The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1888-05-31

. :.
five shillings per quarter of eigh
bushels! In competition with thi,
"pauper" grown wheat our Western
farmers would have to sell their wheat
produced at cost at least three times
as great. British capital was pu
into these railroads, and these cheaI
wheat lands of India were developed
because England could not get hel
bread from our plairies in exchange
for her manufactured goods, the tariff
wall forbidding. She would gladly
have fed her people from the riches Of
our plains if she could, but all foreign
commerce is exchange, and protection
forbids exchange. The story of cotton
is the same The planter sells it in
Liverpool in competition with that
grown in all parts of the earth, at the
lowest figure for which human labor
can be induced to grow it. But he is
not permitted to buy even the jute
bagging and the iron ties which en-
ed in the same way. The price of
those things is fixed by having tariff
duties to suit the American manufac-
turer. So it is with nearly everything
produced by those who till the earth
and create food or the material of raj
ment. They are made the patient
victims of tariff taxation, whose toll
goes to enrich the few who control our
legislation. In order to keep them in
quiet submission the keenest intellect
Of the land is employed and paid for
with the farmers own money. They
are piled with thousand false argu-
ments and exploded theories; their
national pride is appealed to, and
mean preiudlces are excited against
other nations simply because they
have something to sell the term "pau-
per" is applied to every laborer upon
earth except those employed in our
protected country, and ''British gold"
is said by the slave-traders TO bribe
every man who refuses to help them
steal revenue tariff men are called
"free-traders )" SO bold has become
robbery that honesty thus becomes a
reproach, and political partisan hos
tility is freely and successfully invo-
ked. In this way these iniquities have
been enacted and maintained until the
task OF removing them has become
revolution which It viii require gen.
GRAFTON Of stubborn agitation to ac-
complish. But it will be done. To
doubt 1t Is to ques ton the strength of
Justice and lmPugn our civilization.
Even the last appeal, that against the
cruelty OF disturbing vested interests,
which it so efectually made, will lose
Its power to stay the hand of reform.
For men will Come to agree with Bas-
tlat that because wrong has been per-
mitted to exist for a moment is no
reason why it should endure to eter-
nifty. 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 refor-
nation appears to me to lie in the
West and South. These sections of
our country are natural ALLIES, who
are only kept from cooperation by
lingering war memories aud the parti-
san political feeling which Eastern
protectionlst Republicans SO artfully
invite.
The chief interest of each is agri-
cultural, and their productions sup
plement each other. Their pursuits
engender the same ideas and suggest
the same conservative policy. If once
the inconsiderable barriers which sep
arate 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 GER
tainty. In fact their might would
only need to be seen it would scarce
ly 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 common country, but as they
are already formed for aggression it
becomes not only excusable, but a
positive duty to form them for de-
fense.
The manufacturers are few in num-
Der: they are persons of great intelli-
gence 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
these combinations to regulate
prices, smother competition and influ-
ence legislation. Those who are to be !
heeced, on the contrary, are many in,
number; they embrace all the poor
and the ignorant; are widely scatter |
ed far and near throughout the |
broad land, and with communication |
rare and most imperfect. With them
combinations and unanimity of action |
are next thing to the impossible. It |
is the case of a small but compact and
organized army destroying a great un-
armed, unorganized mob. The only |
possible way in which these incoherent |
victims of unjust and unequal taxa
tio,l can make their united might felt |
in the legislation of their is to align |
them on principle by indoctrinating
them with the true theory of taxation
such as is BETTING q country that /
processes to be free, and by disseml-
mating those immutable principles of |
political economy which have been
established by the experience of man
kind, and which are as much Gods |
laws as the law of graYitation, 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 e specially the toiling masses OF
IL U~.k o,I Goufh xuh<> q ro