Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1888-06-06


river of death gather on our eyelids, may
the good Pilot take the wheel from our
hands and guide US Into the calm harbor ol
eternal rest!
drop the anchor, furl the sail,
am safe within the vale.''
Carlisle on Taxation.
THE PHILOsoPHIc ARGUMENT OF GREAT
STATES lamp RoTE CTIoN HELPS
NEITHER THE WAaE-EARNER NOR THE
FARMER.
There is fundamental and irreconcilable
difference of opinion between those who be-
lieve that the power of taxation should be
exercised only for public purposes and that
the burdens of taxation should be distribu-
ted equally among all the people according
to their ability to bear them, and those who
believe it is the right and duty of the Gov
ernment to encourage private interests by
the imposition of higher rates than the
needs of the Government require. So far
the main opposition to this bill has been
against that part of it which proposes to
reduce the tariff taxes, and we are told that
the passage will ruin many valuable indus
tries now fourishing, that it will throw
many workmen out of employment and
diminish the wages of those who still man
age to fiud work to do. If believed that
the passage of this bill would work any
material injury to any honest industry in
this country l would hesitate long, not
withstanding the emergency now on us,
before casting my vote for it.
benefits INDUSTRIES,
But am satisfied that instead of injur-
ing the industries of this country it will be
of great benefit to them, and at the same
time relieve the people from the burdens
under which they now labor. The gentle
men who resist the passage of this bill, as
have said, do so mainly upon the ground
that it interferes with the present rates of
duty upon imported goods, and they tell
US, and the gentleman from Maine has re-
peated it in various forms to day, that a
high rate of duty upon such goods is bene-
fetal to the great body of consumers of
the country, because they say that instead
of increasing the price of domestic articles
of the same kind it actually reduces the
price. Well, sir, if this is correct then all
the other arguments in favor of protective
system are not only superhuous, but are
unsound. The proposition that the duty
upon imported goods reduces the price oi
the products of labor and at the same time
enables the employer to pay labor higher
price for its work are utterly inconsistent.
THE wAGE-EARNER.
Labor is paid out of it's own product, and
unless the employer can sell that product
for sufficient price to yield him reason
able profit and pay the established rates of
wages the business must cease or wages
must come down, When the price of the
finished product is reduced by increased
efficiency of labor or by reduced cost of raw
material, then the manufacturer may con-
tinue to pay the same or even higher rate
of wages, and still make his usual profits
But the tariff neither increases the efflcien-
cy of labor nor diminishes the cost of raw
material
There is not a well-informed man in the
country who does not know that it is not
the tariff, not the rates of duty upon i'm
ported goods that have bronght down the
price of manufactured articles or increased
the wages of labor, but the marvellous in
ventions which have characterized this age
as no other age before has been character
lied since the history of man began.
THE FARMER.
The gentleman from Maine talks about
the home market. We all know, he says
that this protective system is beneficial to
the farmer, because, first, it protects his
product against competition from the agri-
cultural products of other countries. and,
secondly, the gentleman says because it di-
versifies industry and BY increasing the
number of people engaged in other than
agricultural pursuits increases the market
for his product.
Now, Mr.. Chairman, it is scarcely necces-
sary for me to make an argument to show
that as to all those agricultural products
which the farmers of this country are COM
PEELED to send abroad to sell at foreign
prices the duty cannot be of any possible
benefit. The gentleman from Maine, Mr..
Dingley, while not fearing to admit that
the price of all our expCrtable products is
fixed in foreign market, undertook to
avoid the force of the admission by contend
ing that the prics in the foreign market
was fixed by the supply in America. Un-
doubtedly, the supply in this country has
an influence in fixing the price in the foreign
market, but the great controlling element
is the woild's supply and the worlds de-
mand.
The lately emancipated slaves of Russia,
the rich of India, who lives all summer on
rice and milk and requires no garment ex-
cept coarse cotton shirt and sleeps on the
floor of bamboo hut-all pour their prod
ucts into the markets of Europe to meet
the wheat from Minnesota and Dakota, and
no tariff we can put on, and no system OF
taxation that can be devised here by the in
genuity of man, can prevent this being done
The same argument applies to all our agri
cultural products, and the American farm
or understands it.
And he understands that as long as he il
compelled to export and sell in a foreign
market is worth just as much to him as the
home market, because he receives there JUS
what he would receive here after deductins
the cost of transportation. Therefore, il
place of restricting his market he wants il
extended and enlarged, so that his product,
which cannot be consumed here can find 9
market among the people elsewhere What
the American farmer wants is home mar
ket, in which he can purchase his supplies
as cheap as his competitors purchase theil
supplies. When he can't get this, then hi
asks that there may be such system al
will enable him to purchase bis supplies
elsewhere, and bring them into his owl
country, without being unreasonably taxed
and unreasonably fined for carrying on this
harmless business. That is what tn,
American farmer wants.
We want, gentlemen, not only the hom,
markets but the markets of all the work
for the variety of products of this great
country. We want to sell our manufactur
ed products to India and the hungry manu-
featuring places of Europe and the agricul
tural places Of Mexico, South America anC
Asia. We want to remove, as far as we can
the restrictions and barriers which ammo
our industries so that this country may tax
its place alongside of the great commercial
countries of the world and become rich AM
powerful as no other country has before
A small man is not necessarily big liar
but every big liar is very small man an
in very a small business. City Blizzard