Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1895 — REFUTES FREE TRADE [ARTICLE]

REFUTES FREE TRADE

EFFECT OF THE GORMAN TARIFF < 2 UPON FINANCE. Cost of Ocean Transportation No Ironcer Adequate Protection to American Manufacturers —Ideas of a West Virginian Upon Present Tariff. Why Money Is Scarce. I read in the papers that business is reviving in the cities and manufacturing centers. If that is a fact I wish the agricultural could receive some of the medicine that is stimulating Other -industries— Never in my day have I ever seen business as dull in this county as at the present time. Farm produce cannot find a market anywhere except at ruinously low prices. Potatoes, which form our staple product, 30 cents per bushel; cheese brings about 7 cents per pound; eggs, 12 cents per dozen; butter, 14 to 16 cents per pound at the stores, and paid in trade at that. Money is as scarce as the proverbial “hen’s teeth”; even the most well-to-do farmers say that it is almost impossible to get money enough to meet current expenses, many being obliged to contract debts to provide the necessaries of life for themselves and families. As for men who depend upon their daily labor for the support of themselves and families, it is almost impossible for them to obtain a day’s work anywhere, for the simple reason that men who usually hire work done upon their farms cannot find money to pay their help. All this trouble can be traced to the working of the Gorman tariff law. We never before experienced such a dearth of money or such stagnation in business. But the lesson, though a tough one, has had its effects. I know of many men who never voted anything but the Democratic ticket who declare that they will never vote for a party again that will cause such financial distress as the Democratic party inaugurated on March 4, 1893. These complaints are but the mutterings of the great storm that will sweep this land in November, 1896, and sweep from newer, and I hope forever... the free-trade, buslness-de-stroying Democracy. Until that time comes there can be no hope of general prosperity to the people of our land. MARCUS W. M’KELLIPS. Holland, N. Y. The Cost of Transportation. To those free traders and tariff reformers who are inclined to point out the great natural protection which is afforded to the American manufacturer by the 3,000 miles of ocean that roll between hirn'ancl his foreign rival, the tables of ocean freight rates would be a very profitable study. The freight rate given by the Cunard line for cottons in 1895 was $2.44 per ton on 2,240 pouuds andr the same onwoolen goods. Let us see how much protection this affords to the American manufacturer of cottons or woolens. A very moderate estimate of the average value of manufactured cottons Or woolens would be 50 cents per pound, making the value of a ton $1,120. The freight for goods whose value would be $1,120 would be only $2.44, or about one-fifth of 1 per cent. Suppose the value to be $1 per pound. The freight would then be only a little over onetenth of 1 per cent., hardly a sufficiently great protection to warrant and extensive cut in tariff schedules. A further study of the freight tables would show revelations even more startling to these dreamers, who apparently take the cost of a first-class cabin fare on an ocean greyhound as a basis for their estimates of the cost of transportation for manufactured products, a class of transportation with which they may perhaps bo more familiar. Let them look at the rates of the Cunard line for 1890 and they will find that the rate of freight on cottons and woolens was $4.24 per ton, and that the rate in-1885 was $6.11 per ton. In other words, the rate of freight on cottons and woolens in 1895 was less than ♦»0 per cent, of what it was in IS9O, and cniy 40 per cent, of what it was in 1885. Tills, at least, will give an idea how’ freight rates have decreased even in the last ten years. Unfortunately, careful records of freight rates were not kept in the earlier years, though there are not a few suggestive items. But though we capnot show in exact figures the tremendous decrease in all freight rates, we have, nevertheless, a basis for reckoning. The figures of to-day prove that freight rates on some lines of goods are less than 1 per cent, of the value of the goods, while, as we have said before, we have Hamilton’s word that in his day freights averaged 15 per cent, of the value of the goods, while Jefferson placed the rate even higher. The relation of the cost of transportation to the protective tariff system is a subject which has been too much disregarded, but it Is a question which embodies in itself a whole system of economics. Bennett’s Cry for ’h?eace.” The figures show that the Wilson tariff is a good revenue producing measure. The only trouble is with the internal revenue, which decreased in -the last fiscal year $3,543,769. If more revenue is needed in 1896 It should, therefore, be obtained by increasing Internal revenue rates. - “Let us have peace,” rather than Republican tariff tinkering.— New York Herald. As the free traders have objected to a comparison of Imports for the last fiscal year with that of 1894 as not being fair, why Is it fair to compare the revenues raised by customs during the same periods? “Let lis have peace,” says James Gordon Bennett, "rather than. Republican tariff tinkering.” The • r * - •- • ' -

