Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-10-11
HANCOCK ON THE TARIFF.

A New Jersey Democratic paper mas
interviewed General Hancock on the tarin
question, and what he says upon II, or
what he is reported as having said, Will be
found in our telegraphic columns this morn
inc. It has been said before that the
Democratic candidate was not Statesman,
Init it would have been difficult to make
any one believe that he is capable of talk
ing such nonsense had not the report ema-
mated from an organ of his own party. He
is represented as declaring that the tariff
question cannot affect the manufacturing
"interests of the country in the least. :"
Now the third plank of the Cincinnati
platform, upon which General Hancock is
supposed to be standing, explicitly de-
mands &c a tariff for revenue only" Either,
then, that proposition means nothing, in
the opinion of General Hancock, or he
himself is in opposition to his party upon
the tariff question. He says: "There has
''to be certain number of millions of
dollars raised by tariff that can be got in
no other ray, and that must necessarily
"give protection to the. manufacturing
interests of the country" What does
General Hancock mean, or what does
he think he means, by saying that
the revenue derived from the tariff
"can be got in no other way y Evi-
IDENTIFY he is phenomenally ignorant
of fiscal science, and has not the
remotest notion of the position which his
party has heretofore taken against Protec-
ton. Evidently he imagines that all the
money forced from the people by the
tariff goes into the treasury. He does not
know that one of the strongest arguments
against the tariff is that it plumbers the
people without helping the Government.
He does not know that out of $3.50, 100000
extorted for import duties. no more than
500, 900, 900 find their way into the treas
ury. And he thinks that the necessary
revenues of the Government cannot be
raised in any other way than by tariff
which was first adopted avowedly as a
war measure which never had any other.
apology which is arranged without the
least regard to economical principles
which does not even afford protection to
manufacturing interests, as witness the
shipbuilding interest, which it has vir-
tuallly destroyed and which in fact is
neither more nor less than machine for
wasting the dollars in the effort to collect
two dollars and half. So General Han
cock declares that "tariff for revenue
g only" means the tariff precisely as it
exists, That will be news both to
Democrats and Republicans, to Protec-
tionists as well as to Free Traders Ac-
cording to him, the advent of Demo-
cratic administration would have no signii-
canoe as regards this issue. He thinks
:" the tariff question is local question.
If it is, why was it dealt with in the Ma
tional Democratic platform, all of whose
declarations he has formally subscribed to
And what does he mean, or think he
means, in characterizing it as local
"question Protection is no doubt to a
great extent local question in one point of
view that is to say, it is method of
propping up bad investments in certain
localities at the expense of all the rest of
the country. So far as the advantage de-
rived is concerned, it may therefore be said
TO be local but how about the disadvan-
tage? Assuredly that is not confined to
any one locality. The tariff plumbers the
American people with great impartiality.
It robs the Western farmer for the benefit
of the Eastern manufacturer 1t puts its
thieving hand in every producers pocket.
How, then, can it be called a local ques-
ton