier. Following the advise of Mr. Cobden, the President and bis assistants have selected as the point for that attack what tliey designate, but omit to define, as thd “raw materials of manufactures,” and by argument, special pleading, misrepresentation, and evasion appeal for recruits to the ranks of the tariff reformers. The more conservative of them profess willingness to concede a moiety of protection to maufactures, provided the materials used therein are put on the free list. The significance of this concession becomes the more apparent when the attempt is made to determine what shall be.denomiated raw materials in the two most important industries—wool and iron. Where shall the raw material line be drawn in either of these industries? The farmer grows the wool. His raw material is naked land, id tilling which he must call to his aid the finished products of a long list of manufactures—machinery, wrgons, harness, tools—and after feeding the crops raised, by aid of these he turns out wool as his finished product. This ia turn is the raw material of the cloth manufacturer, whose finished product becomes the raw material of the merchant tailor.. So with iron, beginning at the ore ucti, xtrrtt lUitO Will g~~vwT tJ U g±± Irtreprocess of digging, transportation, smelting, rolling, refining, and into the thousand products of advanced iron and steel manufactures. The finished product of each in turn becomes the raw material for a more advanced manufacture by the other, aud by reason of such fact falls under the ban of the revenue reformer. No further illustration is needed to diseiover the tactics of the free trade promoters. Their demand for “free raw material” once conceded, that convenient phrase will be used to swell, the free list into dimensions beside which the Mills bill will appear diminutive. This plea for free raw materials is no more candid than other tactics of«-free trade emissaries. Their Mreal object is the complete overthrow of the policy o£ Protection to Home Industries and opening our markets to unrestricted com-

petition, and this the more candid of them have frequently admitted. The markets of the United States belong to our own people; and no change should be allowed in our tariff laws which will in any wise impair the advantages guaranteed to American citizens over alien competitors. This is both patriotism and sound business policy, “At Billy Owen’s Wheatfield meeting our Republican friends enjoyed a little row.”—Democratic Sentinel. Of course they enjoyed it, as none of them got hurt. How about those domineering and drunken fellowsjwho got thmnped ? That lady (?) who pulled the whiskers of another democrat, and that big mouthed democrat who neddled the lie that she pulled a Republican j— * Ijouisanna methods will not win in Jasper county,

JASPERITE.