The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1888-07-12
MONOPOlaES VS. COMMERCE.
This Campaigns Leading PoIat of
Controversy.

Inn Charles w .Jones, Of Fzorilt, Discusses the
Great Issue IF Contemporary American P3i
t1cs-Engltmds Supremacy.
From the Detroit Sunday News.l
The time is near at hand when one Of
the most gigantic political contests that
ever took place in this or any other
country will have to be fought Let no
one imagine that the chief interest in this
| great conflict of moral forces will center
in the persons of the leaders who shall
lead the two great parties now in the
| field. There are times when the insig-
nticance of the greatest advocate is con-
trasted with the argument furnished by
the magnitude and the greatness of his
cause. Venal and corrupt as are the
times in which we live, it is not an era
of worshippers, and if it were, there
would be very little foun.l in the country
to stimulate this description of idolatry.
Let rs hope that the campaign will be
conducted with the dignity and earnest
ness behtting the gravity of the issue and
the vital interests of GO, ,OO0, 900 of people.
1t is to be hoped that both parties will
order their slanderers and mud-throwers
practice their dirty art within the confines
ofrotten and purchasable boroughs-and
put men only TO the front who are worthy
to espouse the cause of great nation and
give weight and power to those argu-
ments which shall decide the most mo-
mentous controversy of the country.
When say this speak from the text
Of the national platforms, which, in the
Republican party, is always made before
the nomination, and in the Democratic
afterwards, for which | can discover no
other reasons, unless it be that in one
case the platform is made for the man,
and in the other the man is made for the
! platform. Be this as it may, if there is a
particle of truth and sincerity left in either
of the parties, they have presented to the
country a question which overshadows
all the merits of their candidates, and
which ought to inspire the interest and
stimulate the exertions of all classes of
the people whose souls have not been
tainted and enslaved by the black, cor
rupting power of monopoly.
give to the Republicans the full ben
eft of all objection which they claim from
the verbal structure of the issue, and ac-
cept with satisfaction all the ignominy
and contumely that the slaves and min
ions of power can associate with the no
BILE words "iree trade" No one need be
ashamed of this language, and if it is not
possible to go to the full extent of its
meaning in practical Legislation, it is OF
because of any objection to the principle
of industrial freedom, but of the hard and
involuntary necessity which compels a
partial departure from it to meet the
wants of the government and keep down
abuses In society.
The power Of monopoly is undermining
the foundations Of our free system. In-
stead of free trade we have slave trade,
and this was always an acceptable thing
to this powerful minority all over the
world, that fattened and prospered upon
the misery and sufferings Of great ma
jority of the human race.
Is this government of the people and
for the people ? [ p to the period of the
civil war we had what is called free trade,
a tariff for revenue only. What was the
state of the country? A condition of
prosperity unexampled in the history of
the human race. Our commercial marine
was within few tons of equality with
that of Great Britain, which was then, as
it is now, the greatest shipowning and
commercial power in the world The
American flag was everywhere, from the
frozen ocean to the tropics, and floated
over our shipping in every quarter of the
globe where commercial enterprise had
any prospect of success or reward. Where
is it now? Banished from the ocean as
effectually as if the whole world had con-
spired against us to deprive US Of the
freedom OF the seas Nearly the whole of
the vast carrying trade of this great coun-
try is in foreign hands, and the great
profits arising from it go to swell the for
tunes of British ship-owners, instead Of
adding to the wealth of our people.
Let those OF our Irish fellow citizens,
who so Justly sympathize with their ma
tive land, and who imagine that freedom
of commerce would strengthen the hands
of her oppressor, stop aud consider how
much the wealth, the commerce, and above
all, the naval supremacy of Great Britain
has been increased by the destruction OF
the commercial marine of the United
States and the Punishment of our flag
from the high seas by the operation of
| high protective tariff Those of them who
are well informed upon this subject must
know that the commerce of England, and
not her agricultural and manufacturing
interests, is the great source of her naval
power, which is the very life of the nation,
and without which she could not have
held Ireland in bondage for half dozen
years. The naval, and not the military,
power of England is what makes her the
terror of Europe, and her merchant ma
rine is the foundation of her naval strength.
When the unfortunate civil war began
our manufacturing establishments were
prosperous. We sent to foreign countries
a larger proportion of our homemade
goods than we do now. We We're the
second ship-owning and ocean-carrying
nation in the world, and our agricultural
interests were in the very highest pros
perlty. 1t is true we did not have the
great corporate wealth or trust power
that we have now, but the produce of
capital and the earnings of labor were
more generally distributed, and the work
ing classes were happy and contented,
and were not organized against capital as
they are now, for the reason that there
was no cause for it.
The extraordinary burdens imposed
upon the Government by the war made it
necessary to resort to system of inter
nal or direct taxation. Taxes and ex-