New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-02-21
THE T1PJEP DEB1TE.

| The House of Representatives Is about to
take up the Tariff bill reported by Gen.
| Schenck from the Ways and Means Committee,
and will probably devote some days to a gen
era discussion of its principle and prominent
| features before proceeding to vote in Commit
tee on any amendments which may be sub
mitted. We shall be agreeaby surprised if
the result shall demonstrate the presence and
diffusion Of ability to grapple with the grave
questions involved equal to that evinced forty
to fifty years ago. when Pennsylvania was
represented in the House by such men Tod,
Baldwin and Walter Forward, when Henry
Clay, though Speaker used to make the clos
ing Tor at least the decdng) argument for
Protection to American Industry, and when
the opposite policy was upheld by such cham
piOns as John Forsyth of Georgia, John Ran
dolph, Daniel Webster, (fOr a season. George
McDufle, and G. c. Cambreleng. But then
those who grow old are apt to disparage the
youngsters who have pushed them from their
stools, and suspect that craftsmanship is taking
its place among the lost arts. Let us await
with interest and Judge with candor the de-
velopments of Economic ability about to be
vouchsafed us.
We have evinccd but moderate interest in
the fate of Gen. Schenck's bill, because we
regard whatever may be done at this session
as merely tentative and provisional. The talk
of now settling the Tariff question must evoke
a smile of incredulity from all whose recolec-
ton of the great struggle of 16162S is clear
and vivid. We shall have no settlement of
this question till after it has been thoroughly
discussed in the log chool-houses of the Far
4 Il e..
| the St. John to the Rio Grande and the Co
| lumba. The issues are too complex,
| the interests involved too vast and
weighty, to be dealt with so lightly
| Whether Congress shall now pass Gen.
| Schenck's bill Gin substance,) Mr.. Wels's. one
different from either, none at all, the main
| question will be simply opened, not settled
Not till Congress shall have been chosen
distinctly on this ISSUE and shall have framed
and passed such an act as the People, on full
consideration, have virtually instructed them to
place on the statute book, shall we have any
truce in the great struggle now barely inaugu
rated.
| We feel impelled, therefore, to renew the
expression of our gratitude to the Hon. s. s.
| Marshall of Illinois for having brought the
! House at an early stage to a distinct issue of
principle. Being the Democratic representative
of n strongly Democratic district which has
little other than purely Agricultural industry,
| Mr.. Marshall can afford to strike square, manly
blows-at least, he evidently thinks so. True,
| he ought to be ashamed to resort TO such false
imputations as that Protective Duties are
| "lcvied to enrich one section or class at the
| expense of others" 1t is his uDquestOncd
| right to say that such is, in his opinion, the
| effect of Protection but, when he asserts that
such is its design, he asserts an untruth of
which he will yet live to be ashamed. Nothing
is gained by such unworthy mputa-
tons, while the essential dignity and
force of the disputants position are
impaired by them. 1t is perfectly fair
proposition that duties should be imposed with
view to Revenue alone it is perfectly fair
to aver that Protection cannot aid one interest,
pursuit, or section, without damaging, in at
least equal degree, some other interest, pur-
suit, OF section: what wisdom, then, what
force, inheres in the offensive, insulting imputa-
| ton we have rcbuked7 Some of Mr.. Mar
shall's compatriots complain that the House
laid his proposition or the table; yet that is
the only proper disposition to be made of such
an unfair and ungenerous impeachment of the
motives and aims Of chose whose political econ
Omy is diverse from that of the mover of the
| resolution.
! Mr., Marshall has seen tit " commit tho