Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-06-06
TARIFF AGITATION.
A Discussion That VII Not Close Until
Tariff lie orm Is Accomplished.

A Discussion That VII Not Close Untn
Tariff lie OrTn Is Accomplished.
The tariff agitation Will not cease until
the tariff is reformed. The conflict between
the Republican on one side and the Demo-
Gratis on the other is as irropressible as was
the slavery conflict.
Mr.. Reed stated as bluntly as possible the
position of the Republicans. He demands
a tariff for protection, with revenue only an
incident. He holds that protection is a
natural force like gravitation. He believes
that it Is productive power like agr.cul-
ture. He says we can not have too much of
it, and if he is right about the benefits of
protection, it is plain not simply that the ex-
listing tariff should be maintained, but that
II should be advanced more and more, until
every laborer in America live like a mil
honaire. II protection averaging forty
eight per cent. can do what Mr. Reed in
sists it has done, if it insurcs high wages
and constant employment, then a tariff in
creased TO ninety-six per cent will double
existing wages, and Congress ought not to
hesitate day to enact such law.
Democrats, on the contrary, hold that the
tariff is tax, and that il effects the price T;
that is, it increases the price Of foreign and
domestic articles.
Either the tariff does or it does not in
crease the price of suit of clothes. If it
does not increase the price, then it if de-
lusion and ought to be repealed. If it does
not make a suit cost more than it would
without the tariff, it is tax paid to the
manufacturer.
With proposition of this character put
before the people, agitation will continue,
says the Louisville COuTier-JOtu1ldl, until the
wrong is righted. Mr.. Reed places the Re
publican party on extreme grounds. His
political economy is Of the antediluvian or
der. His policy is the policy Of restriction,
which was the rule during the middle ages.
Nation was separated from nation by natu-
raj and artificial barriers, by ignorance and
prejudice, by tradition and practice. Wars
were fought to destroy international COM
merce, and monopolies were licensed in or
der to get revenue TO carry on these wars.
But Columbus struck the death blow to
the commercial systems OF the middle ages.
Since then the war for commercial free
dom has been carried on by inventors and
discoverers innumcrable. Watt and
Stephenson and Whitney and Morse, and a
mighty host whom no man can number,
have been striking the shacilles from COM
merce and lifting the laborers the world
over into the sunlight of industrial free
dom.
Mr.. Reeds argument is voice from the
tomb. He has the courage of ignorance
and isolation. He scorns to learn any thing
of the recent past. He maintains propo-
sltions which every leader of his party has
repudiated. The Declaration of Independ-
ence is antagonistic to every position he has
assumed. Protection for itself, protection
as a permanent policy, even Clay repu-
dated. No man of foresight, no statesman,
no writer on political economy, believes that
protection is something complete in itself
that it is an end; that it is any thing more
than a path to greater commercial freedom.
The leaders of the Republican party have,
with Mr.. Garfield, declared that they wished
to reach free trade by projections they
wished to wander fifty years in the wilder
ness before entering the promised land.
Mr.. Reed wishes to abide forever in this
wilderness of protection.
We do not believe that the propositions
laid down by Mr.. Reed can hold the Repub-
ican party together. Whether he believes
it or not, the American people have clearer
ideas of government than those no holds.
No candidate the Republicans can name at
Chicago can on Mr.. Reeds platform hope to
carry any of the doubtful States in the
West. That platform will not be adopted.
Mr.. Blame and Mr.. Sherman and Mr. Nc
Kinley will see to it that the issues arc
clothed in different language, and that in
place of protection for protection's sake the
Republican platform asks only for protec-
tion for infant industries as a temporary ex.
pedIent rather than as sacred and per-
manent public policy. But in any form the
conflict between the ideas advanced by Mr..
Reed and those advanced by Mr.. Carlisle is
irrepressible.