Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1902 — TARIFF IN THE SOUTH [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TARIFF IN THE SOUTH

SIGNS OF AN ECONOMIC WAKENING PLAINLY VISIBLE. Democratic Newspapers Are Beginning; to Consider the Value of the Principle of Protection as Applied to Southern Industry and Agriculture. A number of newspapers published in Southern cities are engaged in a discussion which is certain to be productive of 'good results. It is a healthful sign when Democratic newspapers in that part of the country fall to discussing tariff matters as related to the interests and welfare of their own people. That is what is now going on. It should be kept up. Southern people are, as a rule, averse to taking their political cues from Republican newspapers, but they are willing to receive argument when advanced by journals of their own political faith. In this way they are likely to absorb some new ideas on the tariff question—ideas new to them, but very old and very strongly in favor in other parts of the country.

A considerable portion of the Democratic press of the South seems to have awakened to the fact that the Republican doctrine of protection to domestic labor and industry is worth while considering, in spite of the fact that it is Republican doctrine. These newspapers have begun to suspect that the protective tariff is not a sectional affair—not, as Calhoun used to preach, after he turned free-trader, a device for the enrichment of the North at the expense of-the South, but a policy which builds up and benefits all parts of the country. We find evidences of this gratifying discovery in a recent issue of the Charleston News and Courier, a rock-ribbed Democratic paper, as follows: “The Louisiana delegation, it need not be said, is wholly consistent with itself in supporting the application of the Dingley tariff to the products of the foreign Philippines, and it is right besides. There is no justice in the agricultural sugar interests of the South and West being butchered to make a reciprocity holiday for the manufacturing interests of the East. And the delegations from Western beet States will doubtless be forced to be of the sxme mind. Let well enough alone; or, if the holy tariff must be scaled, let it be scaled even.” Commenting on this expression the New Orleans Item says:

“This is in line with Senator McLaurin’s views and indicates that since South Carolina has become the foremost cotton manufacturing State of the South, her views are getting back to those entertained by John C. Calhoun before the days of slavery agitation. And yet, notwithstanding the necessity for a protective duty to defend and build up our cotton mills, we And every Democrat in the House, except three Louisianians, voting to break down the tariff wall and let the products of a hundred fertile islands and ten millions of cheap laborers into the United States in competition with our sugar and cotton.” The Item then proceeds to remind the Democrats of the Southern States that they are badly and wrongly represented on the tariff question in Congress. It points out that the cotton grower is as much interested in a protective tariff as the sugar grower. Even with the present 40 per cent duty on cotton goods, there is an import from foreign mills of fifty million dollars’ worth of cotton goods annually. If this tariff were removed every cotton mill of the South would go to ruin and the labor which has been collected by them into comfortable apd prosperous villages would be scattered to the wind. As soon as our our market is left open to the free competition of Great Britain and Germany the mills of Europe would fix the price of cotton, and our friends would then see the cotton planter not nearly, but entirely. in the hands of the Sheriff. How much cotton the Philippines can grow is not yet known, but it is certain that it can be grown in those islands, with native and Chinese labor, as easily as it is now grown in China. In the Olden days we used Nankin, or nankeen, as it was called, in this country, for clothing, and with the tariff wall removed we may again find it cheaper to get cotton goods from Nankin and Manila. The New Zealander, casting his nets from the ruins of London Bridge was looked upon as an amusing absurdity of Macaulay's, but it is not beyond the bounds of credulity to imagine the slant-eyed Manilans selling sugar and cotton. Quite in the same vein the New Orleans Picayune, a stanch Democratic newspaper, resents the action of Southern Democrats in Congress in refusing to act with Louisiana’s representatives In defending Southern agricultural and industrial interests against the unfair competition of cheaper labor in the Philippines, in Cuba, or anywhere else. Says the Picayune: - “If raw sugar were allowed to como in from abroad free of duty, the sugar producers of Louisiana and of the West, not being able to compete with the sugar of Europe and the tropics, made with pnuper lalior, would be driven out of business; but since the raw sugar, as It is Imported, has to tie refined In order to fit It for use. it would get to the Sugar Trust two cents cheaper; but there is no evidence that it would reach the consumers any cheaper than at present. It Is not to be supposed that the Sugar Trust Is operating only in order to give the people sugar at reduced prices. Nobody baa any grounds for the belief that

any manufacturing trust Is * phOan* thropic Institution, and it Is difficult to believe that anybody In Louisiana' outside of the trust wants to put money Into 1 the coffers of tljat powerful and greedy concern at the expense of the home-sugar producers.” _ZZ This is the right sort of talk, and there is going to be. more of it. It la au edifying spectacle to see Southern Democrats arguing with each other on tho tariff question. In such agitation and diversity of opinion lies the South’s best hope of reaching a sound, com-mon-sense, level-headed conclusion in favor of protection and prosperity. — American Economist. Protection with Reciprocity. There Is ample room for reciprocity alongside of protection, but the latter cannot and must not be supplanted. The American producer needs markets for his surplus products, but he is not ready to surrender the matchless home field in order to get them. Nor need he. The United States, with its industries developed under the fostering care of protection, has so much to sell and is in a position to buy In such large quantities that it can command favorable terms without sacrificing domestic Interests. It was Lord Salisbury, tho British who once lamented the fact that free trade had left England economically defenseless. He said In substance that his country could exact nothing from other nations in return for trade concessions, because it had already given up everything, and there was no opportunity for a quid pro quo. The United States, on the other hand, is economically impregnable. Protection has aided it in perfecting a wonderful industrial system, and it is In a position to .sell to all the world. It has almost illimitable resources in the form of products which the world needs. It is able to buy vast amounts of goods which other parts of the world supply. Tt holds a masterful place, and can make reciprocity minister to its own Interests aS'well as to those of its customers. This is thb principle contemplated by the statesmen who have favored reciprocity. The benefits are not to be onesided. If the United States yields something in the way of trade advantages the reciprocating nations must be equally obliging. Reciprocity will not be used to destroy what protection has built up. When we have reciprocity it must be with protection. That is sound Americanism and the true Republican policy.—Troy Times.

Woodman, spare that tree; Touch not a single bough. In youth it sheltered ma,— — And I’ll Protect it now. The Sad Louisiana Purchase. Added to the $15,000,000 paid France for Louisiana, there were over $12,000,000 in interest and allowed claims. Then reckoning the cost of the Indian wars, because of that purchase, at merely $500,000,000, and we have a grand total of $527,000,000. What a consummate blockhead anti-Phllippine purchasers must rate Thomas Jefferson. How can these antis even consent to reside longer in the land of the great original annexationist? But, worst of all, Thomas J. governed the purchased territory without the consent of the governed. What an outrage! Have Taken Their Stand. The Republican party and the country at large are not in a state of mind receptive to free-trade Interpretations of tariff utterances by McKinley and Roosevelt, nor are they cordially disposed toward any scheme which would use reciprocity as a club with which to demolish the entire structure of protection. They have taken their stand, end will maintain it, against any such perversion of the propositions of McKinley and Roosevelt.—Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. Don’t Stop the Wheels. If Congress, governed by the »pirit of evil, should take up the tariff question, there would be lobbying for higher duties hero and lower duties there, and manufacturers and importers would have to stand and mark time till they knew what the outcome of the turmoil and the strife was to be. To attempt to revise the tariff Is to put the brake on the wheels of the chariot of proe perity.—Tionesta (Pa.) Republican.