Bismarck weekly tribune., 1888-09-14

THE MAIN IssUE-THE TARIFF,
This is especially true of what is known
as the tariff question. The issue cannot be
Obscured. 1t is not contest between
schedules but between wide apart prin.
ciples. The foreign competitors of our
markets have with quick interest seen
how one issue OF the contest may bring
them advantage and our own people are
not so dull as to miss or neglect the grave
interests that are involved for them. The
attack upon our protective system is open
and defiant Protection is assailed as un-
constitutional in law or as vicious in prin-
ciple, and those who hold such views sim
cerely cannot stop short OF. an absolute
principle Of protection. The Mills bill is
only step that is toward an object that
the leaders of democratic thought and
legislation have clearly in mind. The i'm
pOrtant question Is not so much the length
OF the step as the direction of it. Judged
by the executive message of December
last, by the Mills bill. by the debates in
congress and by the st: Louis platform, the
country, place the tariff laws upon purely
revenue basis. This is practically free
trade-free trade in an English sense. The
legend upon the banner may not be ssFree
trade" it may be the more obscure
motto of 'Tariff reform'-but neitehr the
banner nor the inscription is conclu-
assault itself is the important fact. Those
who teach that the import duty upon for
eign goods sold in our market is paid by
the consumer, and that the price of the
domestic competing article is enhanced to
the amount OF the duty On the imported
article-that every million of dollars col
lected for customs duties represents many
treasury but are paid by our citizens as the
increased cost of domestic productions re-
sulting from the tariff laws-may not in
tend to discredit in the minds of others our
system of levying duties on competing
foreign products, but it is clearly already
discredited in their own. We cannot doubt
without impugning their integrity that if
free to act upon their conviction they
would so revise our laws as to lay the bur
den OF the customs revenues upon articles
that are not produced in this country, and
to place upon the free list all competing
foreign products. | do not stop to refute
this theory as to the effect of our tariff
duties. Those who advance it are students
of aXiOms and not of the markets. They
may be safely allowed to call their project
"Taritf reform" if the people understand
that in the end the argument
COMPELs FREE TRADE
in all competing products. This end may
not be reached abruptly and its approach
may be accompanied with some express
sions of sympathy for our protected indus
tries and our working people, but it will
certainly come if these early steps do not
arouse the people to effective resistance.
The republican party holds that protec.
tive tariff is constitutional, wholesome and
ule, but a principle. We will raise the
schedule and modify rates, but always
with an intelligent provision as to the
effect upon domestic productions and the
wages of our working people. We believe
it to be one Of the worthy objects of tariff
legislation to preserve the American
market for American producers and to
adequate discriminating duties upon for
eign competing products. The effect of
lower rates and larger importations upon
the public revenue iscOntingent and doubt
full, but not so the effect upon American
production and American wages.
Less work and lower wages must be ac-
cepted as the inevitable. result of the in
market. BY way of recompense of this re-
duction in his wages and the loss of the
American market, it is suggested that the
diminished wages of the WOrkingman will
have an undiminished purchasing power
and that he will be able to make up for the
loss of the home market by an enlarged
the settlement of the question in their own
hands. They now obtain higher wages
and live more comfortably than those Of
any other country. They will make q
choice between the substantial advantages
they have in hand and the deceptive prom
ises and forecasts of these theorizfng re-
formers. They will decide for themselves
system
The fact Of treasury surplus-the amount
Of which is variously stated-has directed