New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-08-07
THE BULL IN THE CHINA SAOP.

The amazing and superlative ignorance OF
many free trade legislators and Journalists is
the one thing which they are successfully
demonstrating i'll this their campaign OF in
telect.D That the world should know it is de-
sirable, but there was hardly need OF Ma
tonal disturbance of industry and trade for
the sake of proving that Mr.. Cleveland, MIR.
Mills and "The New York Tines do not
know what they are talking about. The men
tai darkness of Mr.. Cleveland in regard to wool
growers. their number and their profits or of
Mr. Mills in regard to seamless stockings, or
the cost of woollen suits Of clothing. makes the
campaign amusing, and yet behind the laughter
there are tears. Not even the funniest display
of foolishness can make thoughtful citizens
forget that every one of these ignorant raids
upon home industry means loss of employment
to thousands of workers, suffering and want in
thousands of homes, temptations and sin for
some, disease and bereavement for others, and
losses for millions.
One cause of this amazing ignorance is the
intense prejudice which leads free-trade zealots
to disregard all ordinary and accepted rules in
receiving or rejecting evidence. If Congress
man Scott had asserted that the profits of
Thurber & Co. in their grocery business were
IS, 600, 900 yearly-that he knew it because Mr.
Thurber had admitted in conversation that
he had drawn 81 100000 in dividends in one
year from the concern-and if Mr. Thurber had
himself publicly stated that he said no such
thing, there would have been an end Of the
matter for reasonable men. Mr. SCOTS wit
ness having repudiated the evidence said to
have been given, the supposed evidence would
have counted for nothing at all. But The
Newly rk Timesv and other free-trade jour
nails and speakers continue to reiterate Mr..
SCOTS assertion about the profits and dividends
Of Mr. Carnegie's works, based upon sup
posed remark of Mr.. Carnegie, just as if that
gentleman had not publicly stated that he
never made such a remark, and that 1t was
destitute of truth. When hearsay evidence is
received in court as more valuable than the
testimony Of the witness supposed to have been
heard to say something, the free-trade rules
Of evidence will prevail.
An exceedingly common form Of this amaz-
ing ignorance is the belief that all branches of
an industry covered by common name are
alike in conditions, profits, prices, wages and
needs. This particular stupidity is really at
the bottom Of the traditional free-trade fond
ness for level ad valorem duties of a GER
tain percentage on all products of particular
class. The ignorant man who has no idea that
| there are many different kinds of iron or Of
steel manufacture, or that they differ greatly
| in conditions, cries out in 1.-THE New York
! Times": "The tariff rates on the products Of
he iron and steel works of the country might
| be reduced nearly, if not quite, so per cent"
| Yet the fact is that some establishments in this
/ country are closed already, and others are
bankrupt or on the verge Of bankruptcy, and
others struggling with great difficulty, because
of foreign competition in their special products
even at present rates OF duty. These and
there are many, as every practical man knows,
certainly could not live with reduction OF
duties, and yet there are others which are in no
way affected, with the markets in their pres
ent state, by the rates of duty enforced, the
selling price in this country being fixed ex-
clusvely by home competition.
Turning a bull loose in a china shop is a
sagacious and economical performance com
pared with intrusting the work Of tariff re-
vision to ignorant bunderers who believe all
the untruths that suit their theories, and do
not know the difference in conditions or needs
between those kinds Of manufacture which are
barely kept alive at present rates OF duty and
| those which existing duties defend only against
| rare and extreme conditions of the market
or extraordinary forms of competition. There
is something more than partisanship, there is
sober and practical common sense, in the posi-
ton that the work Of revising the laws upon
which all industries depend should be intrusted
only to men who are thoroughly in favor of
defending and maintaining those industries.