Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1888-09-06

81, 100, COO, coo The amount in these re
| spective States belonging to wage-workers
in every State except Connecticut is reck
oned at % per cent. Connecticut estimates
| %, while in New York the est mates exceed
80 per cent But to make the statement
abundantly safe, take Is per cent for the
| whole, and you have over Sis. 0O0OO0 in
the savings banks of the seven States
credited to wage workers. To state the
| fact, N other words, you find an American
! population of II. coo 900, in which the pres
ent savings of the wage-workers are four
| times as great as the savings of the wage
workers among the 3S00),G90 people
Of Great Britain and Ireland. AT
this point the Democratic advocate OF
free trade answers tnat these great gains
to the wage-workers came from their H.
dustry and thrift and were not in the least
| helped by protective tariff. Let US see.
For twenty years preceding the enactment
of protective tariff in 1881, with the ex-
ception OF a short period of between three
and four years in 1872 IS, the country was
under low revenue tariff, precisely of the
kind now recommended by President
Cleveland and approved by the Democratic
party in Congress. At the end Of that
period the savings banks of New York and
New England had total deposits of one
hundred and forty-nine millions of dollars
(SI49, 900 000). Allowing the wage-workers
OF that day to have the same proportion of
the total deposits as they now have. their
share would be ninety seven million dol
lars (s97, 900, 600. We are now in the
twenty eighth year of protective tariff, en-
acted b. Republican Congress, and made
more effective from year to year as indus
trial experience enabled Congress from
time to time to correct and adjust It's work
iDgs. How, then. stands the matter at the
end of twenty eight years protection! The
wi,ge-workers of New York and New En-
gland have S7l5,OO0,G00 to their credit,
or nearly eight times the amount
gained under twenty eight years Of free
trade in the same States The popu-
latior of the seven States at the close OF
the LONG era of freq trade was 1850, 600
and their population in .hiS twenty-eighth
year of protection is presumed to be II,
900, 600 The wage workers Of these States
toiling under a revenue tariff such as is
recommended by the President had earned
a surplus amounting to $l3. 80 for each per-
son of the entire population, while the
WA workers for the lster period under a
protective tariff have earned SG5 per head
for the total populations; or, in other
words, the average wasse-worker under a
protective tariff in the United States has
been enabled to save five times as much as
the revenue wage-worSer under a mere
revenue tariff But the Democratic advo-
cate of free trade thiuks that he can es-
cape from the crushing force of these fig
ures by his favorite cry, that these earn
ings of the laboring man in New York and
New England have been made at the ex-
pense of the agricultural States in
the West. / first answer that manu-
features are so rapidly spreading that
there are no longer agricultural States,
in the sense in which that term
was used generation ago Under pro-
tective tariff manufactures are springing
up everywhere, and already some States
IN the West-notably Ohio, Indiana and
Ilinois-have an annual product from
manufactures amounting high up into the
millions. But, secondly, l answer that
have no need to interpose the man
ufacturing interest. in stating the
progress and development of the
West. For in twenty years of protective
tariff wealth has increased in far greater
ratio in the agricultural States of the
West than in seven manufacturing States
which l have adduced in the East. In 1861,
for instance. the six Western States of
Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota Iowa,
Kansas and Nebraska had population of
two and half millions e, 5O0,0O0) and an
aggregate wealth by the census of 1860 Of
eight hundred and seventy millions of dol
lars (SS70, 900, 000). To-day they have
population of perhaps eleven millions d.
900 00Ol, the equal of New York and the
IL -
the statistics of aggregate wealth either
in the West or the East later than the cep-
sus Of 1880; but in the twenty
years between 1860 and 1850, these
six Western States had increased
their aggregate wealth from eight
hundred and seventy millions (sS70,-
00O,0OO) to six thousand three hundred
and seventy-five millions CSC, $40, OOO, 600. an
increase of more than seven fold. Now
York and New England had three times
the population of these Western States in
1860, with an aggregate wealth of thirty
seven hundred million ($3, 7OO, 600 COO. To-
day the population of these States is about
the same as the Western States, while
their wealth in the twenty years, between
1860 and 1889, increased only three fold.
amounting in 1889 10 eleven thousand two
hundred and eighty-siX millions (S1f, $50,
0OO,00G). The ratio of development between
the manufacturing States of New York
and New England has therefore not been
one half so rapid as that of the SIX agri-
cultural States which have named. They
have not, it is true, the same amount to
cash to the credit of the wage workers, but
they have in great and iiourishing cities,
long lines of railways, in improved farms,
in the increased values in great cities in
new towns, in the prodigious products of
grain, IN the countless flOckS and herds az
increase of agricultural wealth to which
the expense OF the Western farmer under
4 revenue tariff bears so slight d compari-
son that it can hardly be stated
Lastly, the objection to the conclusions
presented come from the Southern Demo-
crat who, forgetting the interests Of his
section, is urging the revival Of free trade.
He considers that he has been robbed for
the benefit of the North, and hugging this
monstrous delusion, he strives to place the
Union back under the old free trade sys-
TEN of the ante-bellum period. Yet the
benefcent effect of a protective tariff can
be even better illustrated by the recent
history and development of the South than
by the progress of the North. By the
census of 1860, seventy-one years after the
Federal Government was organized. the
Southern States, or to describe them more
accurately, the slave-holding States of the
Union, had acquired property amounting
in the aggregate TO 81, 500, 001, 000. One
third of this total amount, or certainly
over S2,000,0O0,00o, was reckoned as the
value of the negro slaves. Eleven of these
States went into rebellion, at the
end of which they had lost the
institution of slavery, with all its
assured money value They had used
up four annual crops for war pur-
ho.