The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1890-07-04
kA1lonAl PROSPERITY.
n Is Due Directly TO the Republican
Policy of Protection.


Policy of Protection.
Tariff discussion has grown weari.
some by repetition of arguments in
favor of and against protective policy.
Misstatements, deluding, and intended
to delude, are made by interested
parties-the importer who subsisss by
foreign trade, and the manufacturer
who lives by domestic product. A par
tisan press looks only to its own side,
and distorts statements to proselyte to
its political faith. The average public
is solicitous of the truth, yet the rut of
party prediction, habit or heredity
seems insurmountable. Why would not
a vigorous and impartial press giving
''both Sides be blessing as an educa-
tor? The jury of readers could then
give an intelligent verdict at election.
In criminal or civil proceedings both
sides" are presented, witnesses heard
and examined, facts ascertained, and
misstatements exposed. In politics
alone only one side is considered and
every effort at rebuttal is construed as
an intent to deceive. .H. a.
The Democratic press asserts that
business depression is traceable to the
burden of an unjust tariff" Its lead
ers vociferate that the tariff is tax"
adding just the amount levied to the
cost of the product. III this doctrine be
true the amazing accumulation of in
dividual wealth that threatens to I'M
balance business relations, overwhelm
tho en-, liar rani+olict, ,pd j;s.urb
the holdings of property is trace
able to the exactions of Gin
lquitous customs duties" Are the
Whitneys, Paynes, Astors, Goelets,
Goulds and Vanderbilts manufacturers
Where are the mills that enriched and
what protected fabrics contributed to
their fabulous fortunes? 1t is evidently
a mistake to accuse the manufacturing
interests of the United States of being
the monopolizers of wealth. 1t is
further asserted that we could command
the markets of the world if free raw
material were obtainable by American
manufacturers. Where is there more
absolutely as "raw" material as cot
ton? Yet cotton grown here is shipped
hundreds of miles by rail and three
thousand miles by sea to English fac
tories and back again. We neverthe-
less purchase of European manufact-
urers of American cotton about twenty
seven million dollars worth annually.
England buys yearly two and thirty
millions of dollars worth of cotton, one
third of it of other than American
growth, and sells over and above that
consumed in clothing its own forty mill
ions of people, three hundred and seven
million dollars of manufactured cotton
for export It is estimated by En-
glish statisticians that the profits of
the English cotton manufacturer equal
the total sum the South receives for its
crop. While cotton, then, is the freest
of raw materials, no one has yet claimed
that American looms run faster or can
produce more than English looms. 1t
follows that the sole element of success
full competition is in the lower ceaz PEN
sation of English labor.
If agricultural depression is traceable
to protective policy how are We to ex-
plain That previous to 1860, under
policy thenearest approach to free trade,
it took pound of butter to buy pound
of maids, while now pound OF butter
will buy four pounds of nails? That dur
ing the same period twenty-five tons of
hay boughta mowing-machine, and now,
under protective and domestic compe-
ton six to eight tons of hay will buy a
better one? The farmer who was con-
tent with rag-carpet in the trent room,
and charioted his family to church in
lumber-wagon, with the bettered prices
of home market instead Of sole de-
penSence on foreign one new enjoys
pariCr Brussels reduced frosn three dol
lars to one dollar yard, and rides to
the sanctuary in carriage. In the good
old times city weekly newspaper. mar
row IN size and scant in information,
cost three times as much as the ten
times larger paper of TO-DAY. Then we
depended on foreign-made paper; now
we use the domestic product, and while
retaining our own resources have re-
duced the price from twelve cents to
less than four cents per pound. This is
one of the many instances that the
duty is not added to the cost of the |
product, and is an additional proof that
domestic manufacture lowers the prices. |
1t can not be denied that in the ex-
change Of agricultural for manufactured 1
goods considerably less Ct the first
buys three to four times the quantity or
qualiny of the latter.
It is'conceded by our coEsins across |
the sea that under the system of pro-
lection no people in any age have in
,reaseE in wealth or achieved the en-
oymeEts of social comfort during the
past quarter of a century as have the
400 .,lc IL, II.,;+na S4a.<s L