Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 October 1905 — POLITICAL COMMENT [ARTICLE]

POLITICAL COMMENT

McKinley’s Idea. ' If the business interests of the country want reciprocity along protection lines they can have it if they will only agree on some feasible plan—something they never have been able to agree on before. If they want tariff revision, they can have it also on the same united demand for it, but It can be put down as certain that whatever is done in the way of tariff revision or reciprocity will not be done along free-trade lines. The reciprocity of Blaine, McKinley and Roosevelt is all right. It is based upon the Republican protective policy. As President McKinley said at Buffalo; “To take from our neighbors such of their products as wo can use without harm to our Industries or labor; in other words, such of their products as are not produced by our own labor, and obtain in exchange markets for the class of merchandise which we desire to sell, and which the countries In question require for their own use, differs materially from the reciprocity of 1855-1850, which was merely freetrade in articles of mutual production, articles which, when imported, compete with jhe home producer.” This was President McKinley’s idea of reciprocity, and it is the kind that every Republican can indorse. It was Blaine’s policy, and if the Chicago convention will adopt it as a basis for its reciprocity platform nobody can object. It is Republican doctrine, pure and simple. In the language of President Roosevelt at Minneapolis: “As a nation, we stand in the very forefront of the giant international industrial competition of the day. We cannot afford by any freak of policy to forfeit the position to which we have thus triumphantly attained by the present protective policy.”—Kewanee (Ill.) “Star-Courier.”

The World’s Workshop. At a time when an effort may be made to create the Impression that we are in danger of losing our foreign markets for manufactured products this week’s bulletin of the Census Bureau contains some startling statistics. The value of manufactured goods exported from the United States during the fiscal year ended June 30th was $543,620,297, against $452,415,921 in 1901, the next largest year. In 1895 the value of manufactured exports was $183,595,743. The increase in ten years has thus been practically threefold. As far back as 1878 the figures were $123,807,196, and in the seventeen years to 1895 they increased but $60,000,000. In 1896 commenced the great rise, and, although there have been temporary recessions, the total has risen until now the percentage of manufactured exports is 40 per cent of the total exports, against the former rate of less than 20 per cent.

While statesmanship demands a look to the future and an insistence upon the wisdom of the Blalne-Mc-Kinley policy of reciprocity In noncompetitive products, the condition of American manufactures is not so seriously threatened by any loss of our foreign markets as to form any basi3 for tariff revision under the guise of a dual tariff. With manufactured exports $90,000,000 greater than in any previous year, the export trade cannot be said to be sick and languishing, though steps to guard its future are meritorious and worthy.—Cincinnati “Star.” Democratic “Harmony.” Democrats are the same everywhere in this country, as was illustrated recently at the Tammany convention in New York. Mayor George B. McClellan, the standard bearer of the party, made a speech in which he said: “As a Democrat I believe that the community is best governed w'lilch Is least governed and that where Individual effort and private enterprise can accomplish the same results as government the government has ,no right to Interfere.” As soon as the applause that followed this speech has died away the convention got down to business and passed a ringing municipal ownership resolution. “Public ownership," It said, “is no longer a campaign catchword; but a principle applied and in operation in this the greatest of American cities.” The convention and the candidate are to be congratulated on this entirely successful Illustration of Democratic harmony. For this little episode shows the party Just as harmonious as the rest of Its history does. The reason it has never accomplished anything is that it has never been able to agree on anything except to disagree. Mayor McClellan had uttered a magnificent Democratic sentiment and the convention bad an opportunity to adopt it and share the credit for it, but it was a Demociatlc convention and necessarily took the opposite view. Chronicle.

Lack* Luciditjr.

The Philadelphia “Inquirer” in commenting on the resolution adopted by the fake reciprocity convention, says it lacks lucidity, but that it probably meana “that the actual tariff Is to tie the maximum, and coneestiona are to be made in favor of satlons who make concessions to us.”

