Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1883-02-28
Congress.

The forty.seventh congress is pretty
near through its work, next Saturday
being its last working day. The Senate
has passed tariff bill and the House has
failed up on getting its own measure
through. The contest now is as to whether
the House can come to vote on the
Senate bill in time to get committe of
conference and have any legislation at all
on the subject completed before the
session closes.
The war between the freetraders and
the protectionists and the revenue reform
ers and all the allies OF each of various
bues, goes on lively as ever The men
who got the lumber tariff taken off hy
vote in the Senate a few weeks ago We're
tariff on lumber got the Senate to vote 10
keep it, but what the fate of the lumber
tariff will be in the final outcome is yet
uncertain.
Meantime among the sins charged on
the tariff comes up the terrible western
floods that have submerged five thousand
acres of the city of Cincinnati, carried eff
twelve hundred houses in New Albany.
Indiana, and treated other river cities to
proportionate disaster, And the revenue
reformers lay it to the lumber tariff
They reason it out plain enough and
show that the tariff is to blame for the
flood but it is but little while since we
read that the trouble with the lumber
tariff was that it just made folks pay
lot moro for lumber and put the extra
price into the hands of the "lumber kings"
Now however it is made clear tina. the
lumber tariff has made the flood Because
that tariff makes numbering profitable and
numbering destroys our forests and the
destruction of the forests causes the f3oJ
forty days and forty nights or Whereabouts.
If the first argument of the revenue
reformers had only held water why we
should have had the floods all the same
only cheaper if we hadn't had the tariff
Because the-but on the whole the connec.
ton between the tariff and the floods can
be clearly shown only in the columns OF
really advanced revenue reform journal.
The discussion of the tariff measures in
congress has been in some cases lust as
clear as the most advanced revenue
reformer could give; in other cases it
hasn't; and really the congressman have
talked good deal of sense, but they
haven't done much yet. The "Morriil
tariff has had its share of bad language
hurled at it but it is the frame work on
which they are laying the boards for the
new one.
Forty odd years ago when the SAGE of
Undertook was president and wanted to
be again, and the other side didn't want
him TO be, Parson Eastman, after listening
to discussion made up of about equal
part of politics and agriculture, was
appealed to to know whether he would
plant potatoes in the full or some other
condition of the moon. The good old man
thought ne should plant them when he GOT
ready, and if he didn't have a good crop
lay it to Van Buren," And now that Van
Buren, is dead, the Morrill, tariff or apy
Kind Of tariff appears to be real handy
TO have around to lay things to.
All the same congress had best not
adjourn and leave present tariff rates
undisturbed, because a change in them is
coming, and business will no. be On firm
basis till it comes. 1t is a pity that desire
for partisan advantage should PIT off a
revision that is needed and that must
come, and leave uncertainty where GER
tainty ought to be.
And after congress has fixed the tariff
SO we shall know just how bad an affect it
will have on the floods OF the future. our
forestry commissions must dig right into
the heart of their business and see what
they can do to save what forests we have. |
and whether there isn't some variety of
the eucalyptus tree that will do as well in
the northern part of the United States as
the "eucalUptus g'oJulus" would in the
southwestern states. Then we could have
all the growing wood we want,