Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-08-10
Dome Department.
THE PLATFORMS AND OTHER
MATTERS.
BREAD LOAF Inn, Ripton, VT.

Dedr ST:-lne puDHcatlOn Oh tne
platforms of the different parties in your
last is an excellent idea. 1t will enable
all of your readers who have time, to
study and compare them at their leisure.
For the first time | have glanced them
through. Life with me at least is too
short, or too busy, to read them. | no.
tice that the Republican is as long as any
two of the others.
One of these platforms, and only one,
acknowledges God as the source of all
power in government. Certainly this is
a proper condition from which to act.
We notice your reference to a supposed
similarity between the Republican and
Prohibition platforms relative to inter-
nal OF course their positions
are very different. The Republican did
not recognize the question of temper
ance at all, but in its action on other mat
tiers proposed to sweep away the only
check that now exists in our national pol
icy to the flooding of the country with
cheap whiskey, and all the evils which
that implies,-and substituted nothing in
its place. The other party proposes to
do away with all such taxes and high IL
cense, substituting in their place prohi-
bition, because it believes this last to be
far more effective. We would not OBJ
ject to the tearing down provided the
building up followed. He that substi-
tutes for an old bridge a new and better
one may be a public benefactor, but he
that would tear down the old one with
out providing a new, must be put where
he cannot do such injury.
l may later have something to say on
the tariff, and the idea that it protects
wages, which is not true. 1t protects. as
the circular sent out by the president of
the Republican National League to the
manufacturers, and that is understood to
have been written by Senator Edmunds
or Mr.. Morrill,, states, the manufacturers.
1t protects them and nobody else-is at
the expense of everybody else. So far
as such protection may sometimes oper-
ate to establish an industry that might
not otherwise be established, at least 80
quickly, it might operate to the advan-
tage of the laborer, but such industry, if
it ought to exist at all in this country,
should ere long be self-supporting. Or
anges and figs or coffee might be raised
in New England by the use of hotbeds.
and if there was tariff enough on them it
might pay a few to so raise them. We
hardly think the many would want to
make such AK. As a universal princi-
pie the less taxes the cheaper is living
and cheaper living means better living.
h is what every wage Garner desires,
and this is what every wage Garner will
vote for as soon as he understand it. l
add a series of questions about the tariff
that are suggestive.
QUESTIONS ABOUT LABOR FOR WAR TARIFF AID
voCATEs.
The Massachusetts Tariff Reform club asks
the following questions OF the laboring men
OF Massachusetts.
/. Why, under the benign influence OF our
war tariff, are one.third of our wage earners
out OF work one.thir,i OF the time? Mass.
Labor Rep, 1887, p. 294,)
=. Why did wages in Great Britain go up
between 1872 and 1853 nine per cent, while they
period five per cent? Mass. Labor Rep, 1855,
p. 1857
l41S per cent between ls60 and ISIS, notwith-
standing the tremendous improvements made
In cheapening the cost OF production: Mass.
Labor Rep, 1885, p. i61)
4. Why are wages in free trade England
from 80 to 100 per cent higher than they are
in any protected country on the continent OF
Europe? ~. 5. Consular Lab. Rep, vol. l, p.
l7S)
5. Why does China, which has nurtured her
people under Il prohibitory tariff Tor several
hundred years, pay her common laborers 20
cents Il day and her skilled mechanics 30
cents Il day? u. S. Consular Labor Rep, vol.
iii, p. 3+3.)
8. How are we able to sell annually $780,
0OO,O 900 OF the products OF our high priced Ia
Dor in foreign markets against the whole
world If, AS protectionists assert, free compe-
tition In goods means equality in wages! ~.
:. ReP E%rx on %i6 3nn mserSeaeaS and a nay lSS,, p -
crease in the low tariff period, ~ls50-ls60, l26
per cent, and in the high tariff period, 1870
the census values OF 1870 to a gold basis?
Tenth Census, vol. VII, pp.S 4, l3)
s.. Why did the yalus OF farms in this coun,
from $50 to 1850 only 81 per cent! Census
vol. Agricultural
0. Why was the average annual increase in
Massachusetts savings bank deposits from 1850
to 1850 twelve per cent, and from 1870 to 1850
only five per cent? Mass. Savings Bank
10. Why did American vessels control
three-fourths OF our foreign carrying trade in
1855, and less than one-siXth OF it in 1856? u.
). Rep. on mme and Nav,l SS1, p. 49,
IL. Why dld congress, after living eleven
years under IA low tariff, vote in 1857 to make
ii still lower, and why did all the Massachu
sets members support this reduction: Was
Henry Wilson, the shoemaker. an enemy OF
labor? Gong. Globe, Sd SEES, saith congress,
l1H tff
IL. Why did w'ges in Massachusetts adj
vance from the high tariff decade ending with
1880 10 the low tariff decade ending with 1850
fiity-two per cent, while they advanced from
1850 to 1883 only twenty.eight per cent? Mass.
Labor Rep, lss5, PIP. l42, 466.)
ID. Why should not the protectionist tariff
commission of lSS2, John L. Hayes, chairman,
who recommended n tariff reduction OF 20
per cent, and declared that such reduction
was demanded mot by a mere indiscrimin-
ate popular clamor, but by the best conser.
vative opinion OF the country" be denounced
under the new dispensatiol as arrant tree
traders? (Rep. of Tariff Com, lsss, PAD
IA. How can John ID. I ong, who declared
four years ago that nobody advocated a pro
hibitory tariff and that "the free list is the
honest revenue reiormer's hope" any longer
support the Republican party? (Massachu-
setts Republican convention OF April, 1854.
Is. Why, in spite OF the fact that land and
food are cheaper here, does it cost a family
spending 5000 a year SIS "a year more to five
in this country than in England on precisely
the same scale? Massachusetts Labor Rep
1885, p. 49,.
10. Why is not eos a moderate estimate OF
the tax paid by every family in this country
in order that Andrew Carnegie and others of
his kind may grow immensely rich ana lock