The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1884-01-27
The Last Word.

The Last Word.
We have read the article OF the Charleston
Meas and Courier (morc than column IN
length, In reply TO one Of ours. but we cannon
admit that II has succeeded in getting ont Of
the dilemma In which we supposed 1t tc
be. We quote again what 1t had said tc
us:
.To HELM Itself out OF the difficulty The
DispafcA says that the Ners and Comr,e'
shoids Il to be great "wrong" TO put .
tariff Of fifty cents per pound on tobacco In
order to protect the Virginia manufacturer
from Canadian or other foreign competi'
tiou.' We do not--so far as the Virgins
manufacturers are affected by the internal
revenue tax. No economist with gram
Of sense would dream Of admitting foreign
tobacco duty free as long as there was an
internalrevenue tax on the domestic 10,
bacco. The strictest tariff-reformers wcuio
make the import duty equal to the excise"
We had said that our Charleston contem'
porary held IL Ia be great wrong to put q
tariff on tobacco "in order TO protect " the
virginia manufacturer. The Ns,os ana
Courier replied distinctly, 1--WE do not"
..Do not" what! Why, OF course, DO mol
hold that II Is wrong to protect the Virgins
manufacturers so far as they are affected by
the iuternal-revenue tax. II not wrong, il
Is right. That seems to us TO be an un-
avoidable inference. How, then, ear. our
contemporary now deny either of the two
propositions we based upon the paragraph
quoted above? PROFESSIONALLY the editor
admitted
/. That protection does protect. Not
only did be admit that, but he gave good
reason why that protection ought to be ex-
tended to the Virginia manufacturer
namely, because 4" there Is an internal-rey-
enue tax upon tobacco"
9. The second proposition we deduced
was that he admitted that protective
tariff was sometimes necessary.
Surely the paragraph above quoted JUS
iities this inference also. What else could
we infer from the declaration that "no
economist with grain OF sense would
dream OF admitting foreign tobacco duty
free so long as there was an internal-reve-
nue. tax on the domestic tobacco?
II the Meas and Courier finds that it
has confessed too much, let it own that
fact and restate its propositions; but let
IL not charge us with - endeavoring to fas-
ten upon 1t opinions which 1t does not
hold and which il repudiates." We gave
its own language. and we leave it to every
candid reader to say whether or not we
drew any differences not Justified by the
language quoted.
Here are two sentences from our con-
temporary's last article which strike us As
contradictory the one OF the other:
1. ave deny, as we have SAID before, that
the Government ought to protect the
American tobacco grower and mmuiac-
furer."
And yet you say that "no economist
with grain OF sense would dream OF adj
hitting foreign tobacco free so long as
there was an internal-reyenue tax on the
domestic tobacco" Would not that be to
protect the home manufacturers Here is
The second sentence:
,. 1--WE grant tina where import duties
are imposed on raw materials it is equitable
to impose duty on the commodities manu-
featured from such materials"
Why should such duty as this last be
imposed in this case? Can there be more
than one answer to this interrOgatoryy
Isn't 1t clear TINT the object OF its imposi-
ton would be to '.protect" the home man.
ufacturer?
Nothing could induce us = misrepresent
the Ne,cs and Courier. We must hold,
that it is in dilemma, and
that we have made our point good. The
only method o. escape is for our Charles
ton contemporary TO withdraw the Ian
guage we quoted. acknowledging that
it was susceptible OF construction which
the Mems and Courier did not intend should
he put upor il.