The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-22
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
Fditorini Opinions sf the Leading Journals
Upon Current TOples-C Complied Every
Day for tho Evening TeIeRraph.
MIR. WELLS BUDGET.

principal
our great national debt in order that we may
fund the bulk of what remains at lower rate
of interest than we are now paying, and they
think we should maintain our revenue unim-
paired until this can be effected. Mr.. Wells
ON the other hand, urges Congress to cut
and slash the revenue right and left, leaving
the reduction of the debt, whether principal
or interest, to get on as it may. Why not
abolish the offices of President and Secretary
of the Treasury, and let the Especial Com
missioner" run the Government?
MI Wells has hitherto appeared in the
somewhat incongruous characters of pro-
teotionist and free-trader; he now assumes
third character-that of an opponent of both
or either He says:-
'The experience OF the last few years has been
equivalent to a demonstration that any attempt to
reconstruct the Tariff as whole on any basis OF
principle, is practically impossible the diverse In
terests OF the different sections OF Industries being
sufficiently powerful under almost any circumstances
to engraGt upon bill during its passage such modi-
hcatlous would efectualy deprive IL OF any pre-
tensions to consistency or harmony. There would
therefore seem to be but one available method OF
tarih reform; which Is to adopt the same course
that has been taken IN respect the reforms here
tofore made in the internal revenue and which fur
thermore finds precedent in all the experience OF
Great Britain in leglatng upon these subjects, viz:
to make such notifications or removals OF duties,
year by year as experience or the condition OF the
Treasury may indicate as practicable and desirable;
and thus, by pruning rather than by reconstruction,
10 gradually attain the greatest degree Of simplicity
POoololO
industry and the people, .
We beg leave to assure Mr.. Wells that he
forms aparty by himself Some of the American
people are protectionsts, others for FREQ
trade; there are some who have not yet fully
considered the question and made up their
minds as to its proper solution; but the num-
ber who have no principle on the subiec and
wish it acted on without reference to any, is
small indeed.
In fact, there is no standing-ground whore
he affects to plant himself. Every page of
his report assumes the fundamental position
of free-traders--that protection enhances
prices to the detriment of consumers Every
argument for protection, from those of Hamil-
ton and Madison to those of Carey and Nor
rill, is quietly pooh-poohed by this Especial"
doctor in finance as sophistical and absurd.
If Henry Clay and Hezekiah Niles knew any
thing of the effect of duties on prices, then
MIR. Wells has yet to learn the alphabet of po-
litical economy. If duty be raised from
30 up to 80 per cent, true economist does
not assume that the price is thereby enhanced
80 per cent. he consuts the prices current,
not of one year only, but Of several, and con-
forms his theory to the facts, instead of
assuming that the facts must be such as his
theory would have them. And herein he
would place himself in direct antagonism to
Commissioner Wells
Mr.. Wells, in his report of 1867, proposed
that the existing duty of nine dollars on pig
iron per ton be retained, and his bill, there
with submitted, retained the existing duty
on salt also. He now proposes reduction
of the duty on pig iron to three dollars per
ton and of the duties on salt by one-half And
this is but sample of his ''ground and lofty
tumbling."
Mr.. Wells serves his employers too well
when he stoops toSnisstate the arguments he
chooses not to face. He says
"But the usual, and almost the only arguments
offered in reply to such statements as that above
given is that q continuance of the present duties
imposed on pig iron is necessary to insure employ
ment to American labor"
No. Mr. Wells this is not the case, and
you know it. You cannot have so utterly
mistaken the drift of the arguments you do
not choose to meet. We, who stand for pro-
lection to our iron industry, commend that
protection as calculated to expedite the open
ing of American mines, the construction of
American furnaces the connection of those
mines with those furnaces by railroads, etc.,
until the American need of iron shall be
satisfied from American sources. Time and
again have we said to the free-traders:
tell us that iron can be made and should be
afforded much cheaper than it is now sold
Then arhY not maize 1t? You own many
mines, and can buy millions of acres
more at very low prices; you have some
furnaces, and others are selling each week
for less than cost; you can build more
very readily you can hire workmen as cheaply
as protectiOnists can; you are yourselves pur-
chasers of millions worth of iron each year;
so you cannot fear a lack of demand: Why
won't you make iron? Who asks you to buy
it of protectionists for $40 or $15 per ton
more than it is worth, when you can make it
as cheaply as others can? The tariff gives
none monopoly; the business is as free to
you as to any and you well know that you
can get as good prices for it as others:-Then
why don't you make iron?' ''What answer"
What is there in the nature of iron-pig or
bar-that impels those who will chase dollar
across the equator and around Cape Horn, to
refuse SO stubbornly, persistently, to make
iron?
Suppose the duty were $4,000 per tom in
stead Of 50, what would be the price, and
what would regulate that price?
We oppose the change commended by Mr.
Wells, not that it would stop iron-making in
this country, but that it would arrest her in
her triumphant march to that independence
of Europe for one of the chief necessaries
alike of peace and war which we are on the
point of achieving. Never before did this
country increase its product of iron, and its
capacity for producing that metal, so rapidly
as she is now doing, under the impulse of 9
duty no higher than was imposed by the Gal,
houn- -Lowndes tariff of 1916, and lower than
was imposed in 1918, in 1924, in 1928, and in
1912. New and capacious furnaces have
recently been or are now being built in
Illinois, in Indiana, in Wisconsin, in Mis-
souri,; and more and more will be if the tariff
is simply but emphatisally let alone.
This, we insist, is the sure way to cheaper
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