New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-07-03
T TO the present war, was as follows:

iSs.... Is isii....... 4 sO4 1850. 50
iS BIZ. 81 iSi7... . ! g is5j... s.
On the authority Of this table we stated that
notwithstanding the great increase in the sup
ply of gold and Notwithstanding the market for
food that had been opened in California aud Aus
tralia, the average price in this market was
lower in the four years prior to the war IN
Europe, and lower in the last of these years,
as we believed, than it had been since the
calamitous times that preceded the enactment
of the protective tariff of 1924 To prove that
such was not the case The Era produces pom
derous mass of figures, credited to Wing
journal, showing that in January, 1913, the price
in Baltimore had been still lower than it was
here in 1853. The claim presented by that
particular month and in that particular city for
consideration by our contemporary was too
strong to be overlooked. January is month
in which the navigation of the Patapsco is gen.
orally impeded by ice, and in which conse-
quenty, there is usually the greatest difference
between prices there and here. 1t has, too the
advantage of being the nearest to that time of
imminent bankruptcy and ruin produced by
British Free-trade in 1S4l.2-and yet it could
be safely placed under what our cotemporary
calls ga Wing tariff" Now, did not the writer
of this article knO,o that the domestic market
for labor and its products had declined
enormously in the Free-trade years 1871 and
1922 Did he not kn0D that throughout
1912 men were everywhere seeking for employ
ment and unable to find it Did he not kaOp
Al, . h. i -, tho l,ko
there had been a gre decline in the power to
sell food, and that it was to the suferngs
of farmers, labOrers, mechanics, and indeed of
all classes Of society that tho passage OF the act
OF 1912 had been duel Did he not knop
that its passage had been little more than
an order to pat fuel under the boiler, and
that steam could not be expected until rea-
sonable time after the fire had been applied
Did he rot knolo that time had been required to
bring about the opening of mills and furnaces,
and the creation of a market for labor and food
All these things he must KAYE known, aud yet
he here brings forward quarters Winter prices
in Baltimore to prove the inaccuracy of state
ment of a years prices in this City-snd the 10 "
prices that have followed necessarily from the
destruction of the domestic market under British
Free trade as an evidence of error in the Ameri-
can systemby help ofwhich that marketwas again
to be created 1t had required years Of action in
the British Free.trade direction to destroy the
motion that had been produced from 1924 to 1885;
but our contemporary fails to see that it must have
required other years of action in the opposite
direction to get upon the machine the same mo-
mentum that had thus been lost. Were the Office
Of The Era burned down he would think it un-
reasonable in his subscribers to expect him to
be working in full force the day after resolu-
ton had been adopted to rebuild it, but he re-
fuses to apply to the affairs of nation the law
that he knows to be true in regard to his own.
The course of proceeding above pointed out
too closely resembles, as he may be assured,
that of The journal Of Commerce to be pursued
by any writer claiming as does our cotemporary
and as we doubt not he is to be actuated solely by
desire to find the truth. We had exhibited
the working of the fourth, fifth, sixth and
seventh years of the working of the act of 1916,
and had shOwn that until the war broke out it
had been gradually bringing about the low prices
Witnessed prior to the act of 1912, aud as a set
VI Jul contemporary P.CEcHt9 d spectrum OI
the low prices which that tariff had been in
tended to correct A cause that requires ofits
advocates the pursuit Of such course must be
very poor one as our contemporary must, we
think, admit. The man who feels that his cause |
is right, feels always that he can afford to state
honestly all the facts but there can be no cour- |
age where there is no honesty, as is shown in all
the proceedings Of our neighbor of The Journal |
Of Commerce. The course Of such journal is to |
be studied only to be avoided, aud whenever The |
Era finds itself led to the adoption of one in any |
way similar, the mere fact that such is the case
should open its eyes to the danger fits position.
Again, We are favored with mass of figures |
representing the exports of breadstufs and pro- |
visions, and our farmers are invited to study
them for the purpose of satisfying themselves |
that they shave been sending abroad, chiefly TO |
England, for the last eleven years bresdstuffs