New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1870-02-23
WIKMLNG 10 Tile UORK.

The Free Traders will hold meeting in our
| City tomorrow to marshal their forces for the
impending struggle. This is eminently proper /;
but they have some craven. tricky cOunselors
who, if followed, will lead them into
trouble. We allude to the point-no-point
shilly-shally, splt-the- difference twaddlers,
who shrink from calling themselves Free
Traders, and try the bat-lke dodge of
talking of a reduction of taxes and clamoring
for rereRue reform. The engineers of their
late demonstration in the Cincinnati Chamber
of Commerce are fair specimens of this school,
Our advice is that of an adversary, but we
give it frankly and with sincere good will in
these words: Nerer crdul rhere you can uaK
erect. You are ee-Traders or nothing; and
you cannot afford to confess, even to your
selves, that you are nothing.
All men are not and cannot be political
economists but almost every one discriminates
by instinct between those who fight man fashion
and those who duck, and dodge and watch
their opportunity TO get in foul blow. Do
not compel the i'll Uniformed to despise you
New-YOrk City is for Free Trade, as she has
almost uniformly been for at least half CEN
fury. Hers is the mercantile view of economic
would have been nearly if not quite carried
for Clay and Protection in 1874. Still, our I'M
mense Importing interest and the aspiration
of most of our influential people to live other
wise than by Productive Labor, renders this
City more averse to Protection than Boston,
Philadelphia, or Baltimore, to say nothing of
the rural districts. On a square issue, 1t would
take two or three years of solid work to rem
der this City preponderantly favorable to Pro-
lection. And meantime the FEee-Traders can
| and do spend several dollars in advertising,
circulating documents, &c, where the Pro-
tectiOnists disburse one. Hence, it seems to US
important that the former unless they
mean to confess judgment on the main
| issue, should here maintain q bold 'front.'
| and say exhctly what they mean. If they sing
| small here, their rural cOmpatriots will hardly
sing at all.
The Main Question fairly stated is this:
Granted that we are to have a Tariff of Duties
on Imports, shall those duties discriminate rih
a Uie0 10 the Protection Of Home Industry
He who answers No, is ree-Trader, though
he may still favor ever so high a Tariff: he
who answers Yes. is a Protectionist though
he should favor no duty higher than twenty
per cent Thus the Shoe and Leather men,
who solicit the free importation of Hides, ask
just as clearly for Protection as do the Tobac-
conists, who say they cannot live under Gen.
Schenck's duty of s2 per pound and 25 per
cent. ad valorem on all imported Cigars. The
means are different; the end exactly the same.
We second, therefore, the proposition of the
Hon. ID. j. Morrel of Pennsylvania, contained
III recent letter to the Wooden Manufactur-
ers' Association of the North Western States.
that each department Of our Home Industry
shall organize by ITSELF establish a National
center, and proceed to combine in National
organization, which should be able to speak
authortatiyely for the Productive Labor of the
Union-not a branch or part of it, but the
whole. Mr. MOrrell forcibly says:
If the various industries Of our country we're TO dav
fully organized-each having It's own organization TO
care for It's own special interests and the whole forming
"A national organization, with headquarters either OF
Washington or at one OF our commercial ceners tho
advocates of freetrade, who thoroughly Organized
would not Dc encouraged TO defy public OF
the country as audaciousy they now do What IA
wanted Is an association like yours Tor all branches OF
American industry farmers, tanners. wool growers
cotton soYeis. uianuiaetuiers Of woOeu aud cotton