Mexico weekly ledger., 1890-10-23
A Sample Case.
From the ST. LOUIS Republic.

EIoih it't' hNhS ~ |
Mr.. W. o. Barnett is the Re-
publican candidate Tor Congress in
the Seventh Missouri District. He
Endorsed the tax on binding Irvine
in a recent interview, and in yes
terday's Globe Democrat he thus re-
asserts his foolish declaration
Inever did deny the words attrib-
uted to me, and I now repeat them
to you. 1 Endorse the Mckinley bill
as a whole, and think it is n of the
grandest and most beneficial measul es
for this nation ever passed by a legis-
Iative body. / would be in favor of a
higher tariff on sisal and MANILA for
binding Irvine, so that the farmers of
Missouri. might have an opportunity
to grow hemp. This would bring
millions of dollars into Missouri. ]
am in love with Speaker Reed; he has
been a Republican, first, last and all
the time.
Mr.. Barnett is plainly ignorant
of the fact that the Mckinley bill
puts sisal, MANILA and every other
fibre that can be used instead of
hemp on the free list for the bene-
fit of the Irvine Trust, while at the
same time it taxes the farmer for
the Trusts benefit. Every Repub-
lican from Missouri voted for the
tax on Irvine and for free trade in
sisal and other substitutes Tor
hemp; and MIR. Barnett admits
that he would have voted in the
same way, for he says the McKin-
ley bill is a grand and beneficial
measure.
If it is true that protection for
hemp would be worth millions to
Missouri, he and his party are on
record in favor of robbing Missouri
of these millions and giving them
to the Irvine Trust.
In the case of the Irvine Trust
as in every other case. the Repub-
lican policy was free trade in prod
ucts used by the Trusts and
competing with Western agricul-
tural products, and at the same
time higher taxes against COMPETE
ton in all articles the Trusts have
for sale to the West.
With free trade in MANILA and
other textiles nd with ia l protec-
ton against competition in its pro-
ducts, the powerful Irvine Trust
will crush out and close up the
smaller estern mills which have
been making binding Irvine OF home
grown hemp in competition with
the Trust. The Mckinley bill
gave it full permission to do this
and 1t will undoubtedly do 30. In
less than year the Western Irvine
mills which use hemp as raw
material will either be closed up or
forced into the Trust. The Trust
will not use hemp. 1t can get
foreign textiles by ocean freight
cheaper than 1t can get Western
hemp. The Mckinley bill thus
forces the whole of this line of
manufacturing to the Eastern sea-
board, where it can operate in
foreign raw material, made free
under the Mckinley bill SO as to
compete with Western hemp.
That this was done deliberately
no one doubts. If the tariff taxes
against raw material competing
with the West were made as pro-
hibitive as the taxes against COM
petition with goods the West now
has to buy from the East, fully rs
per cent. of the factories of New
England would be closed down in
10 years, and the manufacturing
centre of the county would be
shifted to the basis of largest raw
material supply-west of the Allie
ghanies. That movement had
already begun. The Mckinley bill
is carefully framed to check it.
Every Western man who Endorses
the bill either proclaims his own
ignorance or else his hostility to
the West.