Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1884-07-24

gate CT IWenty-fOur billions of dollars (24,000.-
| uuoOCV!. Inc balance in this vast commerce in
cllned IN our favor, but it would have been much
| largerH our trade with the countries of Ameri-
| ca, elsewhere referred to had been more wisely
adjusted.
1t Is difficult even to appreciate the magnitude
OF our export trade since 1860 and we can gain a
| correct conception of it only by comparison with
preceding results in the same field. The total
exports from the United States from the Declara-
| Ion OF independence in 1776 down to the days of
| Lincoln election in 1860 added to all that had
| previously been exported from the American
coIohleS from their original settlement, amounted
| 70 less Inan zine thousand millions of dollars
! ES9,UVV,U0OOUOl. On the other hand, our exports
from looO 10 the close of the last fiscal year eX
| ceedeQ Twelve thousand millions of dollars (SI2, =
uUV,UV0,, UO-the whole of it being the produce of
| American labor. Evidently a protective tariff
| has rot injured our export trade when under its
/ influence we exported in twenty -four years forty
| per cent. more than the total amount that had
/ been exported in the entire previous history
| OF american commerce. All the details, when
! anaiyzed, correspond with this gigantic result
! The commercial cities of the Union never
! had Slch growth as they have enjOyed since 1860
! Our chief emporium, the city of New York with
! Its dependencies has within that period doubled
! her population and increased her wealth five-fod
/ during the same period the imports and exports
when nave entered and left her harbOr are more
| than double IN bulk and value the whole amount
/ exported by her between the settlement OF the
hrSU Dutch colony on the island of Manhattan and
! the outbreak OF the civil war in 1860.
| AGRICULTURE AND THE TARIFF
! the nation, and is entitled in every adjustment
! of revenue laws, to the first consideration. ANY
policy hostile TO the fullest development Of agri-
culture III the United States must be abandoned
Realizing this fact the opponents of the present
system of revenue have labored very earnestly to
! persuade the farmers of the United States that
| they are robbed by protective tariff and the
eHofV Is thus made to consolidate their
! vast Innuence in favor of free trade But
happily the farmers of America are intelt-
] gent ana cannot be miSed by SOphiStry when
conclusive facts are before them. They see
! plainly that during the past twenty-four years,
wealth has not been acquired in one section or by
one interest at the expense OF another section
another interest. They see that the agricultural
! states have made even more rapid progress than
! the manufacturing states.
The farmers see that in 1850 Massachusetts
and Illinois had about the same wealth-between
eight md nine hundred million dollars each-and
that in 1880 Massachusetts had advanced to
twenty hundred millions, while Illinois had
advanced TO thirty-twO hundred millions. They
see that New Jersey and Iowa were lust equal in
population in 1860 and that in twenty years the
wealth OF New Jersey was increased by the sum
OF eight hundred and fifty millions Of dollars,
while the wealth of Iowa was increased by the
sum OF fifteen hundred millions. They see that
the nine leading agricultural states of the West
have grown so rapidly in prosperity that the ag
gregete addition to their wealth since 1860 is
almost as great as the wealth of the entire
country in that year They see that the SOUTH
which Is almost exclusively agricultural, has
shared IN the general prosperity and that having
recovered from the loss and devastation of war,
has gained so rapidly that its total wealth is at
least Un6 double OF that which 1t possessed
1860, inclusive of slaves
In these extraordinary developments the farm
| ers see the helpful impulse of a home market.
ana they see that the financial and revenue SyS-
tenn, enacted since the republican party came in
to power, has established ami constantly expand
ed 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 homo to
the one they have sold abroad, and 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.
La some years the disparity has been so great
one hundred bushes have been consumed in the
! home market. The farmers see that in
the increasing competition from the grain fields
| or Russia and from the distant plains OF India,
! the growth of the home market becomes daily of
! greater concern to them and that its impairment
would depreciate the value of every acre Of till
able land III 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 advantages which the
American people enjoy from protection against
| foreign competition, they enjoy the advantages
| of absolute free trade over a larger area and
with greater population taan any other nation.
The internal commerce of our thrty-eight states
and nine territories is crared on without let or
hindrance without tax, detention or govern
mental interference of any kind whatever. 1t
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 fifty-SX millions
of American freemen, and from this enjoyment
no monopoly is created. According to Alexander
Hamilton, when he discussed the same subject in
1890, 1.-The internal competition which takes place
does away with every thing like monopoly, and
by degrees reduces the prices of articles to the
minimum of a reasonable profit on the capital
employed" 1t is impossible to point to a single
monopoly in the United States that has been Gre
ated foStered by the industrial system which is
The
Compared with our foreign commerce these
domestic exchanges are incOnceivably great in
amOunt-requiring merely as one fundamentally
as large q mileage Of railway as exists to-day In
all the other nations of the world combined These
internal exchanges are estimated by the StatIStl-
cal bureau OF the treasury department to be an
nually twenty times as great in amount as our
foreign commerce. 1t is into this vast field of
home trade-at once the creation and the
heritage of the American peOple-that foreign
nations are striving by every device to enter 1t
is into this field that the opponents of our pres
ent revenue system would freely admit the cOun-
tries of Europe-cOuntries into whose internal
trade we could not reciprOcally enter; countries
to which we should be surrendering every advan-
tage of trade from which should be gaining
nothing in return.
EFFECT UPON THE MECHANIC AND THE LABORER.
A policy of this kind would be disastrous to
the mechanics and working of the United
States, Wages are unjuStly reduced when an
industrious man is not able by his earnings to
live Ia comfort, educate his children, and lay by
q SUFFICIENT amount for the necessities OF age.
upon, throwing our home market open to the
world, would deprive them of the power to do
this. 1t would prove a great calamity to our
country. 1t would produce a conflict between
the poor and the rich, and in the SOrrOWful deg
radiation of labor would plant the seeds of public
danger.
The republican party has steadily aimed to
maintain just relations between labor and capital
guarding with care the rights of each. A con-
f1ict between the two has always led il the past,
and will always lead in the future, to the injury
OF 0oth, Labor is indispensable to the creation
and profitable, use of capital, and capital in
creases the efficiency and value Of labor. Who
ever arrays the against the other is an enemy
of both. That policy is wisest and best which
harmOnizeS the two on the basis of absolute jus
tice. The republican party has protected the
free labor of America SO that its compensation is
larger than is realized in any other country. 1t
has guarded our people against the unfair com
| petition of contract labor from China, and may
be called upon to prohibit the growth of similar
evil from Europe. 1t Is obviously unfair to per-
init capitalists TO make contracts for cheap labor
| in foreign countries to the hurt and dISparage-
ment Of the labor of American citizens. SUCH a
policy like that which would leave the time and
other conditions of home labor exclusively in the
control of the employer sinjuriouS to all parties
mot the least so to the unhappy persons who