The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-10-30
Protection and the Pan-Americans.

Protection and the Pan-Americans.
AT the banquet to the Pan-Americans in
Chicago Tuesday night Senator FARwELL,
who presided, said:
We must offer to you our exports as cheaply
as others do; and to that end / shall favor such
legislation as VIII bring about this result even
TO the extent of uninterrupted trade between
all the countries of this hemisphere.
That is to say, this republican senator is
prepared, not only to vote for absolute
free trade with all the countries to the
north and to the south of us, but to vote
for policy which will enable us to offer
these countries our exports as cheaply as
others do-which can only mean the re-
peal Of taxes on all crude materials and
partially manufactured articles. What
an amazing declaration to fall from
the lips of a man who stood on the Chi
cago platform last year and supported for
president one who was preaching that for
eign commerce was an evil, and that i'm
ports ought to be checked What COM
plete abandonment of all the arguments"
which were advanced last year in sup
port of the republican policy of exclusion
and isolation!
In Canada, on the north, labor is con-
siderably cheaper than in this country,
and in Mexico and the other countries of
Spanish America it is very much cheaper.
In Mexico, common labor is paid only 10
20 20 cents day. Yet Senator FARwELL
proposes to admit free all the products of
this "pauper labor" and thus, according
TO the republican logic of last year, reduce
our own workingmen to penury.
He also proposes to admit the wool of
the Argentine republic free, and thus
drive all our sheep farmers to ruin.
He proposes to admit the grain, pota-
toes, butter, cheese and eggs of Canada
free. and thus put another nail in the cot
fin of American agriculture!
He proposes to admit raw materials free
the coal and iron of the Maritime pro-
vinces, the lumber OF Canada, the ores of
Mexico, the wool of Australia, the tin of
England and Wales, the salt OF Austria
and Spain-and thus precipitate disaster
upon our mining, lumber and other i'm
portant interests!
If the policy of protective tariff is right,
then it is wrong to open our doors
TO the trade of any other nation.
If it is unwise to expose our labor
20 competition with the cheap labor of
Europe, it is no less unwise to expose it
10 competition with the cheap labor of
Latin-America. II. as the Chicago plat
form declared, imports ought to be
checked they ought to bechecked from all
countries alike. Therei is not single argu-
ment against free trade with Europe which
can not be urged, with equal force, against
free trade with the other countries of
America. There is not an argument for
the policy of protection which is not OPP
posed to the Pan-American policy advo-
Gated by Senator FARwEIL and other
avowed protectionists-
OF course the scheme OF an American
zollverein is visionary and impracticable.
1t would require the establishment of
uniform schedules OF tariff duties in all
the American countries as against the rest
of the world, and it would involve the
surrender by the congress of the United
States of its control over our customs sys-
tenn to an international commission. A
certain limited measure of reciprocity
might be established between the several
nations Of North and South America, and
ss a sep in the direction Of that world