The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1888-04-27

home market. If they want woolen cloth
they send their wheat to Liverpool and
sell it for, say one dollar per bushel; there
the cloth they need could be bought at
twenty five cents a yard-one bushel of
wheat paying for four yards. But a tariff
of seventy-fve per cent. prevents them
from doing that; so they bring the dollar
back, and from a Massachusetts man they
buy with it two yards of the same cloth.
The farmer has lost two yards of cloth.
ard the public wealth is that much less.
The manufacturer has made that much,
rot by fair and voluntary exchange, but
oy an unjust and unconstitutional law.
Not all the sophistry of all the talent which
i'll gotten wealth can hire to pervert hu-
man reason can make anything else out of
such a transaction. The farmer cannot at
will shut down his operations and dis
charge his laborers-his productions are
perishable and will not keep over lndetin-
itely; therefore he is obliged to sell his
surplus at any price he can get, or lose it
altogether. Therefore it is that year after
year seven heights of the exports of this
country are agricultural products. The
farmer supports the manufacturers, main
tains our foreign trade and exchanges, and
does his full share in bearing the public
expenditure besides and all this he does
with the most necessary conditions OF poll
tical economy reversed in the application
to him-being forced to sell in the cheap
est market and to buy in the dearest.
Small as our foreign trade is, there
would be universal distress and financial
ruin without it. 1t furnishes the exchang
es which pays for whatever we are obliged
to buy abroad, keeps our precious metals
at home, and maiptains the credit of our
country. 1t could be made double its
present volume in a brief time if We would
only legislate little in the interest of the
whole country and not in that of class.
We have twice the population Of Great
Britain ten times the material resources
and thirty times the territory, yet she has
double the foreign trade that we have.
Ours has been protected" to death. 1t
has been fitted with Chinese shoe, and
can only grow by distortion
In the same way our merchant marine
has perished. We undertook to protect it;
we not only imposed heavy duties on the
material of which ships are built, but We
excluded foreign ships from all internal
and coastwise trade, and tried to exclude
it from the open sea also, by refusing reg
istration and the American flag to any
ship in whole or in part made abroad,
though owned entirely by American clu-
zens. But there we failed. We could
bind the land and make factory men rich
by excluding competition; we could con-
troll our inland waters and our coasts and
enrich our domestic vessel owners; but the
great, free seas refused to be bound. They
refused to obey any laws except such as
God has imposed upon the intercourse of
nations. As our people could not build
and operate ships as cheap as other ma
tions owing to high tariffs, and as they
h,,x, hov of WI
forfeiting their rights as American clti
zens, our once magnificent merchant ma
rine lay down quietly to die. 1t was not
even permitted to die in peace. Its last
hours are disturbed by the clamor of the
quacks who brought it low. In their anXi-
ETY. to divert attention from their malprac-
tice, they loudly accuse their adversarles
of the authorship of the calamity. They
say that but for them the government
would have given the shipowners two dol
lars from the treasury for every one they
lost through tariff and navigation laws,
and they ''had not died" Two doctors
attend sick mans bedside: one bids the
other stand back, and assumes entire con
troll Of the case. 81 will bleed him and
give him calomel," he says. ut will Kill
him if YOU do" says the other II know
what am doing" says the one in control
81 will treat him on the home system. |
want nothing to do with the theories of
your European doctors" So he bleeds and
purges, whilst the patient gradually sinks,
and as his gasping breath changes into
the death rattle the self-contident doctor
turns with indignation to the other, whose
advice he had scorned, and upbraids him:
''You wretched murderer! When you sa "
this man sinking why didn't you give him
brandy to sustain him under my treat
mentl If you had done your duty he would
not have died from the loss Of blood" :"
Well, I suppose that is true. If the gov
ernment had made good their losses and
supported them from the treasury, no
doubt they would be alive now and flour
shing. And what of the people who pay
these taxes for private purposes! Oh. 1t
doesn't matter about them. If manufac
turers are supported by taxation, indirect
and sneaking, why not support the ship.
owner openly and boldly by bountiesl If
the first is right, there is indeed, no rea-
son for refusing the lattsr.
L. B. VANCE.