Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1895 — MUSTY OLD THEORIES [ARTICLE]

MUSTY OLD THEORIES

MODERN DEMOCRATS DIFFER FROM THEIR DADS. - •; - if. V ~r--.- —t; Buncombe About Markets of the World and Free Raw Material— Cleveland Administration Ignores Just Debts. Free Trade Fallacies. The free raw material Idea received an impetus In 1854 because of Secretary Guthrie’s recommendation In his finance report of that year. The conditions, however, then and now were dissimilar. At that time we had a surplus which the Secretary was endeavoring to get rid of, while we now have a deficit. Mr. Guthrie proposed a free list modeled upon that of England.' His theory was that English manufacturers had aii advantage over bur own because they obtained from abroad certain raw material free of duty, and lie desired to remedy this, as he claimed, by an economic panacea. For instance, under the tariff act of 1846, wool was dutied at 30 per cent., and the Secretary proposed a 25 per cent, rate on all wool then costing over 16 and not over 50 cents a pound—the coarser wools. The Ways and Means Committee bill proposed a 15-cent flat rate and no grade to be free. The fact is that all the free articles were then used in the arts, but coal was not there, tallow was dutiable, and so were tin and terne plates and barley. In fact the English free list scrupulously avoided listing agricultural products free, except wool. In his report as Secretary of the Treasury in December, 1855, Mr. Guthrie returned to what was evidently a favorite theory of his. He suggested a reconstruction of the free list so as to include all the raw materials used in our manufactures, as proposed in his report of December, 1854, his reasons being the same—to enable our manufacturers to compete with those abroad who enjoyed free raw material. He was careful, however, not to include in his free raw material category anything, except coarse wool, that was the product of our agriculturists, grown on our soil.

His policy was not to place any such agricultural products on the free list, ns none of them were placed there in his proposed bill. In other words, aside from certain grades of coarse wool, his bill did not propose to give* the manufacturers free raw material at the expense of our farmers, as was done iu the law of 1894. Mr. Guthrie said: “If the free list shall be adopted, establishing fi'ee trade in the raw material. our manufacturers using this raw material, thus placed in equal competition with the manufacturers of other countries, will gradually and more and more possess themselves of a home market, exclude the foreign article aud reduce the revenue.” Now, suppose they did ? Suppose all these things did happen, what would become.of the great Democratic thewy of ttariSHsftie -of-fee mavti.t'ts I Wc the world for our raw products, and what would become of that other Democratic theory of cheap goods if we excluded the foreign dutied ajtlcle? We can understand what the learned Secretary would have us infer, but from the modern free-trade standpoint the success of his plan would demolish two very old and musty freetrade theories.

In 1824, when it was proposed to let in the coarser wools, Mr. Wright of Ohio said: “Only say in plain words, to the people, that you intend in all practicable cases to prefer the raw material from abroad to that raised at home, and the people will soon speak to you in a language that you will not be able to misunderstand. Laws are not for manufacturers alone, they must be for agriculturists also.” (Annals of Congress, 18tb, 2d, page 1746.)

The Administration’s 'Wool Policy. President Grover Cleveland was inaugurated in 1893, and the wool clip of that year was 364,000,000 pounds. During the two years of free wool agitation it fell, in 1895, to 264,000,000 pounds—a decline during Mr. Cleveland's administration of 100,000,000 pounds. The declared policy of the administration was made known at once in March, 1893. Among other features recommended was the removal of the wool duty, which was accomplished later by the enactment of theGorman tariff. The flock masters immediately became alarmed, the free trade price of wool was at once anticipated, and wool dropped between March, 1893, and March, 1595. measured by the standard grade of XX Ohio, from a little over 30 cents to about 15 cents. The wool growers, believing that there was no future for the wool industry, sold their (locks In countless numbers to the butcher*, so that the clip of 1894 fell off lo 328,000,000 pounds and that of 1895, just clipped, to only 264,000,000 pounds -a decrease, therefore, In the two since Mr. Cleveland's inauguration of* 100.000,000 pounds. TO make up for this deficit in the American clip we have been compelled to import wool to take the place of the American wool destroyed. Instead of only 55,000,000 pounds of raw jvool imported iu 1894, we imported 203,000,000 pounds iu 1895, and for the fiscal year of 189(5 will probably lrare to go to foreign nations for 268,000,000 pounds of raw wool. This takes no account of the Imports of shoddy, rags, waste, etc., which are entered as manufactures of wool. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1894>whieh was the last fiscal year uuder die McKinley law, we Imported only 173,774 pounds of shoddy, rag Siwaste, etc., but during, the fiscal year ending June 30, 1895, and almost all of it In ten'inonths after the passage of the Wilson law, we imported 14,772,090 pounds of shoddy, waste, etc., an Increase of pver 1,900 per cent

These larger Imports of shoddy were made necessary, first, by the destruction of the American clip, and second, by the low dntle9 upon manufactures of wool and their ad valorem feature which permitted undervaluation compelled American manufacturers to increase their use of shoddy. Never In the history of the wool business in America has It been necessary to use so many cheap admixtures In order to prevent our manufacturers from being driven out of their home market by the shoddy goods admitted under the ad valorem rates of the Gorman tariff law.