Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1888 — WHICH SHALL IT BE? [ARTICLE]

WHICH SHALL IT BE?

Protection or Free Trade? These are the principles involved in thia campaign: la protection right? la it wise and a good business policy for Americana to support and indulge in, or is free trade advisable? If protection is right im>rincinle and wise in practice, let’s keep it. If wrong or injudicious, it zhould be abandoned. It is not a question of surplus or the rate per ce.nL of duty that should be levied, unless it is sunk to the level of a “tariff for revenue only,” and that does not in the least involve the principle of protection to American labor and American industries. It is a question of markets, from the standpoint of both parties. The Democrats argue that, the tariff is a tax on the consumer on whatever he wants to buy. This is, at best, but a one-sided or half-sided view of every person’s interest “The poor consumer’’ is an object of their deep sympathy. Wbat about the producer? Who are the producers and consumers that are so vitallv interested in A mgrican markets? Are they separate and distinct people, or are they one and the same? If not,who are the exceptions? Every man (except the exceptions) is not only a consumer, but a producer also. He is a producer first This is his first interest He must produce something before he can buy and consume. He mn-t sell something to put money in his pocket before he can buy anything. No matter whether it is the product of the farm, the factory, the shop, the product of his brain or the product of his muscle, or the two combined, if his product is the caily labor of his good right arm, he must sell it before, he has anything to buy with. He is first interested in that market which pays him the most That policy which helps a man to increase his income is his nest policy., It is a laudable ambition upon the part of any man to try and honestly increase his receipts; and whatever amount bis income may reach, he can spend it all in any country, high tariff or free trade, if he chooses; but his chances for saving a part of it is best when it reaches the greater sum. It is what a man saves that makes him wealthy. No law can make a person economical, and no law can make him save much if he receives but little. Suppose he saves, say, twenty per cent, of one-fiith.of his income. If he receives s2,< 00 per year, he can spend $1,6u0 and have $4 i) left; if SI,OOO, he can spend SBOO and will remain; but if he receives but SSOO, he can only spend 140 , and have bat SIOO more at the end of the vear than when he began, and soon. At $1 per day for 30 > working days, by being very economical and saving the one-fifth, be could only lay up S6O per year. .. It needs no student of political econi omy or MUls bill to teach so plain a lesson. The laboring men of the United States are t pre-eminently producers, and that policy which enables them to increase their incomes, that they may not only live well, but save something for old age, is certainly for tbeir best i nterests. If they domt receive it, they can neither spend nor save it The only really exceptions to this are the beggars, the gamblers and those who having retired from toil on a liberal surplus. They are the strictly consumers, with no interest on the side of thte producers. The millionaire, who having ceased from toiling, is a consumer, and, unlike Grover Cleveland, they regard a surplus as a thing to be proud of. Their worry is not to get rid of it but to buy cheap and keep it growing. lam in favor of that policy in America that enable Americans to increase their incomes, and that’s the “effect'oTV good markeUrd sell in. With the money in one’s pocket the American people may be trusted to buy well, and it matters little what articles cost if one.has nothing to buy with. There is no country on the footstool where articles of necessity can be produced cheaper than in the United States; if incomes are reduced and the price fade to the level of English labor. There’s no middle ground between sh« extremes—a protection that protects or absolute free trade. They are distinct principles. A tariff for revenue only is taxation to carry on the’Government devoid of the protective principle. Free trade is a tax in advance on incomes, great or small, but proportionally greater on the small income. The question of surplus and the question of taxation to support the Government are distinct from the principle of protection. If it is wrong to protect one’s own, wrong to enable the American producer, whether a laboring man or an employer of labor, to increase his income, to sell his product in a good market, then a protective tariff is fcrong. But, believing it right in principle and judicious in policy, I have the honor to Subscribe myself,

A REPUBLICAN.