Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1904 — POLITICAL COMMENT. [ARTICLE]

POLITICAL COMMENT.

Free Trade by Stealth. A clear view of the merits and demerits of the proposition to open up trade in competitive products between the United States and Canada is set forth in an editorial in the Des Moines Capital. Editor Young, a clear and vigorous thinker on economic questions, rightly commends reciprocity in natural products because such products in the case of Canada are wholly competitive. Both countries have a surplus of the same sort of products, and there is nothing to swap. We cannot, as the Capital insists, swap wheat for wheat, corn for corn, hogs for hogs, cattle for cattle, butter for butter, eggs for eggs. OF such products Canada would take from us absolutely none, for she already produces more than she can consume. That would be reciprocity like Touelistone’s ill-roasted egg—“ail on one side." Canada could market her surplus foodstuffs conveniently and-profitably across the border line, and the United States eould find no market for such products on the Canadian side of the bonder. For a trade dicker so lopsided as this there might be some compensation if Canada were_dlsposed to lower her tariff bare so as to admit a larger volume of manufactures from the United States, though this would in the end bargain of doubtful expediency when the American farmer should discover that he was compelled to bear the brunt of Canadian compe-

tition in older that the American manufacturer might have special advantages in Canada. But Canada does not propose to do anything of the kind. What She wants to do is to sell in the big nearby market her surplus products of farm, fishery’ and mine, and dp all of her own manufacturing. All natural products are cheaper in Canada than in the United States, because Land and labor are cheaper there than here. Canada would be a big gainer by this kind of reciprocity, and it is the only kind of reciprocity that is at all popular in Canada. The Capital sizes up the situation accurately when It says: “'Reciprocity as a general proposition is now simply used as a means of giving up part of the American home market to the foreigner. Some people are attempting to do by reciprocity what they have been unable to do by freetrade.” This is the bare, bald fact of the matter, whether it relates to Canadian or any other scheme of reciprocity in competitive products.—American Economist.

The Mart with the Fpade. All the influences of the country Which are hostile to the President, whether for reasons political, personal or financial, nre arrayed against the Panama treaty. The enemies of Theodore Roosevelt—and we love him for the enemies he has made—know that If he starts the Isthmian canal his rencmination nnd re-election are assured. No power could stop him, save death. The inan with the spade! Here would be a campaign slogan with the ring of certain victory. Americans like men who do things. The ftithmlan canal stands first in the list of things that the country desires from Washington. The Democrats, torn with despair, jealousy nnd greed for party spoils, have seized upon the treaty In the forlorn hope of overthrowing It nnd the President with It. The great transcontinental railroad Interests will give the sinews of wnr to the opposition. Republican politicians, drairing Roosevelt's downfall, have seized upon the opportunity. Al) the enemies of the President nre in line for the attack. Before the Inst hurdle the whole pack lias milled. These persons, desperate nnd unscrupulous, would Imperil the country's welfare in their selfish scramble for money, power nnd spoils. They have the Insolence to weigh their own selfish, contemptible interests agnlnst the nation’s well being. Here Is .a question which should be tdsgrscled above the mire of politics.

It is not a question for party squabbling. It is a question of patriotism. In the old days all men united on the broad principles of patriotism. It will be an everlasting disgrace to Congress, to the Senate in particular, if it does not uphold the President. Let the men in Congress turn deaf ears to the chicanery of a scheming Democratic politician who would be President—deaf ears to the palsied questioning of the Republican Senator whose distinguished services are fast being overshadowed by the halting doublings of age and possible imbecility. ” The American people are for the u an with the spade.—Chicago Journal. A Time-Worn Assumption. There was a time when the nimbletongue free trade orator in this country told the American farmer that the price of wheat was fixed in Liverpool, but since the discussion of the question, Is the tariff a tax? has grown hot in England we find the Cobdenites of that country saying “the variations from hour to hour and day to day only prove to us that putside causes in the world’s supply or demand entirely rule these changes.” We fear that in the face of such an admission the timeworn assumption that the Liverpool market can rise superior to the law of supply and demand will no longer serve its old purpose, and that the free traders will have to abandon the at-

tempt to frighten the American farmer into Cobdenism by making him believe that the British have the power to elevate or depress the prije of his commodities at will. —San Francisco Chronicle.

Th-mghts for Wage Earners. According to the last census there were 512,734 manufacturing plants in the United States, employing 5,719,137 people, to whom were paid in wages $2*735,430,840. The output of these factories was $13,039,279,566. New York leads the list with 78,658 plants, Pennsylvania second with 52,185. lowu had then 14.819, and employed 64,217 laborers, and paid in wages over twen-ty-eight million dollars. This State has more factories and employs more people in them than all the other 'States, except New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, New’ Jersey, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan. A protective tariff makes it jtoHHfble for lowa factories to live and offer employment to 64,217 people. Were the goods created by cheap labor admitted free of duty Into this country there would be fewer local factories in this State nnd fewer wage earnetn in them. These are thoughts for lalrnrIrg men to ponder over when fivetraders want their votes. —Davenport Republican.

The Reni Situation. A writer in the London Post says: “A ton of American steel may be directly dumped in the Britsh market, or It may lie Indirectly dumped by selling at or below cost price to the American manufacturer ‘of sccontlary , products (tools, machinery and so fortln, who is attacking the defenxlras British manufacturer.” This Is Intended ns a rejoinder to those free-traders in England who have pooh-poohed the fear of dumping and who shy that there is no reason why the workfngimn of five United Kingdom should lie apprehensive of the United State*, because our manufacturing system is crude nnd we sluill be able to export only nearly raw products, such as sled billets, etc. 'Hie Post writer has a lietter kkn of the real situation.—San Francisco Chronicle. Protection!*! and Prosperous. A free trade contemporary remarks tliat every Industry of France enjoys a high degree of prosperity, and asks: “Has Franco made her tariff rates exorbitant?” France has always |»e?n a protcctkmlrt country. The savings of her people are proportionately the largest in the world.—Bt. I»ui» GlobeDemocrat