Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1884-04-16

the House in carefully prepared speech.
| The greatest attention was paid during its
delivery. members leaving their seats and
| providing the aisles and spaces near him. He
read his speech from manuscript. At the
outset be adverted to the passage in the
i Presidents annual message referring to the
/ large surplus revenues of tbs government
not needed for public use and argued that
Congress could not fail to relieve the
people of this needless taxation and surplus
and their attendant evils without fragrant
| disregard of public duty. He did not claim
| that the bill would afford all the relief de-
| manded, but it Was step in advance and q
promise of more complete revenue reform,
to attain which q general revision of the
tariff and more equitable adjustment of
rates on dutiable articles is essential. A
horizontal reduction was mot the most logical
or best, but none other was practicable. He
referred to Senators Morrill, and Sherman
and Representative Kelley as the chief aroh-
fleets of the new tariff act as finally perfect
ed. Their work was harmonious and con-
sistent. They laid some duties as low as ten
and some as high as one hundred per cent.
and these are to be, reduced twenty per
cent, or to eight and eighty per cent, SO
that relatively they would remain
the same. The insufficient, not to say de-
ceptive character of the law revision, the
manner of making it and the circumstances
attending it's adoption alike forbade that it
should be permanent. After iRtimating that
the manufacturers caused their agent to be
made president of the commission, who
secured many changes to the advantage of
the manufacturers he added: ftI hardly need
say that revision procured through such
agencies and methods is entitled to no re-
spsct whatever a tariff too low necessi-
tates a change to obtain needed revenues
When too high, as ours is, q change is neces->
sary to avoid a surplus from imports on
which the duty is not prohibitory; SO the
only security from agitation and change is to
confne the taxing power to its rightful pur-
pose of obtaining revenue limited to the
necessities of the government. Mr.. Morri
son claimed that the laborer for wages was
at least we'll paid and the farmers better
paid in 1860 than now; while in 1860, q year
of bounteous plenty, our importations of
foreign goods were less in proportion to
population than in 1880 and 1882; and DUR
ing the past few years wages have been as
low as or lower than before the
adoption of the taxing policy as
pretended means of raising wages.
Referring to the Ohio platform he said that
if this platform had an honest meaning 1t was
that the tariff shall be lowered to q revenue
basis and gentlemen deceived themselves who
expected the people to be deceived by re
fusal to legislate in accordance with this de-
clared purpose Finally" said Mr.. Morri-
son, "if the protective policy was to be the
continuing policy of the government it would
be, and ought to be- entrusted to its friends,
the Republican party"
MIR. Kelley, of Pennsylvania, did not pro-
pose to reply in detail to Mr.. Morrison. He
did not think any American industry would
be relieved by the cheapening of material.
The truth was that the power of pro-
duction had overrun the power of consump-
ton. Nihilism. Socialism and communism
in Europe ted the story of unemployed
labor there. He gave sketches of poverty
and misery which he had seen in ''merrie
free trade England during his third months
visit there the past year, and said
it was now proposed that this country
enter into q with the world for
cheapness. He quoted Emory Storrs
as saying to the English free traders that they
thought more of cheap shoe than they did
of a prosperous shoemaker while in this
country the consideration was given the ar
tisan. He went on to give accounts of
what he saw in the way of employ
mens of women in England on
making trace chains, bricks, galTauizing steam
pans, for which they received but the most
trifling pittance. God forbid, said he, that
shiDgs shall ever be so cheap in this country
as to bring American women into competi-
ton with this class of labor. He denied that
any of the thirty or more articles put in the
Morrison bill as raw material we're such. Salt
was only raw material - hen in the brine.
Coal was only raw material when in the
ground unm1neQ, lumber only when IN the
forest. Mr.. Kelley said that on the removal
of the tax on quinine Mr.. Wightman, of
Philadelphia, sent his son John Wightman,
an eminent chemist with all his stock and es-
tablished his factory in Germany, where with
cheap labor and free alcohol he can
undersell American manufacturers and
has destroyed this American industry Mr..
Kelley had read some commercial statistics of
the India trade to show as he said how a just
God is enabling poor, crushed and starved
India to crowd England out of the Orisntsl
markets. Repeating his Introductory
remarks he said the production
had outrun the consumption and
that every dollar taken from the wages of
labor reduces the capacity for consumption
Unless the farmers of the West and South
took every means to diversity their crops
the markets would be Quilted. The
remedy was to send back to
the country from whence he came every
cheap laborer brought here under
contract for their labor. If there was no
other way to keep up thu price of labor let it
be done by declaring eight hours the longest
period that labor shall be performed
or machinery run in day. He
urged upon the agricblturists the
the soil than wheat. In concluding he said
he wanted a tariff that would protect Ameri
can labor and that would shut out the prices
of India and England.
Mr.. Mills, of Texas, spoke in advocacy of
| the bill, and the House adjourned