Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1883-06-16
Why We NEED a TARIFF.

Any person capable of a moments
reflection must know the great
calamity that would befall this
country from the breaking up OF
our manufacturing and mechanical
industries. According to the last
census there are twenty million
people in the United states who are
directly dependant on such indus
tries for living, to say nothing of
the vast number who incidentally
derive their daily bread from such
a source. To deprive all those peo-
pie of their support would be to
drive them into agricultural persuits
and the farmers would find Compel
itors in the former purchasers of
their produce. The home market
would be reduced and Over-produc.
ton would so glut the foreign trade
that only pauper prices could be
realized for the products of the farm.
The South would especially suffer
from such a calamity. Indeed, it
is this section of the Union that has
least to gain and most to lose by
the complete abolition of protect
i've tariff. The sugar and tobacco
growers are among the protected
classes, so much abused by free trade
papers, while the producer of cotton
has the price of his crop enhanced
by the increased price that the tar
if gives to cotton goods. If the
tariff was abolished the South
would suffer from the diminutiOn
in the profits of her agriculture, but
it would be in the stOppage of her
newly acquired progress that she
would receive the death dealing
blow. The people of this section
have of late years discovered that
they can never grow rich, and that
the South can never become great,
by agriculture alone. This discOv-
cry has led them to embark in man
ufacturing and mechanical indus
tries and to seek the development
of the great mineral wealth that
lies buried within our hills and
mountain Businesses.
The necessary labor to carry on
factories and mining enterprises
cannot be had SO cheap in America
as in Europe, for this simple reason
America, as compared to Europe,
is very sparsely settled. We have
no overcrowded population strug-
Cling for bare subsistence here ;
farm labor in this country still pays
more than bare support to the
labOrer and every man has an OPP
TO increase his store by |
honest work. The grOvelling masses
of Europe are slaves to eXistance. |
They dig and delve from year in to |
year out for board and clothes, as
their ancestors have done for gener-
atiOns before them, with no hope |
of lettering their condition. We |
get factory hands and miners
TO work in America for such pay rs
they receive in Europe, because
farmers would offer them induce
meats to leave such poor paying
and seek the more re-
position of field hands.
We may safely assert that to run a
factory or a mine in this country
the employees must receive wages
equal to farm hands, but when such
wages are paid we cannot compete
with Europe in the cost of prOduc-
ton unless protected. 1t follows,
then, that in order to place the in
iustrieS Of America, and especially
those of the South, on n sure fOun-
latiOn, they must be protected to
the extent Of making them equal
with European competitors. For
IN example, such a tariff must be
placed on cotton goods to make IT
cost the English manufacturer as
much to place them ON the the
market as it does the
home manufacturer to do the same
hing, or necessarily the home man.
Ifacturer will go under. We must
nave protection to that extent or
he whole country will suffer and
t is the height of absurdity to urge
4 "tariff for revenue only" in one
breath and to speak of the progress
If the new South" in another.
The existing tariff rates are too
nigh, in some instances, for the pur-
poses indicated above, and the tariff
)ilI passed by the late Republican
congress is, in many particulars,
partial and imperfect. What we
want is "a conservative and judi
'iOus revision of the tariff that will
lot be in the interest of mOnOpOlics
n sections but will benefit alike all
he people and the whole country.
This is the point to which the
Democratic party must shape its
nds if it hopes to win and the most
important utterances seem to indi-
ate the adoption of such policy. ;
NE apparent divisions in the party
anish when brought to focus on
his point, and such doctrine will no
oubt become the "organIc law of {
he national Democracy.
HOW MUCH DO you SWALLOWP
The Democrat says, or insinuates,
hat no one can he n truo democrat