In that case, what would we do witlk Germany? Should we regard her conventional tariff as a concession? If we did we should be nicely buncoed, for It is higher in every case than the present tariff. The only recourse left to us in dealing with such nations is to give them a dose of their own medicine. Let us make a maximum tariff if we are forced to, from which we can recede in dickering, but let no nation bulldoze us into an abandonment of our policy of protection.—* San Francisco “Chronicle.” Free Raw Materials. The one definite and aggressive note sounded at the Chicago reciprocity convention was the demand for free raw materials. How that carries us back to the Cleveland campaigns. The men who voice the demand are just about twenty years behind Grover Cleveland. They are trying to reverse Garfield’s declaration and have the Republicans build their camp fires on the ground which the Democrats had abandoned. If these men were old enough when Cleveland was a candidate they either voted for him or should have done so. It is our opinion that if there is a fraud In the category of tariff discussion it is this demand for free raw materials. The manufacturer grasps all the protection he can get, which our thorough belief in protection does not prevent us from recognizing as being sometimes too still holding on to it demands the further advantage of free raw materials. His cry is free hides, free wool, free iron ore, free coal, free everything, except that which he produces. There is no such thing as raw material. Wool is the farmer’s finished product as truly as cloth is the manufacturer’s or a coat the tailor’s. For the sake of the general good the American people have been willing to place duties on manufactured products in full recognition of the fact that selfish men often take advantage of them and make unjust profits by reason of the tariff. When the selfishness of the direct beneficiaries of our tariff laws reaches that state of sublimity which causes them to demand that other interests be sacrificed for their benefit they are getting on dangerous ground. When w r e have free raw materials the products manufactured from them will be free.—Creston (la.) “Advertiser.”

A Dangerous Power. The recent reciprocity treaties have failed in the Senate because they appeared to affect injuriously the local industries of one or more States, whose Senators stood out against them, intrenched behind the Senate rules. To pass a maximum and minimum tariff bill will require only a majority instead of a two-thirds vote. But the power it would put into the hands of the executive might be used to affect Injuriously the industries of many States. The result uhdoubtedly would be a combination of all the Senators the local industries of whose States could possibly be affected by the minimum tariff proposed. Even without raising the constitutional question of the right of Congress to delegate any part of its taxing power to the President, it is hard to see how such a bill would have any better chance In tb§* Senate than a specific reciprocity treaty. It would probably not have as good a chance. —Chicago “InterOcean.” Reciprocal Trade Kean Its. A free-trade paper published In New York, which supported the Cuban reciprocity treaty, now advocates what It calls the only really reciprocal trade —namely, the exchange of competing products. It derides “such a reciprocity arrangement as that secured by the Hawaiian sugar growers, because It Inured to the exclusive benefit of that Island.” When foolish Republicans were pushing for Cuban reciprocity, which has produced the same results, this same Journal “sicked” them on. Those who followed its advice have now the pleasure of considering the results which follow accepting suggestions from opponents.—San Francisco “Chronicle.”

Quite Likely. It may be that the consumers of meats would not be sure of sharing in any benefit that might come from removal of restrictions on American meats In other markets. Would not such removal increase the foreign consumption of our meats and thus afford a reason for again and again putting up tho prices here at home? Has the history of the lire stock trade of America given stock growers any cause for belief that any Improvement in markets abroad would add a cent to the price of live stock here at home. Have stock growers any assurance that they would ever receive benefit from lending their influence to reciprocity?—New York "Commercial." Has an Oainoui Hound. “In the last analysis this whole movement means tariff reform,” says the Chicago Chronicle, with reference to the reciprocity gathering in Hint city. “Tariff reform” has an emlnous sound to citizens whose memories hark back to the days of Grover Cleveland's administration. Maybe it is because of its sound that the phrase is not used by those advocates less frank than the Chronicle. —Burlington “llawkeye."