Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1886-02-17
FEATURES or THE NEW TARiFF
BILL.

BILL.
Three special interests will endeayor
TO defeat the Morrison tarsg bill. They
are the sugar producers, the salt-makers
and the owners OF coal, iron, lead and
copper mines. the opposition to q re-
duction in the tariff on sugars viii come
from the South. Ohio and West Virginia
will lead the fight against free salt, while
the iron and coal miners Of Pennsylvania,
the lead miners OF Missouri and the cop
per miners of Michigan will unite to de-
feat free ores of those metals, Aid VIII
be iven them by the rice planters oil
South Carolina, the saw-mill owners oil
Michigan and Wisconsin, and the wool
growers of Ohio, California and Texas.
These industries represent nearly every
section OF the Union, and the opposition
TO the Morrison bill will not be at all sec
tlonal.
This very circumstance of non-sectlon-
alism viii probably pass the bill.
While opposition viii come from
all parts of the country, sup
port OF it will be as widespread. Iron
manufacturers say that they can compete
with Great Britain II they can get cheap
ore and coal. In order TO get cheap ore
and coal, they will support the bill, which
puts those articles on the free list. The
iron manufacturers have been among the
strongest advocates OF high tariff The
effect OF their desertion of the high.tarif
crowd win paralyze it, and will plant dis
sension among the classes who
have always stood as one in fav-
or Of protection. The Pennsylvania
congressman, among whom there is not
revenue reformer, will split on the saue
question, and some, who fear the mine
owners, viii vote against the bill, while
others, who are controlled by the manu-
facturers, will favor il. The Pennsyl-
vania phalanx broken, the battle is half
won.
The farmers and the pork-packers and
fishery interest will not allow salt to
be taken from the free list. II has been
asserted that combination among the
keeps the price OF that article
at double the ilGur that it could be sold
for If the monopoly is broken by allowing
the free introduction of foreign salt.
Nothing that is bought and sold enters
into such general use, and the demand
for free salt will be conceded, along with
ores and other raw material.
Other articles put on the free list Will
excite no opposition. Farmers don't care
whether corn, hay and potatoes are free
or got, for tariff on them affords no
protection to the producer, and the lay
ing Of tariff on them was, in the first
place, piece of dogmatical tomfoolery,
as nobody asked for IL, We are chiefly
engaged in exporting those articles, and
not importing them. Until we get to
the point where We must send to some
other country for our corn and hay and
potatoes, our farmers are not in need of
a tariff to protect them against foreign
competition. 1t is an importing and
not an exporting interest that needs
protection, if any needs It. The
proposition to put ''acoins aid daGde-
lions" on the free list will cause the ques-
tion to be asked why such articles were
ever made dutiable at the rate of two
cents pound. Is there an acorn inter
est to be protected against the pauper
acorns Of EuropeY
The general effect of the bill is to
cheaper articles of every day use among
the common people. Sugar and salt are
used by everybody The former is re-
lieved by twenty per cent. of the tax, while
the latter is freed entirely, The putting
of lumber and timber ON the free list win
have no percoptible effect upon their
prices, outside OF states bordering upon
Canada, as these articles are so bulky
that their transportation any distance in
crcases their cost beyond the cost of home
production. Free ores aud coal will give
cheaper manufactures, indirectly benefit
ing the public by stimulating manufactur-
ing enterprise. There will be hard fight
made by the threatened interests but it
looks as ii the other side will prove too