The National tribune., 1882-05-20


HOLINESS that surgeon takes up the knife
to dissect a cadayer, and with surgeons
precision of touch proceeds to lay bare all
their sophistries and fallacies Thus, in dis
cussing Mr.. Hewitt's proposition to put all
raw materials, etc, on the free list, which
includes scrap-iron, he felicitates that gentle
man, who is one of the largest iron founders
in the country, upon his adroitness in
fashi0ning an amendment TO the tariff which
would save him the duty on steel and iron
and relieve him of all competition in making
bar-iron east of the Mississippi! Nothing
could exceed the delicious irony OF MIR.
Kelley's observation upon this point: "
am sufficiently grasping and selfish, but
IF owned iron works on tidewater las Mr..
Hewitt does, near the great commercial port
of our country, and you would give me
scrap-iron free of duty, l would not want to
deal in mines in Colorado or anywhere else.
should have monopoly that would be
richer than the best Of them; that would
enable me to drive out of existence the
whole class Of well-paid laborers known as
puddlers of iron, and to absorb the capital
of all those engaged in iron works involving
the process Of pudding"
But it is in the field Of statistics that his
profound learning and mental acuteness are
displayed to the best advantage. Woe be-
tide the Congressman who imagines that
figures do not lie,n or at least that Judge
Kelley viii not detect their errors. He is
sure to be tripped up at the first OppOrtu-
nifty. That was the fate which overlook all
three of those veteran free traders-Sprin-
ger, Carlisle and Dunnell-when the chair
man of the Ways and Means Committee
trained his batteries upon them in the
speech from which we have quoted. MIR.
Springer undertook to show that the price of
wool had deprecated under protection, but
confounded a period Of protection with a
period Of free trade, and Judge Kelley, calm
ly pointing out his mistake, took occasion to
show that for ten years prior to the war,
wool brought only 434 cents per pound on
the average, while during the ten years sue
ceeding the rebellion the average price was
| 1913 cents perpound Neither Mr. Carlisle nor
Mr.. Dunnell Jared any better, and the House
was kept in a constant state Of merriment
| by their desperate attempts to explain away
the errors into which their rash meddling
with statistics had led them. We allude to
| these casual encounters simply to illus
trate the fact already stated that the secret
of Judge Kelley's power lies in his intimate
acquaintance with the practical, as well as
theoretical, side of the tariff question, and
his plain, direct way of putting his argu-
ments and conclusions. What interests us
far more, is his mastery arraignment Of the
.ra9 cade policy of England-"a vampire
ng from inanition because she has
sted all the prey upon which her fangs
reul4 be fastened According to an eminent
Gr -isl authority there were last year H.
80 people in England with less than
S2.62 week each to live on. Think of it.
Less than forty cents a day to clothe, feed,
and house each one of these 14,50O 900 bread
winners! No wonder that emigration socie-
ties are multiplying so rapidly in the United
Kingdom; no wonder, on the other hand,
that the Golden Club sought to propagate
| free-trade doctrines in the United States
during the last Presidential campaign, in the
vain hope that this market might afford
temporary relief to their stagnating trade
no wonder that the editor Of the COiempordyy
ReOier realizing the effect which the exam
pie of Americas prosperity is having on the
policy Of the Continental nations, declares
in his rage that it would be better for Eng
land under free-trade policy if America
were blotted from the map, Well may we
exclaim with Judge Kelley: "Thanll God
our protective tariff has, by stimulating the
diversifcation of our. industries, furnished
attractive and gentle employment to the
feeble, the crippled, the early-orphaned, and
has thus called into exercise the genius and
special endowment of our people. While
doing this it has so augmented the power
and the glory of the country that we can but
be beacon light seen of all the world, and
by the luster of our career showing oppressed
nations the means by which to escape from
the fangs of the vampire of nations, Eng
land"
The Agricultural Department.
The overwhelming majority by which the
bill to make the Agricultural Department
an Executive Department of the Govern
ment and give its chief officer a seat in the
Cabinet passed the House Of Representatives
last week must be taken as strong proof OF
the public demand for the measure, and
although it is by no means certain that it
will become a law during the present ses-
sion of Congress, since the Senate is under
stood to be unfavorably disposed towards it.