Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1888-04-12
Owing to the difference

A
consumption. Owing to the difference
in textures and consequent difference
in time required in the manufacture of
wool and silk goods, he does not feel
quite as sure of the results reached in
the case of those two industries. But
as to cotton, no such difficulty exists to
any extent, and here the result CORES
ponds very nearly to those reached by
Mr.. Means, in the case of the shoe in
dustry. LAS for France" says Schoen-
hof, ''she forti6es herself by dis
eliminating duties against our cotton
manufacturers formidable proof of
her incapacity to combat our staples
on equal terms" We have therefore
nothing to fear from an open COM
MERGE, but everything to gain. To
throw open our ports to foreigners is
to throw open the market for ourselves.
The limited market at home becomes
! the great market of the world. The
hum of the spindle is heard, and work
men command good wages. This re-
suit would not be offset by the influx
of foreign manufactures. For more
than century, at least three-fourths
of our imports have been crude mater
ials, even when the tariff on them was
higher than on finished commodities.
The latter have always, in great part,
been made by ourselves. Any in
creased imports of raao materials would
only be to our advantage. Even the
jealous Mercantile System, from which
the tariff sprang, favored the importa-
tiOn of raw materials. 1t maintained
that, by thus cheapening the price of
the finished products, it added to profits
and built up home manufactures.
We do not claim that free commerce
would cure all. the evils which now
affect our industries, but we do main
tain that it would cure some of those
evils and greatly lessen others. 1t is
asignificant fact that before the period
of the late war and without high tariff,
wages were rising rapidly and work
men seemed prosperous. Since that
period and under the tariff, painful
contrast meets our eyes as when in
1868 we find the tariff at it's noon, at
which time prominent protectionist
of Pennsylvania was constrained to
say that the American workmen had
never endured such suffering before.
Little better were the five years that
closed decade later, and five or six
years further on, when skilled work
men were often refused employment
at half dollar day.
While we advocate change to a
free commerce, we question the wis
dom of making that change d sudden
and vioIent one. Such change might
cause an unnecessary shock to all in
dustries now protected.
We should recommend, rather,
comprehensive act which should pro-
vide for the ultimate but gradual
abolition of tariff. Under such act, |
let there be fixed and final reduction
on each product every year, for a
series of years, until the last remnant |
of the tariff shall disappear. Such a
plan would prevent loss. 1t would |
afford ample opportunity to transfer,
by degrees and safely, the capital now
invested in protected industries, to |
other and secure channels of invest |
ments. That such a gradual change !
ought to take place, we can not for !
moment doubt. In view of all the evil
dence that we hre able to gather, we can
but plead for free trade and free pro-
duction; the only protection that we
crave is protection against the tariff.
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