The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1884-02-21
The Democratic Tariff Policy,

The Argus does not like Mr.. Reeds recent
speech In Philadelphia. That will not dis
appoint him, we presume. The Argus is
paper which thinks Americans should r, lin
guish the American market for manufae-
lures, and fer agricultural productions as
well. 1t thh. ks that if all Americans were
farmers and dependent upon Great Britain
for whatever does not grow out of the earth
we should be in the happiest condition. Here
are fifty-f1ve millions of people accustomed
to more comforts and more luxuries than
any equal population on the globe. The
Democratic party says: "Let Englan supply
us with clothing, machinery, tools, books,
furniture, ships, ETC., because she can do it
cheaper than we can make them ourselves,
and let her have the profit of this business,
while we will raise wheat and corn TO feed
her people" The Republican party says:
Let us make these things ourselves, building
up cities which will make home market for
our agricultural products, and, better than
that,will make us independent Of foreign ma
tons and sufficient unto ourselves in every
exigency of peace or war" The Republican
party desires to foster capacity for every
industry which will invite population and
secure prosperity in time Of peace, and, in
case of wal, will prevent such weakness and
privation as our forefathers endured in The
Revolutionary war of 1912, and as the
South endured during the civil war
If the farmers of the country think they
would be richer If there we're no great cities,
no busy manufacturing villages, scattered
through the country making markets for
their supplies, that they would be better off
with thousands more producers of corn,
wheat, hay. beef. pork, eggs, butter and
cheese, and thousands fewer of consumers,
with plows and moving machines, calico
and frocking, carpets and crockery, at such
prices as England might choose to ask for
them, competition being killed off, they will
vote to put the Democratic party in power.
Q:hel- wise they will -zQta with The Repqbli-
can party.
The Republican party has emancipated
labor both from the tyranny of slavery and
the equal tyranny of dependence upon for
eign monopolists. The Republican party
gave the farmers of America a homestead
law. The Republican party has fostered the
policy which connects the agricultural en-
pirs of the West with the great markets of the
East and of Europe, so that beyond the Mis-
sissippi River it is now more profitable to sell
corn than to use 1t for fuel. Under the rule
Of the Republican party the nation has
grown rich through newly created and wisely
fos;ered wealth-producing industries. 1t is
because of these industries that the nation
has been able TO pay off the debt of the war
while the great body of working men have
not only lived easier, enjoyed more comfort,
and had greater advantages for their chill
dren than the laboring classes of any other
country, but have been better off than ever
before in this country.
At no other period were the owners of
farms so generally out of debt, so well
housed, well fed, well clothed and well edu-
Gated, and at no other period have the
wages fall labor procured greater abund-
ance of the necessities and comforts of life.
At no other period have the wage-earnipg
classes had so much money saved and at in
terest The politicians who are endeavor-
ing to persuade the people that the times are
out Of joint, that there is decay instead of
growth, peril instead OF safety, must make
their comparisons not with any actual con-
dition that ever existed, but with copdi-
ton which has no existence except in imag-
ination, which they are utterly powerless to
bring about, and which their specifies would
hinder and prevent instead of promote.
The laborer who would be benefited by
opening the American market to the COM
petition of the world would not be the
American laborer. Some advantages might
come to the laborers of England, France and
Germany, but We doubt if much, even to
them. The strangest thing is that Irishmen
should support the party whose policy is
formulated to enrich and strengthen Eng.
land, and, by the same token, to impeverish
and weaken Ireland; and, what is more, to
reduce America to the same condition of de-
pendence on England for manufactured
| goods that Ireland has been reduced to.
They ale never weary of decrying England
for crushing out the Industries of Ire
land, but they vote with astonishing persis-
tency for the party whose policy in this par
ticular is to give England the opportunity
| to do for the industries of America what she
| has done for the industries of Ireland.
|