Morning journal and courier., 1884-07-19

\ New York with it's dependencies, has within I that period doubled her population and in
 creased her wealth five fold. During thl
 same period the imports and exports whicI | have entered and left her harbor are nor,
 than double in bulk and value the sswholt
 amount imported and exported by her be s tween the settlement of the first Dutch col I ony on the island of Manhattan and the out.
 break of the civil war in 1860. 1 AGRICULTURE AND THE TARIFF
 The agricultural interest is by far the larg- [ est in the nation, and is entitled in every { adjustment of revenue laws to the first con- ! sideration. Any policy hostile to the fullest ! development of agriculture in the United States must he abandoned. Realizing this l fact the opponents of the present system of revenue have labored very earnestly to per I suade the farmers of the United States that 1 they are robbed by the protective tariff, and !. the effort is thus made to consolidate their \ vast influence in favor of free trade. But ] happily the farmers of America are intelli- | gent and cannot be misled by sophistry when | conclusive facts are before them. They see 1 plainly that during the past twenty-four | years, wealth has not been acquired in one l section or by one interest at the expense of | another section or another interest. They see ! that the agricultural States have made even I more rapid progress than the manufacturing States.
 The farmers see that in 1860 Massachusetts | and Illinois had about the same wealth-be- tween eight and nine hundred million dol lars each-and that in 1880 Massachusetts had advanced to twenty-six hundred mil lions. They see that New Jersey and Iowa were just equal in population in 1860 and that in twenty years the wealth of New Jer- sey was increased by the sum of eight hun dred and fifty millions of dollars. They see that the nine leading agricultural States of the West have grown so rapidly in prosperity that the aggregate addition to their wealth since 1860 is almost as great as the wealth of the entire country in that year. They see l that the South, which is almost exclusively agricultural, has shared in the general pros perity and that, having recovered from the de- vastations of war, has gained so rapidly that | its total wealth is at least the double of that ] which it possessed in 1860, exclusive of slaves.
 In these extraordinary developments the farmers see the helpful impulse of a home market, and they see that the financial and revenue system enacted since the Republican party came into power has established and constantly expanded the home market. They see that even in the case of wheat, which is our chief cereal export, they have sold, in the average of the years since the close of the war, three bushels at home to one they have sold abroad, and that in the case of corn, the only other cereal which we export to any extent, one hundred bushels have been used at home to three and a half bushels exported. In some years the dispar- ity has been 80 great that for every peck of
 corn exported one hundred bushels have been
 consumed in the home market. The farmers
 see that in the increasing competition from
 the grain fields of Russia and from the dis
 tant plains of India, the growth of the home
 market becomes daily of greater concern to
 them and that its impairment would depre- ciate the value of every acre of tillable land in the Union.
 OUR INTERNAL COMMERCE.
 Such facts as these touching the growth and consumption of cereals at home give us some slight conception of the vastness of the internal commerce of the United States
 They suggest also that in addition to the ad- vantages which the American people enjoy from protection against foreign competition, they enjoy the advantages of absolute free trade over larger area and with a greater population than any other nation. The in ternal commerce of our thirty-eight States
 and nine Territories is carried out without let or hindrance, without tax, detention or governmental interference of any kind what ever. It spreads freely over an area of three and half million square miles-almost equal in extent to the whole continent of Europe. Its profits are enjoyed to-day by ffty-six mil lions of American freemen, and from this en- joyment no monopoly is created. According to Alexander Hamilton, when he discussed the same subject in 1790, ''the internal com FyOJv rA -AG every thing like monopoly, and by degrees reduces the prices of articles to the minimum of reasonable profit on the capital employ ed' It is impossible to point to monopoly in the United States that has been created or fostered by the industrial system which is up- held by the Republican party.
 Compared with our foreign commerce these domestic exchanges are inconceivably great in amount-requiring merely as one instru- mentality as large mileage of railway as exists to-day in all the other nations of the world combined. These internal exchanges are estimated by the Statistical bureau of the Treasury department to be annually twenty times as great ill amount as our foreign com merce. It is, into this vast field of home trade-at once the creation and the heritage of the American people-that foreign nations striving by every device to enter. It is into this field that the opponents of our pres ent revenue system would freely admit the countries of Europe into whose internal trade could not reciprocally enter; countries to which we should be surrendering every advantage of trade; from which we shall be gaining nothing in return. EFFECT UPON THE MECHANIC AND THE LABOR
 FER.
 A policy of this kind would be disastrous to the mechanics and workingmen of the ! United States. Wages are unjustly reduced when an industrious man is not able by his !  dren, and lay by sufficient amount for the necessities of age. The reduction of wages inevitably consequent upon throwing our home market open to the world would de- | prive them of the power to do this. It would prove great calamity to our country. It l would produce a conflict between the poor and the rich, and in the sorrowful degrada- ton of labor would plant the seeds of public danger.
 The Republican party has steadily aimed to maintain just relations between labor and with care the rights of each A conflict between the two has always led in the past and will always lead in the future to the injury of both. Labor is indis- pensable to the creation and profitable use of capital, and capital increases the efficiency and value of labor. Whoever arrays the one against the other is an enemy to both. That policy is wisest and best which harmonizes the two on the basis of absolute justice. The Republican party has protected the free labor l of America so that it's compensation is larger than is realized in any other country. It has l guarded our people against the unfair comPe- 1 tition of contract labor from China and may be called upon to prohibit the growth ot ! similar evil from Europe. Itis obviously un- | fair to permit capitalists to make contracts | for cheap labor in foreign countries to the ! hurt and disparagement of the labor of Amer | ican citizens. Such policy, Qike that which l would leave the time and other conditions of | nome ldDOF eAc1uS1HSlJ III CO1lIIOI OI Illo ! employer,) is injurious to all parties-not the | least so to the unhappy persons who are made the subjects of the contract. The institu- ] tions of the United States rest upon the in telligenee and virtue of all the people. Suf- frage is made universal as just weapon of | to every citizen. It is not the | interest of the republic that any economic l system should be adopted which involves the | reduction of wages to the hard standard pre- vailing elsewhere. The Republican party aims to elevate and dignify labor-not to de- grade it.
 As @ substitute for the industrial system which under Republican administration has developed such extraordinary prosperity, our opponents offer policy which is but series of experiments upon our system of revenue-a policy whose end must be harm to our manufactures and greater harm to our labor. Experiment in the industrial and financial system is the country's greatest dread, stability is it's greatest boon.