Los Angeles herald., 1890-10-29

High tariff furnishes the ''fat," and
every millman, when the emergency
comes, must walk up to the pan and
have the "fat fried" out of him, and woe
be to him if he refuses to let the "fat"
out freely.
This is deplorable state of affairs,
but it is so. repeat, the Republican
party is kept in power by means of
money, and that money is raised by a
high tariff. A tax upon the people, the
high tariff, is placed to the credit of the
millmen by the party, with the proviso
that large share of it is to be paid into
the campaign treasury of the Republican
party when required. And thus by this
cunning manner and tactics the whole
nation is tariffed or taxed to keep in
power the Republican party, SO that
it is apparent at first glance
that high protective tariff
would be unnecessary were it not for
the "fat" the party fries out of the H.
500 mill owners; they can sell as cheap
eigner, but for having to furnish the
nored or unfairly presented the facts at
issue in the tariff bill. The speech was
milk and water with much of the latter
/
zation. Yours truly, REVENUE.
Il don't put great deal of faith in
the report that the silver men in con-
gress are going to make another strike
next session for free coinage law" re-
marked well-known authority on sill
yer financiering to your correspondent
this morning. ''In the first place,
they know what a hard fight they had
to make last session to get what they
did, and they are afraid of antagoniz-
ing the Republicans who want to use
all the time of the next session in get
ting bills of their own through"
care they not afraid also of Speaker
Reed and his whip?"
''Not so much as might be supposed
Reed spent his force on that subject last
winter. Moreover, he did it to save
President Harrison from a fatal di-
lemma. The president rewarded his
loyalty by turning over the best patron
age in the Portland district to the speak
er's enemies. There is no love lost be-
tween the two men now, can tell you );
and while Reed would do good deal to
divert the Republican party from what
he considered bad political mistake,
he wouldn't lift his finger to save Har
rison from destruction"
"The silver men are discontented,
surely?"
''Of course they are, and they are 60
ing to make their restlessness felt. But
it will be next congressman next ses-
sion. They may introduce dozen bills
between December and March, but the
committee won't act on them. In the
next congress, no matter which party is
on top, you may mark my words-there
l. rn4 ~
the president will find that he has only
put off the evil day of decision be-
tween the west and the east. The
ure. 1t has neither deprecated silver,
which would have given it's enemies the
ammunition they wanted, nor sent it up
to par, which would have given its
friends something to crow over. 1t sim
ply caused speculative squirt, on which
few big operators got rich: and then
followed slump, which caught and en-
quilted nearly every small investor.
There it hangs now, like Mohammed's s
coffin, between heaven and earth
quoted at 100, while the campaign docu-
ments issued by the Republican party
| for western consumption give the figures
at 120."
''Outside of speculative and political
circles how do you find the new law re-
garded?"
'tBadly-yery badly. The treasury
department, in it's effort to boom silver
for the honor of the administration, has
overreached itself. The mint bureau is
required under the Mckinley act, as you
know, to issue quarterly-instead of
yearly, as heretofore-a statement of the
values of foreign coin. The first circu-
lar bore date October |. The director of
the mint, having no law to guide him,
! had the option of using for standard
the average value of silver for tile pre-
ceding three months, or it's value on the
last day OF the quarter; but silver had
already begun such a serious decline
that he hesitated to do that, as his
course at this time would establish a
precedent, and there was no telling how
low silver might be by the time the next
quarter day came around. On the other
hand. he did not want to take the
average of the whole three months last
preceding, as that would have made
the figure sadly low. So he compro-
thirty days of September. On that
! basis he made the Austrian fiorin worth
AZ cents. Now, note what happens !:
|
anywhere the Austrian form is the unit
of price, bill of goods which pay duty
ad valorem, has those goods valued in
our ports for the whole of the last
quarter OF the year on the scale of AZ
cents to the florin. AS matter of fact,
the forin is worth today less than 80
cents. That means dead loss to him,
through excess of duty, of per cent,
enough to wipe out the profits on some
things which have to be sold very close
TO the market. At the date of the next
valuation who can tell what the price of
the form will be, or whether the mer-
chant who has laid in stock of staples
which he carries over into next year
will have to compete with later importa-
tions that pay duty on a florin valuation
of SO or 36 or 35? 1t is a miserable bus
mess for importers and for trade gen.
erally--this use of a metal (which bounces
up and down in price, and on which no.
body can count for day in advance. If
the treasury is going to make any settled
rule in this matter of averages, it ought
to take the prices of the whole three
months. Then there would be less of a
pure gamble in Washington Cor
respondence of the New York Post.