The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1882-05-19
ADDRESS OF ". LAIR HILL.

On last Monday evening ". Lair Hill of
the Dalles delivered at the court house one
of his logical and pungent arguments On
the political situation in Oregon. Hisf ar
gument was clear and always to the point.
He called attention to the speech which
Mr.. Fenton the Democratic nominee for
Congress was delivering in Oregon, aud
demonstrated clearly that the Chinese ques-
ton upon which Mr.. Fenton occupied a
large portion of his time YVES an old explo-
ded issue having no party significance and
which was introduced into this country by
Democratic hands and matter upon which
both parties had been deceived in its not
working tie beneficial results which was
:. expected WHEN relations with China and the
United States had been first established
He next passed to the tariff question to
which Mr.. Fenton directed TIE remainder
of his time and clearly demonstrated that
this also was not party question, and upon
which both the Republicans and Democrats
were divided, and entirely local in its pa-
ture. In reply to the free trade theory
that tariff caused the consumer to pay the
same; he distinctly showed by historal facts
that many manufactured articles were sold to
this country of forei ign production before
the same class of articles were produced
in this country, and also before any tariff
was placed by this government on such
articles, for much greater price than the
/ ,f,a4 =,
country under a tariff law were afterwards
sold for. He instanced the matter of steel
rails about which so much is said and which
were manufactured by England and sold in
America for S120 per ton but after the Uni
ted States entered into the manufacture of
them, steel rails came down first to $50 per
ton and then to $40 and afterwards to S55
per ton.
The history OF this country connected with
the tariff furnishes hundreds OF such i'll
stances, and yet we find persons who claim
that our manufactures running under a
protective tariff policy always raises the |
article to the consumer above foreign man.
articles, when in nearly every in
stance it has forced foreign articles down. |
The tariff on cut nails being 5 cts. per |
pound and this article for years has been |
supplied by our own manufactures for less |
than that sum-
The fact of the matter is that after our !
own factories become in operation the sup
ply and demand regulates the prices and
the competition between our own factories
keep the prices down to lower rate than
we would be able to get a foreign article
for without the competition of our own fac
tories under the tariff.
Mr.. Hill next shovel what suicidal
policy it was for Mr.. Fenton to tell the
people of this State and especially to those,
Of Eastern Oregon that he wdnld try TO do
away with the tariff AMI substitute free
trade when the people of Eastern Oregon
are already exporting over $4,000. OGG
pounds of wool and receiving the benefit OF
eleven cents per pound by means of the tariff
over q million and a quarter of
iollars which the people of Eastern Oregon
would lose by adopting free trade. The
people of the Rogue river, Umpqua and
valleys are not so much inter
ested but still they produce about one and
a half million lbs of wool Mr. Hill very
wound up by showing that the
history and traditions of the Democratic
party had always been one of obstruction
and never progressive