The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1883-11-23
CANADIAN VIEW or TARIFF.

few years ago circulated a sheet en-
titled: 's1'he Peoples Pictorial Tax
payer" purporting to illustrate by var
ious cartoons and pictures, the bale
full effect of levying tax on such for
eign products as compete with our
own. Conspicuously displayed on the
borders of this sheet were the cards of
VIM. Jessup & Sons, manufacturers of
steel and importers of iron, Sheffield,
England; of Concreve 4 Son, of New
York, agents of the Toledo Steel
Works, of Sheffield; of A. B. Sands &
Co., importers of drugs; of John Clark,
Jr., & Co., foreign manufacturers of
spool-cotton; OF Van Wart & Mccoy,
the New York agents of Van Wart,
Son & Co., of Birmingham, and a
dozen other English manufacturing
firms and their agents in New York.
Besides these are the cards of several
foreign insurance companies. A noble
set of hackers, these, to teach Amer
ican taxpayers their true interests
The principal cartoon is entitled,
"How the tariff robs the farmer ana
every workingman to benefit the mon
opolists."
Our Canadian neighbors were then
discussing protective tariff to shield
themselves from the philanthropic
free-trade of the mother country, which.
they have since adopted. The To-
ronto Mai, an able advocate of pro
lection for Canadian industry, took
up this Pictorial Taxpayer, and other
like sheets in the United States, and
commented ON them under the head
of "Consolation of the Protected
Farmer" in a keen and clear way, as
follows:
"The Yankee farmer rises in the
morning tolerably refreshed. True,
he has been sleeping on a bed, the
sheets, blankets, and mattresses of
which would have been taxed from 60
to $50 per cent. had they been i'm
ported from foreign country. But
they are homemade, and his dreams
have not been disturbed by the free
trade bugbear that protection raises
the price of the home manufactured
article up to at least the price of the
Imported articles plus the import duty. :"
Mr.. David A. Wells and other agents
of the Leeds and Manchester manu-
facturers once tried to frighten him
with this bogy; but experience has
taught him that it is only a make-be-
lieve. There is an import duty of 8
cents yard on. cotton sheeting, but
he buys it from the cotton factory in
his market town at 7 cents yard, and
sees it going to England in competi-
ton with free-trade cotton. Moreover,
he knows that it is to that import duty
he owes the establishment of the
nelghboring cotton-factory whose ope-
ratives gives him a profitable home
market for rotation crops. He is
well satisfied with his bed. 1t is
homemade; it cost him, if anything,
less than an imported article; and its
manufacture has given employment to
artisans who buy the products of his
farm almost direct from his wagon
He is not alarmed because there is
a heavy import duty on foreign cloths,
boots, and cotton shirts. His suit
from head to foot is of American
make; he thinks this is better for him
than if his coat had come from the
west of England, his shirt from Man
chester, and his boots from Stockport.
Breakfast over, he takes to his farm
implements. Foreign implements,
such as shovels, hoes, wooden pals,
churns, reapers, ETC., are taxed IS per
cent; and in 1860, when the battle of
the Morril tariff was being fought in
Congress the agents of the Bedford
and Leicester firms predicted that an
import duty on their goods would ruin
farming in the United States. He has
discovered that this is not true, and
that Yankee farm implements have
become the cheapest and best in the
world. In fact, when our farmer con-
templates the amazing growth of this
industry, it occurs to hun that the
English agents who lobbied and even
bribed politicians and newspapers to
4 ~ 4, LII, ,,,o~a ,1.,,