The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1888-05-25

upon earth except those employed n our
protected country, and ''Brltish gold' is
said by the slave traders to bribe every
man who refuses to help them steal reve-
nue. tariff men are called free t1adera;'
SO bold has become robbery that honesty
has thus become reproach, and political
partisan hostility is freely and successfully
invoked. In this way these iniquities
have been enacted and maintained until
the task of removing them has become a
revolution which it viii require genera
ton of stubborn agitation to accomplish.
But it will be done. To doubt it is 10
question the strength of justice and i'm
pugn our civilization. Even the last ap-
peal, that against the cruelty of disturbing
vested interests, which it so effectually
made will lose its power to stay the hand
of reform. For men will come to agree
with Bastiat that because wrong has been
permitted to exist for moment is no rea-
son why it should endure to eternity. Nor
does the fact that wrong is profitable to
its perpetrators give it any further or
stronger sanction to Immortality. Truth
and justice are entitled to live forever.
The most feasible hope of this reforma-
ton appears to me to lie in the West and
South. These sections of our country are
natural allies, who are only kept from CO
operation by lingering war memories and
the partisan political feeling which East
ern protectionist Republicans so artfully
invite
The chief interest of each is agricultural,
and their productions supplement each
other Their pursuits engender the same
ideas and suggest the same conservative
policy. If once the inconsiderabe barriers
which separate them could be broken down
and unity of action secured their power
would be sufficient to reform the evils of
tariff legislation with ease and certainty.
In fact their might would only need to be
seen; it would scarcely be required to be
exercised.
1t is not pleasant sounding thing TO
advise the combination of sections or
classes against other sections or classes of
a common country, but as they are already
formed for aggression it becomes not only
excusable, but positive duty to form
them for defense.
The manufacturers are few in number;
they are persons of great intelligence and
energy. and they are grouped together in
the great business centres of the country.
With them, therefore, concert of action is
easily effected, and interest naturally
prompts to these combinations to regulate
prices, smother competition and influence
legislation. Those who are to be t1eeced,
on the contrary. are many IN number;
they embrace all the poor and the lgnor-
ant; are widely scattered far and near
throughout the broad land, and with com
munication rare and most imperfect. With
them combinations and uDanimity of ac-
tion are next thing to the impossible 1t
is the ease of a small but compact and or
ganized army destroying a great unarned,
unorganized mob. The only possible way
in which these incoherent victims of un-
Just and unequal taxation can make their
united might felt in the legislation Of their
country is to align them ON PRINCIPLE by
matchmaking them with the true theory
of taxation, such as is betitting a country
that processes to be free, and by dissent
mating those immutable principles of polit
icaI economy which have been established
by the experience of mankind, and which
are as much Gods laws as the law OF
gravitation, for they are true, and all
truth is His. An able man has said that
our motto in this great fight should be
SIT Lux Let US give the people light indeed,
and especially the toiling masses of the
great West and South, who are furthest
removed from those influences which OBJ
scure the light, and good results will be
SEEN Let no man tire of "talking tariff. "
Let no man weary of urging the vital ne
cessity of reform in taxation on his neigh
Dor until this last vestige Of slavery shall
be abolished and the commerce Of the
great republic shall be as free as the ne
cessities of the government will permit,
and its laws look to no other interest un-
der heaven save only that of the public.
L. B. VANCE.