The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-03-16
AT LEAST PECULIAR.

AT LEAST PECULIAR.
Our morning contemporary makes
peculiar statement for protectionist pub
LEGATION. 1t is this: "The English buy the
raw products of Brazil. They pay for
them in English goods with the freight to
England added. They carry them to Eng
land, charging for the carrying. They
carry American wheat or cotton to Liver
pool, charging freight from New York or
New Orleans as may be. In Liverpool
they exchange these raw products from
South America for American wheat or cot
ton, and then charge the freight for
bringing them over to New York"
The popularity in the above quotation is
that it States, in so many words, that goods
pay for goods. No mention of money being
used in the transaction is made at all. The
usual phrase, ''drain of specie is entirely
omitted. 1t seems that American wheat
and cotton really pay for imports from
South America; but the trouble is that the
exports from this country and the imports
from Brazil are first sent to Liverpool.
This is a statement from protectionist
source, and among Its supporters should
receive consideration as being authorita-
tive. When the readers of the sheet re-
ferred to come to understand that the goods
brought into this country are paid for by
goods sent out, then the main underpinning
OF the protectionist platform is taken away
and the structure falls.
No other fetch has ever been half so
powerful among the Republican masses as
the scarecrow that if we purchase foreign
goods we shall send abroad all our money
and become bonl1rupt. Not even the Brit
lsh bngaboo, that England seeks our trade
IN order to accomplish the downfall of the
American nation, has had the terrifying
power over the minds of the Republican
rank and file, that the phrase 'drain of
money! has welded.
For protectionist to state, point blank,
that exports pay for imports is a crafty
ing evidence of Improvement at the head
quarters Of the fallacy shops, which have
hitherto devoted themselves to alarming
their gullible readers by depicting the hor
rors of a country that has exported all its
money.
We do not mean that the paragraph we
refer to is perfect, nor even exceptional in
its statements. It does not necessarily fol
low that beca use we send wheat and cotton
to England, and get in return Rio coffee,
the latter has been transported to England,
though that often happens. We send the
wheat and cotton to Liverpool and receive
by return mail or by cable clicks letter of
credit, good at any bank in the world for
the amount. We may then send this letter
of credit to Brazil and the Brazilian pro-
ducts will come to US direct. The Brazil
ian merchant sends this letter to England
for manufactured goods, and the accounts
between the three nations are balanced.
The Americans pay wheat and cotton for
coffee and drugs; but Brazil raises her owl
cotton; hence the exchange must be made
by getting English manufacturers to pay
Tor the Brazilian raw materials.
Our trade with Brazil is smaller than it
should be. The tariff shuts out raw mate
rails for our manufactures, so that we do
not supply that country with articles she
can get from England. The United States
should certainly enjoy the lions share of
the trade with South America and Mexico,
and would do so but for the Chinese wall
in the shape of tariff that we have
thrown around our shores to keep out i'm
ports. a better way to accomplish the
same result that the tariff accomplishes
would be to prohibit exports, and then
there would be no danger from a flood of
cheap goods from abroad. This may ap-
pear strange to protec:ionists, yet the proof
of 1t is found in the words above quoted
from protection" authority, that imports
are the pay we receive for our exports
The Tribune itself suggests remedy, a
novel one indeed for Republican sheet;
namely, to restore silver coinage and to
revise the tariff 1t is true that
an increased demand for silver, both at
home and abroad, would be a good thing
for silver-producing country like ours.
If other governments also would restore
silver coinage foreign demand for silver
would cause US to export much larger
quantities of that metal than we now send
out, and would be great gain to the
country, though it would be a "drain of
specie" So that this fact does away with
the "drain OF money" bugaboo altogether,
by showing that it is sometimes sound
financiering to export even gold and silver.
But as to the second remedy suggested by
our contemporary, revision of the tariff,
we beg leave to smile. Sound Democratic
doctrine that, and it seems to US that we
have heard before that the tariff should be
revised. Yet the Republican party de-
clared few months ago that it would abol-
ish all the taxes on whisky and tobacco
rather than surrender any part of the pro-
tective system. Has our contemporary
forgotten that or has it changed its mind?
If, now, our neighbor should suggest an
honest schedule of reduced duties on the
tariff list, it would no doubt make out one
somewhat similar to that proposed by the
Mills bill, against which it joined in shout
ing the dreadful warning, British free
trade"
PRoF. E STONE WIGGINs, the Canadian
weather prophet, predicts some terrible
storms in America between the 2lst and
23nd inst. This is the usual prophecy,
and we have become acclimatized, but can
anyone tell why it is that these weather