Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-10-04
The Tariff Commission and the South.

The special correspondent of the New
York World, who has been travelling
with the Tariff Commission, thinks that
body has learned nothing whatever as to
the true sentiment of the South on the
very important subject of tariff reform.
He claims, very truly, that the commits
sion did not meet with representative
men from this section, but that they con-
fined their Investigations to hurried
visits TO the cities, where they heard the
opinions of few who were personally
interested in certain special industries.
The agricultural classes, however,
who form the large mass of the
Southern people-and who, hav-
ing to contribute to the
support OF the benefciaries from pro-
lection, but in turn derive no advantage
whatever therefrom, are naturally anti
protectionists-ha no hearing before
the commission. Not, be it understood,
because the commission refused to
hear them but because they were
unable to leave their farms and go
to the cities to make their views
known, and because doubtless, as rule,
they felt that the commission, being
composed of protectionists, would refuse
to be influenced by anything they might
say.
These are the grounds upon which the
correspondent of the World justly bases
his conclusions, and this is why he writes
as follows:
"In truth, representative men and
respectable men, with few accidental
exceptions, have not met the commission
in the South. 1t has really heard much
less of the wishes of the people and
ascertained much less about their neces-
stiles than the people either in the New
England or in the Western States, and
nobody has accused the commission of
making thorough investigations in either
of these sections. The important indus
try of the South of course is the culture
of cotton. This interests directly the
great majority of the people, and indi-
rectly it interests them all. And the
most important manufacture in
the South is the manufacture OF
the products of cotton. Yet the COM
mission has accomplished the hitherto
impossible task of going through the
Southern States without hearing some
economic discussion that in some way
had TO do with cotton. The cotton plant
ers suffer more heavily and IN more
WAYS the burdens of the tariff than any
other class. But the testimony OF
the commission will allow these thinkers
to assume that all the cotton planters IA
vor the prosective tariff. No intelligent
man ever passed through Tennessee,
Georgia and the Carolinas without hear
ing much about cotton or without hear
ing much more about the thought of the
people than this division of the commits
sion has heard. Nothing that could ag
gravate the insult to the South has the
commission failed to do. The re-
polling dignity that it maintained in the
West became the most promiscuous but
unaccepted hospitality in the South.
Everybody and anybody was asked IN
the most informal way TO give mis- opin-
ions All pretense to exhaust any sub
iect was abandoned, and not even the
communications, as the habit had been
in the West, were read in open session
in the Southern cities. 1t was presuma-
BILE that the report would not be effected
by any testimony heard on this jaunt; it
is certain that the journey through the
South was made solely to have the South
ern people feel that their industries had
been investigated. The Southern people
everywhere have shown that they under
stand the motive of the commission, and
they have treated it with the contempt
that it deserves"