Wisconsin herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1846-1849, 1847-11-13
NUMBER So.


We thank our neighbor for the gratuitous
advice on the subject of the Tariff. We
admire the candor of that portion
of the article which attributes the exports of
produce the last year, to the beneficial oper-
alton of the Tariff of 1916. Pray, Mr.. Free
Press, why have the exports of breadstuffs
in great measure stopped? If the Tariff
of 1916 caused these exports, ought they not
at this time to be increasing rather than d.
minishing! We are not, and never have
been the advocates of the Tariff of 1912,
exclusively, nor of any particular Tariff
law. II Is the principle of discriminating
duties, in favor of domestic or home indus
try that the Wings contend for; and we i'm
sst that the Tariff of 1916 discriminates for
the benefit of foreign fabrics and foreign
labor. Ii is Southern Tariff, aimed espe-
clally TO the encouragement and injury Of
Northern free labor, and two years will prove
its injurious effects.
Fortunately for the administration, and for
the country, the last two years have been
years of famine in Europe, and the excess
of imported foreign goods has been paid for
by the increased and enormous expectation
of breadstufis. Had il been otherwise, the
immense increase of importations from Eu-
rope, which the Free Press boasts of, would
have drained this country of its specie, closed
up many of our factories, and discharged the
laborers to seek employment on farms, SWELL
ing the vast agricultural production, at the
same time diminishing the number of con-
sumers. There is not more absurd propo-
stion maintained by certain Locofoco prints,
than that the reduction of our Tariff duties
creates foreign demand for our bYeadstuffs.
One would suppose from these reasons, that
the bread appetites of Englishmen depended
wholly on the scale of our Tariff duties
that they eat bread or go hungry, just in pro-
portion to the rise or fall of our duties on
their fabrics. At least, such is the argument
of the Free Press for il accounts for the
great export of breadstufls to England, sole
ly by the reduced duties of the Tariff of
is46l
Now whatever Of flour England buys, she
buys solely from compulsion. In n series of
years, she raises almost enough for her own
consumption, and Continental Europe pro-
duces surplus for export. Our only reli-
able foreign market is the West Indies and
South America-markets not in the least at
fcctel by our duties on manufactured arti-
ccs, and markets that buy of us for just the
same reason that other markets buy Of us
because we sell the cheapest. Ii our Tariff
operated as complete prohibition of Eng
lish goods, England would buy all her flour
of us if we could sell one penny barrel
cheaper than the dealers of other countries;
on the other hand, il our ports were wholly
free to English fabrics, England would not
buy ono barrel Of flour of US, did we ask
ono penny barrel for il more than Others
All the pretence that England buys flour Of
us because we have reduced our duties ON
her fabrics, is the vcriest humbug of modern
Locofocoism The Tariffs 1912 and 1916
have never prevented or made tho sale Of
single barrel of flour in Europe. SIS
But il matters much as to the future price
of brcadstuils, whether by inviting an mum
daiion of manufactures by the low duties OF
1916, the prosperity of our workshops is
destroyed. and the home market, always
stable and certain, when the mechanicat
trades prosper, is broken up and the bum
drcds of thousands Of operatives are driven
to farming, and thus made producers Of tho
breadstunfs of which they are now, while
working in factories, only consumers.
Let the doctrine of free-trade succeed as
the Southern Locofocos expect il too, and
the chief staple Of Northern Farmers will
ncithc, have paying market at home nor
abroad. Detroit advertiser.