The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1889-11-30
MoRGANTowN VIRGINIA, SATURDAY,

As long as we impose a tax O
r nearly fifty per cent. on dutiablt
r gools from abroad we ale holding
e out prizes to home combinations
, which it is too much to expect then
e to resist, and we are inviting the
8 trust lion to enter that we may en-
joy the effort to turn him out again
t A fair reduction of these rates, bear
? ing with it no distress to any legiti
, mate industry, would close the dool
: and keep him out, thus at once saw
, ing his victims and relieving our.
. selves from the wearisome and dan
! gerous chase We have to-day the
capacity for production in nearly
} every machine-using industry as
cheaply as any nation in the world
, To avail ourselves of that capacity
and extend our market has become,
if not our sole, at least our chief de-
pendence for increasing the wages OF
labor and maintaining the value OF
land. Yet in our unfounded fear OF
J competition we shut ourselves with
J in high walls and say to these in
dustries you must seek your profits
not in large, but in restricted
trade; not by fair prices in the gen
eral market, but by monopoly prices
in the home market. In other words,
we make lions of them by turning
over the people securely penned in
and defenseless as their prey.
doubt if a more incontrovertible and
startling confirmation of all this has
ever been offered than that which is
given as to our iron and steel indus
tries by Mr.. David A. Wells in the
appendix to his Recent Economic
Changes" a volume from which l
have already quoted.
TARIFF REFORM OUR ONLY SURE PRO-
lection.
Mr.. Breckenridge, of Kentucky,
made proposition in the last Con
gress that whenever the chief pro-
duction or sale of any article passed
into the control of trust the Score
tary of the Treasury should place
that article on the free list until the
trust was dissolved. Public senti-
ment, doubtless would approve such
measure, but it would punish the
innocent together with the guilty,
the independent refiners as well as
the sugar trust, and might intro
duce such vacillasion in our tariff
laws as would unsettle business and
invite combinations for mere pur-
poses of speculation. To unhorse
the trusts it is not necessary to use
heroic weapons. 1t is not even nee
essary to reduce tariff rates lower
than consistent and leading protec-
tionists have said they should 90.
General Garfield said:
"Duties should be so high that
our manufactures can fairly com
pete with the foreign product, but
not so high as to enable them to
drive out the foreign article, enjoy a
monopoly of the trade and regulate
the prices as they please"
But it may be said that General
Garfeld's orthodoxy as protection
ist was not above suspicion. That
may be true, so l prefer to quote
statesman whose consistent and
hearty advocacy of thorough protec-
tion no one will question:
'The measure of protection" said
Senator Sherman, discussing the
tariff commission bill in 1883,
SHOULD extend only so far as TO
create competition, not to create
home monopoly"
| Revise and reduce the existing
law to that measure, and we unroof
all the trusts now flourishing or in
cubating beneath its shelter; not
only trusts strictly so-called, but all
other forms of combination that
gather there to harry and despoil the
American consumer.
If it be true, as John Stuart Mill
says, that wherever competition is
not, monopoly is" it is none the less
true that wherever competition is
monopoly is not. And it is just be-
cause our government excludes out
side competition from certain favor
ed fields of industry that monopoly
is steadily bringing them under its
sway. While, then, we cannot say
with Professor Dwight, LET us be
calm-trusts, as rule, are not dan
gerous," we can confidently say that
if the State and national government
will but withdraw the support they
now afford to trusts the latter will
largely disappear, or at least, cease
to be dangerous.
If the States will exercise that
watchful supervision over corpora
tions which every consideration of
public safety and of political purity
demands the franchises they bestow
cannot be perverted to the injury
and oppression of their citizens, and
as consequence, the foundations of
most of the existing trusts will be
undermined.
But whether the States which
grant the corporate franchises act
or not, if the general government
will remove the shelter of it's own
building and turn upon them a
stream of healthy, invigorating com
petition not only the trusts, strictly
so-called, but the 'pools' and com
bines and every other member of the
foul family of monopoly will be
swept from their coverts in our reve-
nue. laws, where now they securely
lodge, and from which they sally
forth to plumber helpless people
nay, more, the very germs from
which these creatures breed will be
exterminated.
| here close these papers. They
were not undertaken as an exhaus-
tive discussion of trusts and mono.
poles, and / have endeavored to
keep them upon one definite and
not very extended line. While,
therefore, have given due proper
tion in their general scheme to the
consideration of remedies, / repeat,
in closing, that my chief object has
been to make clear, as far as / could
do so, matters heretofore carefully
enveloped in secrecy, and thus open
a way for their intelligent discus
sion and their appropriate treat
ment.
VIM. L. WILSON
Dyspepsia
L II q