The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1883-05-07

awe ar enjoying our. high tariff and our
labor strikes" remarks the Philadelphia
Rtcord,a very earnest low tarif-or, is 1t no
tariG7-newspaper. Something in the same
vein were the statesmanlike filings OF the
more money newspapers and orators when
the country was driving hard on to the rock
Of destruction called resumption, with that
bold, bad man John Sherman atthe head
and Congress. heartIessly refusing to order
him 10 fluff her" We al! remember
how eloquently the panic Of 1878 and the
subsequent depression was pointed to, how
the sheriff was held up as the camp.follow.
er Of that social evil, hard money. Allthe
Ill came because we had not enough green
backs and we're about to have1ess all the
good-of which very little could be found.
because we had q considerable volume oil
paper money and were to have some alter
resumption. Every trade disorder was de-
clared to be the outcome Of the financial
policy.
The money ogre passedaway, and now
there is one raised up to take its place, and
the name Of the new is High Tariff The
opponents of that policy which protects
American capital and labor from foreign
capital and labor find in protection the
first cause OF every obstruction in the easily
obstructed channels OF trade. Great trouble
or small, tariff is the father Of it, and stands
sponsor at the christening. The good IL in
spite OF It, the i'll because Of it-nothing is
made better and almost everything worse.
II we had no tariff, or possibly a tariff
for reyenue only since we must raise some
money, we should be able to "sell in the
dearest market and buy in the cheapest !"
we should have no industries OF hot.house
growth, no giant infants protected to death,
no over.production aud consequent revul-
sions; we should be on q par with Eng.
land, "the workshop of the world"-and q
good deal more Of the came kind Of elocu.
tionary pleading,
The present application OF these comfort
in, doctrines is to the strike Of the Pitts
bursh coal miners and a few sporodic cases
o! less Importance, aud the threatened
suspension OF the great iron industry Of the
West, projected iron being the special alb.
horencs Of free traders. Nothing is said
on the free trade side about hebron trouble
o. being a possible result Of q reduced tariff,
for which free ira lers, otherwise revenue re.
formers, clamored day and night until they
induced Congress to listen to. them. Man
uiacturers say that under this lower tariff
wages must 80 down, and whether they
are acting under necessity or seizinga pre-.
text the effect upon the trade and upon
those Tho live by it is the same. I
1t does not seen to occur to these fault
finders with protection, certainly they do
notadmit, that there's are trade troubles,stag-
nation in business, stubborn strikes,i in free
trade England, or that in that land ofideal
freedom in trade wages are always, low out
door relief and the workhouse supple
menting the pay roll. Neither does it
occur to them that there might be sonic in
%terruptions in our prosperity u a tariff for
revenue only were our policy now as 1t
has been in times which furnish the his.
t,rian with materials for his most pathetic
writing. !
Suppose we had a twenty per cent hori-
zontsl tariff, or no taritr-would that
change tho nature Of men? Would that
make employers always fair and workmen
always contentcd? Would that give a
nice balance to supply and demand?
Would that maintain prices and wages at
the highest point?
1t is not so in England, It has not been
80 in The United States under the lowest
tariff. It is to be expected that every day
OF depression in this country will be elab-
GRATED into a night Of tariff ~blackuess, but
mere defamation goes for nothing against
the surprising ~eloquence Of the historic
fact that our highest prosperity has been
under a tariff for protection. And the rta-
son is in harmony with the fact.