The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-12-17

w Abo SOIllp1Tsipl0 advantages %uOGE the
nations OF the earth in population, peace, land
and liberty, so long as we go on pleading imam
cy and sTaddle IN medieval rags its victorious
energies. II Is these which need release and
liberty. All our requisite uta3ation may be
made an easy garment We have n ade prison
OF it. plastered stiff with obsolete contentious
about protection and free trade.
" Free trade accurately describes the inter
nal commerce OF our States. It applies to the
commerce, one with another, of no other great
and sovereign states. It does not apply to our
trade with foreign nations. No man now living
will ever see free trade adopted by these
United States in their commerce with foreign
nations, for taxes on imports from the fotinda.
ton OF this Government have ever been one
chief source of Federal revenue, and such they
viii continue to be. They are taxes upon
consumption, like our internal-revenue
taxes; and the true ground OF
choice among articles suitable for taxation is
not the circumstance that they are produced at
home or imported from abroad, for neither the
producer nor the importer finally pays the tax.
is no criterion The place of collection is no
criterion. The place of consumption is where
duties as well as excise are paid at last; sea-
port taxes and inland taxes are alike in cost OF
collection q $40 and 36-l0 per cent?, and alike
in this, that although the importer or distiller
advances the tax, he reinbuTses himself in the
price to the consumer, who alone is taxed.
:" Protection is also a nisnomer. 1t i'm
plies superiority elsewhere. That superiority
over any great industry of ours does not exist
upon the globe. 1t implies infants here and
dQuItS S1SSWU6TS. Suc0 Is not our T6pub4LlUQ
It implies that amid competition universal,
where the fittest survive. we shall perish But
it Is everywhere else believed that whenever
We shall release ourselves from bad laws and
enter that competition unmanacled, rivals will
be distanced and our primary established in
the markets and commerce Of the world.
HIGH WAGES TO AMERICAN LABOR.
"Now, one proud fact attests the substance
CT our prosperity, and is the guaranty as well
as proof of our power to hold against all compe-
tition the markets of the United States for ev
cry thing We choose to dig or fabrcate or grow,
and to command and control for our surplus
products, against all rivals, any foreign market
We pay to labor the highest wages in the world
Highly ISid labor signifies the most efficient la
bor-signifies that high wages are the most
profitable wages-signifies that the high rate is
earned.
''Were trade as free with and within all the
unlimited states of Europe as it is among the
United States of America the great surplus
products Of our industry, including the manu-
featured, would have the pick of foreign mar
kets, for the reason that our labor; being the
most highly paid and insuring lowest per
pass rivalry. The low wages Of pauper labor
signify least efficiency which is but
another name for highest percentage Of labor
cost in the product. Other things icing equal,
it is obvious that high wages can never be paid
unless it is profitable to pay them, and it can
only be good business to pay the highest
wages, because the efficiency of those who earn
them vindicates its superiority by the reduction
of labor-cost in the product
High wages to labor and cheaper product
are correlative terms. Low wages to labor and
coStlier product are corTelatiVe terms
The one implies the other wherever labor
completes with labor upon otherwise equal
ground. What pauper stands any chance
competing with the Intelligent artisanY The
'pauper labor of Europe cry is buga-
boo, except that, in truth, our war-tariff
taxes favor 'pauper labor at the expense Of
American labor. Its products are not fenced
out by our tariff laws. They come in because
we ourselves destroy our own easy power Of
competition, even in our home market BY tar
III taxes on raw materials we fence in our own
surplus products, making them cost too much
to compete at home, and, of course, too much
to compete abroad with manufacturers from
untaxed raw materials.
THE BEST TAXES TO RETAIN.
another proposal is to reduce taxation by
cutting down the tax on whisky, tobacco and
beers and removing the duty on sugar
Nobody pays tax on tobacco except the
consumers OF tobacco. They are willing to pay
for the luxury, and they ask no relief ANY
probable reduction Of the tax on whisky would
be more likely to increase the revenue than to
diminish it. The price OF sugar has fallen to an
exceedingly cheap rate. Our own sugar crop IS
SO very small part of the total amount of
sugar we consume that sugar ranks next to
articles wholly producted abroad, like tea and
coffee, in suitability for taxation, on the ground
tslat its consumption is universal; that the tax
easily and cheaply collected that the in
creased price paid by the consumers is an UNI
considered trifie, and that what is taken from
Ln6 taxpayers goes INTO The taxpayers treas
ury, not into q few private bank accounts.
THE TAXES TO BE RENTED.
The taxes to be first RENTED are those which
prevent or hinder the sale of our surplus prod
ucts in foreign markets. Their removal will
set capital in motion by the promise of bet
ter returns, enlarge the steady employment,
and increase the annual income of many thou
SAND Wage-earners. whose prosperity will diff
fuse prosperity. These taxes are the duties on
raw atsrials, and the most widely injurious Of
them is the tax upon raw wool.
Il respectfully recommend to Congress that
they confer upon the Wage-earnerS OF the United
States the boon OF untaxed clothing, and in
order thereto the immediate passage of an act
simply and solely placing raw wool upon the
free list.
.Of course a repeal of the duty on raw wool
should be followed by, but need not wait for, a
compromising adjustment of the duties on manu-
featured woolens, while our manufacturers are
learning the lesson that with the highest paid
and most efficient labor in the world, with the
most skilled management and the best invent
tive appliances, they need fear no competition
from any rivals in the world, in home or for
woods free of every kind. But the common,
daily clothing OF the American people need not
be taxed.
FINANCIAL. STATEMENT.
1.-THE total ordinary revenues of the Govern
ment for the year were 1896 439,72 an increase
over the previous year of $12, 749 020. The total
ordinary expenditures were 1887 034, 49, de-
crease from the previous year of ST., 743, 796.
Inc recelpts Tor the hrSt quarter OF
the present fiscal year were S94, 945, 592,
and the expenditures $685. ,629. The
amount Of customs revenues received during
the fiscal year 1886 were 1892 905 023 an increase
OF S11, 433,0S4 over the previous year. From in
ternal revenue taxes the receipts were S116,
SO5, 1886, an increase of 81, 307. 210.
The total Indebtedness of the United States
November l, 1885, less cash in the treasury, was
VI ,354, 3f7947, showing reduction during the
year of 800, BOG, $40. The net balance in the
treasury at that date was $50, 783, 199. The net
interest reduction was S3,2199S4.