Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-08-09
THE FREE TRADE SCARE.

The New Haven Morning News, which is one of the very ablest advocates and de | lenders of tariff reform in the country, has been making an investigation among the brass and copper workers of Ansonia with reference to their attitude on tue question. Much of what the News has found in Ansonia is applicable in like de gree toWaterbury, where many goods are manufactured into which the same materi- als enter. The News found that ill the -Ansonia brass and copper company's shop, which employs more men than any other concern in town, it is difficult for high tariff men to make converts among the works, who live in New York city, are democrats and tariff reformers. Among them are cited N Willis James, NIT Dodge and Anson Phelps Stokes, the latter of whom is president of the Reform club in New York. These men may be presumed to be somewhat familiar with the interests of Connecticut, and it may be presumed also that they would not look with favor on policy that would be antagonistic to the manufacturing interests ill which they are so largely concerned. Of course the republicans may be expected to misrepre- sent them, and to ascribe their desire for tariff reform to self-inteIest; but it is their particular method to ascribe philanthropic motives to the high tariff manufacturers while the tariff reformers receive only abuse and misrepresentation. MT Stokes, in recent letter from which the News quotes, says
 The whole country will benefit by cheaper wool and clothing etc. But free raw materials would be of special ad- vantage to the seaboard counties of Con- necticut, which are so we'll located for receiving supplies from abroad, and for the shipment of fine goods for export For these counties free raw materials mean at once more and cheaper raw materials, with large foreign orders for the manu- factured product and increased demand for labor, and the workingmen about there know that those factories, which get some foreign orders, often keep going when neighboring factories, limited to home markets, have to stop for surplus stocks to be sold. These stoppages may
 
 raw materials and wages down. Spasms i'll trade, which the tariff causes, that is excessive profits one month and mills stopped the next, may, at times, suit the books of some manufacturers, but this sort of thing Is bad for the workingman; and he is beginning to understand it, and he'll have something to say about it in Novem- Der.
 We have not seen the situation more pithily described than it is in this letter of NIT Stokes. Free raw materials would be boon to manufacturers, enabling them to produce their goods cheaper, to find larger market for them and to increase the demand for them. This greater consump- tive demand would create a larger produc- ton and so increase the demand for labor. Labor in its turn would reap the advantage i'll better wages, more continuous employ ment and greater regard for its interests. There would be fewer 'spasms in trade" and the trusts and combines and syndi- cates which now regulate the standard of production would find it more difficult to work their nefarious schemes. Policies that look only to the restricted and con- stantly narrowing home market cannot keep consumption in line with produc- tion, and cannot consequently offer satis- factory inducements to labor. The latter is beginning to find this out and on the 9th of next November it's conviction will be at the polls in an overwhelming majority for Grover Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman