Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1883-03-22
Rreet and Results Of tha New Tariff.

The excuses OF protection have
wrought excessos OF production. Iron
and steel products Of protected indus
try glut' the market. We have no
foreign commerce by which to dispose
of superabuudsnt steel rails. The
country has aChirese wall of high tar
ifs round about it, and the only rem
edy is found in the cessation or work.
Thousands of laborers, who have
gained nothing while employers pros
pered and were enriched by the tariff
that paid them enormous profits for a
time, must now starve. There was NO
tariff to protect labor; none to exclude
competition with labor from Europe
It was brought in by the ship-load
and dumped down at Castle Garden,
and distributed everywhere to keep
down its price, when that OF steel rails
was highest; and now, when the mar
ket for these rails is glutted, produc-
ton must stop. Thus labor, gaining
nothing by the high tariff, is at last
starved by it. These facts and con J.
ditions apply, to greater or less ex-
tent, to every protected industry.
Free raw materials, at least, should
be concurrent with free labor. Give
this unprotected labor unprotected,
sntaxed necessaries of lie, as does
England, and the iron mills need not
stop With free raw materials plo'
duction would be SO cheapened that
it might progress proitably without
reducing the wages of labor; but
while everything used and consumed
or transformed by the mills is 'pro-
tected,' wages must be lessened or the
mills closed. The protectionlsts, pro-
tecting labor in nothing, and protect
ing products of labor in the hands OF
capital. are the veriest enemies of Ia
Dor. That mills must be closed and
thousands of toilers in them suffer
greatly we do not doubt. Where the
responsibility rests there can be no
question. This revised but unre-
formed tariff system, instituted to
''protect' the rich, leaving labor un-
guarded against the worlds compet-
ing labor market, has wrought calami-
ties of which we have only seen the
beginning in the closing of iron mills.
Looking in another direction, we
zee a deluge sweeping slowly and
most ruinously, for this season of the
year, over the cotton and sugar grow
ing valley of the Mississippi. This
flood will sabside, leaving the lakes
and bayous and the porus soil of the
lowlands full of water. Then will
come, in May or June, the annual
overflow of this American Nile. How
ever moderate this volume of water
from melting SHOWS in the Rocky
Mountains, the valley will. be sur
charged as never before, and the prob
Abilities all tend to the conclusion that
the sugar crop of Louisiana will be
less than ever before Importation
will be stimulated, sugar consumption
will not be materially lessened, and
the reduced tariff on sugar will send
greater sums from this source into
vaults of custom houses than ever be-
lore. Thus 1t happens that the less
the ability of the country to pay taxes
the greater the revenues of the gov
ernment, and the poorer the people the
more they must pay In all its as
poets we find the tariff system false in
theory and ruinous in fact-ruinous to
all except the protected few, the lords
OF looms and mills. These, at last,
having grasped at too much, have pro-
duced more than they can sell, and,
holding all they have made, they close
their mills and factories, withdraw,
with their bonds and money! bags, to
their tariff built palaces and leave toll
to beg or starve. So palpably vicious
and unjust is the government, as ad-
ministered by tie so-called Republi-
can party, that, instead of protecting
labor, at least by making free every
commodity which labor consumes that
it may live, this political party abso-
lutely relieves of taxation, first, those
commodities and facilities of business
life which are enjoyed and used al
most exclusively by the rich. Bank
ing capital, bills, deposits, checks,
perfumeries, and the like, are set free.
While the tax on tobacco is lessened,
the machinery Of its collection is still
the same. Gen. Raum's patronage
and stamps and collection districts are
as numerous and costly as before, and
the burdens of the country are as
weighty as when tobacco paid more to
lessen them. The purpose Of the Re-
pablicanfparty in enacting this ''re-
formed (7) tariff" was to remove the
question from the arena of political
discussion and leave its favored class,
for which, ever reckless Of the rights
and interests of the people and of the
States, it delights to legislate, in the
perfect enjoyment of a Federal reve-
nue. system enabling them, by enor-
NOUS profits conceded" to withstand
strikes till labor, starved into helpless.
ness, comes back to its /, toll on any
terms they choose to impose. Mean
while they rest until surplus products
Of protected mills are consumed, and
chen, stimulated again to, over pro
duction, mills are. reopened, and again
does the unnatural tariff begotten in