Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1875-03-18

We believe that it would benefit our
community more for our citizens to pur-
chase one thousand brooms, manufactured
by our own people OF corn raised by our
own farmers at Il cost of two hundred and
fifty dollars, than to purchase the same
number of bfooms of New England
factory, at a cost of two hundred dollars.
The labor of our own people would be
converted into money. The money would
remain at home increasing our capital for
business purposes, and the entire com
munity would be benefited to that ex-
tent. In fact the capital of thescommynity
would be increased. Our population is
small and yet many are idle. A thous
and dollars paid to home mandatory,
which would be paid to hands who, in
turn would pay it to farmers and other
classes of the community would benefit us
more than five thousand paid
to manufactures in other sections.
Our prosperity, certainly, can be en-
HANGED by increasing our capital. A
policy which prevents the decrease of
the capital of the community certainly
contributes to the general prosperity.
Again, we did not advocate the
policy of buying at home, at achatever
cost Our article was written under
the impression that our merchants and
mechanics are business men who are
satisfied with the ordinary profits of
trade. When they place their goods
or manufactured articles above the
usual prices they drive the trade from
their own town by their own act and
are justly responsible for its loss.
If Grundy assumes, because we are
in favor of building up home trade by
encouraging it, that we favor tariff to
accomplish this purpose, may we not
with the same liberty assume that he is
in favor of compelling people to buy
whatever they need away from home :!
The one presumption would be as
legitimate as the other, and yet we do
not believe that he entertains an idea
of that kind. Again he assumes that
the prohibitory tariff is one of the
chief causes of the closing of machine
shops and mills and furnaces, of the
North, and wishes us to explain how a
policy that ruins country could build
up community. We are not dis
posed to receive his presumption as a
fact. We do not believe the tariff has
injured the mills and machine shops of
the North. We think they have been
benefited and made rich by the tariff,
and that the injustice of the policy
consists in enriching them at our ex
pense. The political economist will
find other causes which have brought
about the financial crisis which now
paralyses every industry of the country
and which have injured the country to
a greater extent that has the prohibitory
tariff.
If the policy of purchasing of our
home business men in preference to
those of other sections will not benefit
a town, are we to believe that the
policy which Grundy advocates would
build it up? Grundy may show that his
ideas are not inconsistent with demo-
cratic doctrine upon the tariff question
but we canuot believe that he can
prove that they will benefit any commu-
nifty We have local interests-many of
them, and they can only be fully de
veloped by determined effort upon
the part of our own people to encourage
every enterprise which will convert the
materials of our soil, woods and nouns
tans, and the labor of our people into
active capital.