Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1883-12-08

was q scandal. Its report was a joke.
1t was thrown out of both houses of
congress with contempt, each house
formulating a tariff bill of Its own,
and, finally, q committee of conference,
disregarding all precedent and all de-
cency, with q little glue here and a lit
tie solder there, botched together a new
bill, and this is the wonderful invention
which we must treat as a thing divine,
because, if we venture to question it,
we shall "disturb the business of the
country" and perhaps cost the demo-
cratic party the election of a president.
l grant that the conference bill was
an improvement on the commission
bill. In some respects it was an i'm
provement upon the house bill. But
it was an outrage. For example, the
house bill fixed a duty Of SIS on steel
rails, the senate a duty of SIS GO. The
conference set both aside and fixed it
at $17. Both houses fixed a rate of
fifty cents on iron ore. The conference
put it at seventy-ive cents. All the
way through special Interest was the
rule and increased duties the practice.
But we must not touch it. If we do
we shall "disturb the business of the
country"
Do you suppose, fellow citizens, the
time will ever come when the snug
holders Of special privilege, who sip
warmed by subsidized fire-sides, talk
pisusly about the pauper labor of Eu-
rope, will allow that the business ofthe
country a stand an investigation of
the title by which they are enabled to
levy a tax upon an overwhelming ma
jority of their fellow-citizens, and to
convert this tax into q fund which they
call their "divy2" Who is to decide
when subsidies shall stop or be reduced;
those who get them or those who give
them? Did anybody ever hear of the
voluntary restitution ola bounty? And,
if we are not to discuss our taxes, and,
If possible, modify them, what shall we
discuss3 One thing IS certain: they
are net going to reform themselves.
We have heard the whine about our
ssinfant industries" nearly a century.
At this moment we have "infants"
fifty, sixty, and seventy years of age,
still muling and puking in the nurses
arms and in every case, the older the
infant the bigger the babyl Is it not
time that an end should be put to such
child's play? Is a great and powerful
nation, a nation of half a hundred mil
lions of freemen, a nation which has
led the world in prowsss, enterprise
and invention, to be tied forever to
grandmotherly apron strings and shut
in by a never-ending Chinese wall,
misnamed "Protection" Are stupid
pleas for tsinfant industries" which have
been sucked by the government time
out of mind, and stupider cant about
the laboring classes, and yet stu
pider drivel about the "business Of the |
country" to deter us from looking over
the books and overhauling the accounts
and taking stock of our taxes, as it
were? Mark the inconsistency ofthe
Protectionists. The custom list,
which bristles with subsidies must not
be molested. But they propose with
one fell swoop to blot out the internal
revenue-a hundred and fifty millions
OF dollars, annually yielded to the
treasury by spirits and tobacco. We
are to have as much free whisky as we
please, but not free wo0lens. We may
smoke and chew as much untaxed to-
bacco as we like, but we must pay a
duty on every necessary article of liv-
ing. The obliteration of a hundred and
fifty millions paid without an effort or
q murmur by the consumers of spirits
and tobacco is all right. That can in
no wise affect ssthe business of the
country" but If we dare put a finger
upon the customs list, which yields the
government one part and the protected
monopoly from five to ten parts, we are
denounced as revolutlonists.