Herald has certainly got by far 'the worst of it in all Its tariff arguments, and we do not wonder that Mr. Bennett cries for “peace” rather than for good will toward his countrymen. What Fools and Free Traders D<?. The leopard does not change its spots, and the New York Evening Post is the same bitter enemy of a protective tariff that it ever was. It said, June 21: “If there is any possibility that the Republicans are going to let the country stagger along under the ‘tariff of infamy’ after they come into power, the sooner it is known the better. And if the tariff is really to be changed, the country ought to know in what respects just as soon as possible. Is the duty to be restored upon imports of wool, for example? Such questions as these will agitate the minds of business men of all parties if the Republicans announce positively that they are going to ‘tinker’ the tariff? 1 —-■ The Evening Post may feel assured that the Republican party, as soon as It has the power to do so, iu both House jiM Senate, will obey the popular mandate, given in thunder tones at the election of 1894, to protect American industry. It has upheld that policy in times of disaster; it will not abandon it now, when it is about to enter again, ami with renewed vigor, into power. But protectionists will not gratify the enemy by frittering away time.on the details of tariff revision. It would please free traders to attempt to create discord, no doubt, but they must supply their own ammunition. All “revenue reformers” and the like are united in their purpose to overthrow protection as the national policy. The Evening Post, for instance, predicted that tlfe abolition of the duty on wool would undermine the entire protective system. But woolen manufacturers continue to be stronger protectionists than ever. They know that the protective policy benefits the whole country and, as patriotic citizens, they uphold it. Protective tariff revision will not agitate “the minds of business men of all parties.” It Is only when fools and free traders tinker that the whole country justly feels alarm.

The Real Issue Remains. The money question is being agitated to divert the public mind from the real issue—the tariff. The two Questions are bound to go hand in hand. The Democrats want to keep the people from thinking about the tariff for a few years, and tliey hope that in the meantime the country, with its wonderful resources, will have regained its lost business sufficiently to throw the people off the track. The Democrats hope, by agitating, the public will forget its troubles brought on by their miserable, incompetent tariff tinkering. It is plain as day we must have a protective tariff in order to prosper. What care we what kind of money we have if we have no business to transact with any kind of money? We do nofwant Wall street buying or selling our money, and in that way injuring our business, but the first of all questions with America must be that we enact laws which will Improve our business. And those laws are mainly protective measures.— Times, Leavenworth, Kansas. Col. Thompson Talks. Colonel William B. Thompson recently gave his opinion of the Gorman tariff in cleqr, terse teriqs. “I think,” said he, “it was a barefaced sacrifice of the general Interests for the personals; of business at large for political rewards and preferments. And lam from West Virginia, and, like Mr. Wilson of that State, was in the Confederate army." Col. Thompson, who speaks thus, is president of the National Lead Company, which has thirty-two large productive concerns throughout the country, with plants worth, in the aggregate, $24,000,000, and stocks of raw material and finished stuff worth $4,500,000. His company disburses millions of dollars annually for labor, and by the production of lead and linseed oil adds greatly to the public wealth. Tlie opinions of sucli a man should have due weight with free traders who are sincerely in quest of light on the tariff question. A Word from Washington. We hope the protectionists will remember the young State of Washington in tlie matter of the protection of our general Interests, especially as affected by Canadian products, such as coal, lumber, shingles and other products. We desire a heavy duty on those artj 5 cles, so as to protect our working people on this side of tlie line. The times are improving locally, but no thanks to the present administration. A ship canal has been commenced, which will expend about $7,000,000 and put a good deal of money afloat Long live the G. O. P. and hasten protection and give us William McKinley for our next President. MARTIN MONOHAN. Monohon, King’s County, Wash. A Word from a "Ripper.” The better times have checked the silver craze. They will likewise put a veto on tariff-ripping.—New York World. Certainly. “Tariff-ripping” is a thing of the past. It died with the free trade , ripper's Congress. Tariff for protectlon builds up; a free trade tariff does the ripper’s work and destroys. Why They Enlisted. There is up more talk of the “army of the uneinployed.”—New York World. Of course there is not. The Congressional free-traders hpye been consigned to oblivion. There never would have been any talk of the "army of the unetoployed" had they always remained there. A Sure Winner. Keep “Old Tariff” In front and you will win.—World, Cleveland, Ohio, June 15, 1895.