The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-02-21
The Tariff In Cong ress.

pending in Congress will be signed if passed;
and we are well aware that the President has
power to defeat it by simply holding it to the
close of the session. We feel that this should
not, need not have been. The friends of pro-
lection are strong enough in either House to
have passed the bill in ample season to guard
against so deplorable contingency, and ought
to have done it. Precious hours have been
culpably trihed away that should have been
employed to pass this bill weeks ago. If it
shall now fail for want of time, the response
bility will be grave one.
Our adversaries point to certain opponents
of this me asure who used to rally under the
banner of Henry Clay, and claim that protec-
ton is a failing cause. We point in answer to
the vote by which this bill has passed either
House--the strongest ever yet given for any
decidedly protective tarif-and claim that we
have gained at least two to their one.
The line of argument on either side has
scarcely varied since 1873 and lo42. The
tariffs of those years were denounced as de-
structive to commerce and revenue, and insti-
gated by manufacturing monopoly and greed.
Experience proved our foreign commerce
quite as prosperous under those as under nom
protective tariffs while our revenue from inn
ports was largely, undeniably increased by
them. Manufacturing monopoly, so far as it
might be said to exist, was diminished, If not
abolished, by the great increase and diffusion
of iron-making, cloth-ma<ing, etc. etc. under
those tariffs. And in no other periods of our
national history was our labor more generally
employed or more fully rewarded than under
the operation of those tariffs. Our appeal is
from specious theories to unmistakable facts.
Repeatedly, in our oountry's history, has
Congress been entreated to adopt or invigO-
rate a protective policy because labor stood
unwillingly idle, enterprise was paralyzed, and
trade bankrupt. If the prayer was granted,
sensible and general relief speedily followed.
But no statesman ever had the hardihOOd to
urge an abandonment of the protective policy
because labor lacked employment and bust
ness was stagnant. To have pretended that
would have invoked general ridicule. As
general rule, we have abandoned free trade
because we could stand it no longer, and pro-
lection because we were tired of prosperity.
We have twice been cheated out of protec-
tion-never once fairly voted down. General
Jackson, when chosen President, was plausibly
claimed as q protectionist. Pennsylvania gave
him fifty thousand majority on that ground.
And Polk carried her against Clay in 1874 by
writing the Kane letter, and being commended
on the strength of it as better protectionist
than the great Kentuckian. Francis w.
Hughes in that contest held public debate
with William b. Reed expressly to uphold this
assumption. Dallas was placed on the ticket
with Polk, to assure Pennsylvania that the
tariff of AZ would be maintained yet the
Democratic Congress elected with them re-
pealed that tariff by the casting vote of that
identical Dallas-Polk, of course, approving
and signing the bill
We hope time is at hand when this tariff
question can be argued to our whole people,
and the mean attempts to excite sectional jea-
lousy and hate secuted as they deserve. The
States that have the greatest interest in pro-
lection are those whose mines are yet un-
opened, their factories and furnaces yet to be
built. Give us adequate protection now, and
New England will soon be ready to talk as old
England now does; but Alabama and Missouri
may need protection for half century.
The current arguments against tariff prove
it a monstrous wrong that New York should
have constructed the Erie Canal, and thus
made this city the emporium of the New
World, ultimately of the Ohole world. For
that canal was dug by taxing men who did not
want any canal-whO protested against being
saddled with the cost of one. In their view
'Clinton's ditch was contrived to enrich
other men at their expense; and they plausibly
insisted that ditching-unless for sanitary pur-
poses-was not function of government.
Had they been needed, New York would have
been second Boston, while Baltimore or Nor
folk would have been the metropolis of the
Western hemisphere.
Time and again have we asked our Western
kePubhcans who used to be Wings, ''How do
you propose to stop the current flow of our
national securities to Europe at the rate of
two hundred millions per annum? You insist
on an inflated, deprecated currency, which
stimulates excessive mportations: Won will
not check these by higher tariff; what will
you do?' They retort that a high tariff will
not subserve the end--Which is exactly like
saying that a mill-dam will not obstruct the
flow of water. But we had not asked them
to criticize our specific, but to set forth their
own; so their retort is no answer, but a
virtual confession 1t is the barristers brief
from his defenseles defendant-"Abuse the
plaintiffs attorney"
We have deeply regretted the wranglngs
touching details among the friends of the
tariff. We entreat the friends of protection in
Congress to disregard these and pass the bill
in some shape before the close OF the week.
We have quite hostility enough to encounter
without warning upon each other. We can
endure a vote against us from one who should
be for us; but woe to that Representative OF a
| protective constituency who shall fail to re-
| spond when called to vote on the tariff bill.
Mr.. F.. w. Stewards West India Mission
| Another Diplomatic hizLle'
From the Herald.
The present Administration is, it must bC
admitted, rather unfortunate in its foreign
missions. If their object does not happen tC
be QuiXotic, the conduct of those intrusteC
with them not unfrequently renders them so
Thus the Mexican mission-which was a very
well-meant thing in its way-assumed quite {