Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1889 — THE QUININE FOLLY. [ARTICLE]

THE QUININE FOLLY.

Aiming the numberless facts of the benefits of protection, which withstand, liice granite rocks, the waves and foam of free trade theories, sophistries and falsehoods, are that never in the history of the country was there a time when the wages of labor or the products of the soil would purchase so much of the necessaries and comforts of life, as now; and there is no other country on earth where workiugruen and farmers earn and enjoy so much as they do in this land of tariff protection.

What is the matter with the members of our Town Board that they don’t come up to time and put themselves on record on the question of raising the saloon license, in accordance with the new law ? The Supreme Court has fully settled the point thattheincreased license can be collected from all saloons now running, and a very large proportion of the towns of the state have already taken advantage of the law,audiaised their license tax. We have no doubt, whatever, that the vast majority of the people of Rensselaer are in favor of raising the license to the full limit of the law and they • would like to see their town councilmen show .their oolore on the question. The democratic papers which have-so much unfriendly criticism in regard to Judge D A P. Baldwin’s penchant for accumulating wealth, vfiuch.hone of them can say is done by dishonest methods, have nothing to say in regard to the Judge’s other and equally strong penchant for acquiring knowledge. He is a deeply barbed and studious man, and constantly embracing every ' opportunity to add to bis accumulations of learning. The LogansportjJoMrHal notes an action characteristic of ike Judge iu this particular, which is that himself and Mrs. .Baldwin have gone to Burlington, Vt, to take a summer’s<coursa k. a celebrated school of languages. “Never too old to learn”-seems to-be his motto.

HoW'OggravatiEgly near the Republican Town Board of fßensseiaei did come togiving loce.l democratic howlers «r. excellent opportunity'to raise their bazoos in one long, pecsisteut aud incessant howl The OSoand, <which stands four Republicans tooae Democrat, awarded a contract for a largeeulsrert, the other evening, and they awarded it to a Democrat, whose bid was nearly three hundred dollars above Use bidot another man, who is a Republican, and what is' more the man who .got the contract is a brother and partner of the only democratic member of the Board. Now if only the condition «f things had happened to hare been a Utile reversed; if a Democrat had made the lowest bid and the contract had been given to a Republican, on a three hundred dollar higher bid, and that Repabii- J

can had been a brother and partner in business of a Republican member of the Board, what an opportunity that would bare been for our democratic brethren! How they would have made Rome howl! It would have been a clear case of robbery of the town for the benefit of fellow partisans, and no other explanation of the Board’s action would have been listened to or tolerated, for an instant. In the canvass that immediately preceded the last Presidential election, the British loving portion of the American press incessantly asserted that our Western farmers were hopelessly bankrupt in consequence of the Protective Tariff. The New York Ti mes asserted that the mortgages on Illinois farms resulting therefrom amounted to $620,000,000, and the St. Louis Republic raised the figure to $3,000,000,000. Recent Government investigations show that the actual amount is but $123,738,098, one-fifth of which, or $20,633,072 is balance still due on purchase value of the farm. Jt is also shown that nine-tenths of the whole amount is held by the farmers and other fellow citizens of their own state, in Michigan the farmers’ indebtedness is less than a fifth of the value their farms are assessed at for tax purposes, and that valuation is supposed to be not onehalt their actual value. —Irish World.

A copy of lloltze’s Physiology, offered by the “Indiana Schoolbook Company ” is before us. The law requires the physiology to be “at least equal in size and quality as to matter, material, style of binding, etc.,” to Dalton’s Physiology. The book offered is less than half the size of Dalton’s Physiology, and is greatly inferior in every respect. It is a very cheap and superficial complication. It was copyrighted in 1874 and published in 1880 by a St. Louis house whioh stands behind this bid. Journal.

The two pre-eminent sillinesses of our neighbors of the free-trade press are- frequent assertions that the protective tariff affects the price of western coal and that the repeal of the tariff on quinine has reduced the price of the drug. AVe again will expose the quinine folly. The duty on quinine was repealed in 1879, and the price of the drug to-day is less than it was in 1879. “Therefore,” say oui free-trade neighbors, “the repeal of the tariff duty has reduced the price.” So let it stand for the sake of argument. But iu 1884, five years after the duty was repealed the price of quinine was $4.80 per ounce, “therefore, the repeal of the duty increased the price?” This latter conclusion is just as logical as the former. The truth that quinine is cheaper to-day than in 1879, because, and only because, there is a very plentiful supply of the bark from which quinine is made, and therefore the raw material is cheap. In 1879 there was a very [scanty supply of the bark, and therefore raw material was dear. Quinine is cheaper in London, in Amsterdam, in Paris, in Rome, as well as in Philadelphia, because, and only because, years ago the Dutch and English Governments made large plantations of cinchona bark trees in Ceylon and Java, and these plantations now have come into full bearing. The plantations were made in 1861. In 18G9 the small quantity of twenty-eight ounces of bark was exported from them for experimental purposes, and the quinine produced was far better than that made from South American bark; thenceforth the trade in Ceylon and Java barks became great, the exports from the two islands being:

Season 1881-8 8,913,585 pouwte Season 1883-4 12,004,534 l>OUn4« Seasscilßßs-6 16,376,150 pounds Seassoi 1880-7 16,237,757 pounds Soilarge an increase of the supply ai raw material oould have but ooe effect —that of reducing the price of the manufactured product all over the world. And this is j*6t what has happened.

The repeal of the tariff duty has had nothing to do with the price in America, as can be shown very easily. In L 842 there was a duty of 40 cents per ounce on quinine, and a farther duty of ten per cent, upon the baric from which it was made, and yet in that year it sold as low as SL6O per ounce, in 1880 there was no duty on either the bark or the quinine made from it, and it sold at $3.25 per ounce. The difference in prise is accounted lor by the difference in supply of the raw material. Iu 1842 the Booth American forests still yielded a plentiful supply of the bark; in 1880 that supply was very light, and the Ceylon and Java planta-

tions had not yet begun to yield. The truth is that the difference between English and American prices, has been the same whether there waa..an American tariff or not. In 1877 there wa&an American duty of 20 per cent, on quinine; in England there was no duty; quinine sold about 39—©er cent, higher in-America than in London. In 1879, and ever since, no duty was collected on quinine in either country. In 1879 the lowest American price was $2.60; lowest English prices 2.46. Clearly the repeal of the duty did not make any difference m ratio of price between the two countries. It has been so ever since. In 1888 the lowest American price was 47 cents per ounce, the lowest English price was t 42 cents. Now, mark the absolute folly of the free trade assertion. In 1879, before the repeal of the duty, the lowest American price was $2.60. Last year the lowest price, there being no duty, was 47 cents. “Free trade did it,” say the free traders. Oh, miserable fools and blind! In that same year, 1879, the average price in London was $2.96, and in last year the lowest price was 42 cents. Did “free trade do it?” No. The English quinine was as free from duty in 1879 as in 1888. The repeal of the duty on quinine has not lowered the price one-fourth of a cent per 100 tons weight. But it has done this: it has increased our imports of quinine from 17,549 ounces in 1878 to 1,055,764 ounces in 1888. It has sent about $1,000,000 a year of American money to Europe ever year, and has not cheapened the price to the American consumer.-Inter-Ocean.