Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1884-09-02
A Live and Square Issue for the
Voters September Sth.
For the American Factories and Work.
men, or for the British Factories
and WOPkmen?

men, or for the British Factories
and WOrkmen?
The question is plain one to the voters
of Maine Will you favor the British fac
tories or the factories of your own State ?
Will you vote for the policy that builds up
British cities and towns. or the policy that
builds cities and towns on our own rivers
and streams. making our farms and other
property more valuable +? England seeks
to monopolize the manufactures and COM
nlerce of the acorld. To this end she is
depicting, crushing, and impoverishing
the other nations. wherever her Golden
Club, her diplomacy. her fleet and her
armies can find fields, fools and opportun-
tiles for her power. India. with her two
hundred millions of poorly fed people,
with tens of thousands dying every year
By starvation, began to prosper in her
manufactures stimulated by a small pro-
tective tariff. At the demand of the Brit
ish manufacturers this small protection of
Indian interests was removed. and the iron
grasp of English military power compelled
the sacrifice of Indian interests.
1t is familiar history, often repeated,
that England inflicted deadly blow to
Ireland by destroying her tariff system,
thus annihilating Ireland's manufactures
to build up English manufactures. But
facts and figures need be carefully stated
to see clearly what this history of Ireland's
wrongs really means. By series of OPP
pressive measures. rigidly enforced by
England for many years, the once pros
porous manufactures of Ireland were de-
stroyed, and the agricultural interests of
that beautiful country correspondingly
injured. What followed Ireland's pop
ulation was reduced from eight to fUe mil
lions. Starvation and emigration made
this tremendous change in Irish popula-
ton. British free trade and landlordism
chiefly contributed to this terrible havoc
between 1S41 and 1881.
Well did the eloquent Lord Dufferin,
when his Irish blood beat warmly in his
veins, say ''Some human agency must be
accountable for the perennial desolation OF
lovely and fertile island, watered by the
fairest streams. caressed by clement at
mosphere, held in the embraces of q sea
whose affiuence fills the noblest harbors
of the world"
l In this period from 1S4l to 1881 the
population Of England and Scotland in
creased from 1s,534.3S2 to 29,O63, ZAP.
In the meanwhile the number of textile
factories alone of England and Scotland
had increased to more than seuen thousand
with more than 5000, 900 spindles. This
was done by system called Free Trade
k but is as distinctively protective for Brit.
ish capital and labor as is the Republican
protective tariff for the United States. Il
is in part done by taxing heavily the tea
coffee and tobacco Of her poorly paiC
workmen, to aid to maintain an expensive
foreign policy, requiring an immense ma
val and military power to enforce, with
which to compel weak nations and les.
civilized people to take her goods. 1t II
done by substituting many lines of steam
ers with British gold to carry British
manufactures to the four quarters of tn,
globe.
BY the same COMPRISING. crushing pol
icy of armed British free trade. the worlS
is taught the sad lesson of Portugal This
: country of 1000, 900, which ought to b.
: double, is favorably situated, with wat
}. er front on the Atlantic, beautiful eli
f mate. productive soil. But for a Ions
time she has been in the political ant
commercial arms of England, ans
by the force of treaties and polio,
Portugal sends the productions of her sol
to Great Britain, receiving in exchang'
British manufactures. The result of thi
!. is. that Portugal cannot have dourishins
manufactures Of her own. cannot have {
varied industry, and thus Is kept in tina
+ servile. impoverished condition to which
: country is always brought sooner o.
u later which depends on agriculture alone
: The result to Portugal-this tributary lane
: Of England-is that she is overwhelmed in
debt to the extent of hhirty-sir per cent o
her entire valuation. Here are plain. incon
d testable facts. whose meaning cannot b
: misunderstood. What citizen of Main,
e with drop Of patriotic blood in his vein,
+ will vote to curse this State with British
r free trade as Ireland and Portugal have
q been and are being cursed? 1t is direc
i question-will you vote on the side of the
1000 British factories with their $4,000,