Nevada County picayune., 1890-09-25
MONOPOLY FREE TRADE.

while the average rate III Iooi was not quite 40 per cent, the Mckinley rate is nevertheless the lower. The arithmetic by which he struggles to- ward this extraordinary conclusion is peculiarly Shcrmanesque. When an article is taxed GO per cent. and another is untaxed, he adds the two together and divides the product by two to get the average; thus, 60 plus 0 is equal to 60, which divided by two gives 30 as the average rate on the two articles.
 The same astonishing system is used in the same quarter to get the "average wealth" per capita. The S100, ,000 ,000 of the 100 millionaires is added to the SO,000 of the 100 earners; the product divided by 200 gives the average wealth of each one-a highly satisfactory showing.
 It is fortunate that MT. Sherman has used his method of avergages in connection with the Mckinley 52 per cent. rate, for it calls attention to feature of the Republican changes in the tariff which has not been sutli- ciently emphasized,
 It Is true that while steadily fore ing up the rate on manufactured goods from the war rate of 40 per cent. to the Mckinley rate l2 per cent. higher, the Republicans have at the same time enlarged the free list. But they have not put a single article on it that competes with the corporation combincs-not one.
 Take sugar and coffee from the free hst-as the Republicans now propose to do by Presidential procla- nation and there is not one impor- tant article that was not put on 1t to increase the monopoly profits of the corporations.
 Take hides for instance. If we suppose a tariff tax of 20 per cent on hides and 10 per cent. on harness made from them. the relief of the tariff on hides increases the protec- tion of the corporation manufactur- ing the harness. If the saving in hides amounts to 10 per cent. of the cost of harness making, the release of the hide tax makes the 40 per cent. protective tax on harness equal protection of 90 per cent. with taxed hides. So every time an arti cle of raw material has been placed on the free list without a correspon- ing reduction in the manufactured article, the "protection has been increased by so much. And while protection has been thus increased through releasing to corporation the taxes paid by them on raw material, it has been simultaneously increased by steadily forcing up the average rate on all manufactured goods so that it is now l2 per cent. higher than it was in the closing year of the C ivil without counting it at all the increase of protection through the enlarged free list.
 This has not been emphasized heretofore, because the sectional character of the tariff has never be- fore been so emphasized as it is by the Mckinley bill, That bill forces the West to struggle for consistent tariff-one which will be either for revenue only or else prohibltiye throughout, with revenue only an accident
 From this standpoint the free list is not less in need of radical revision 1 than the dutiable list itself. If there Is to be permanent prohibitiye | tariff against the importation of man ufactnred goods used by the West, there must also be permanent pro- hibitive tariff against the importation of all raw material of whatever kind which the West either produces or wishes to produce. The free list as it stands under the Mckinley bill is hardly less a swindle and an outrage than the dutiable list itself The two cannot stand together The country cannot remain half slave and half free. If the prOhibitive tariff stands against the West, the impor- tation of every single pound of raw material competing with the West must also be prohibited. It seems to the Republic that this is unmis- takably necessity of the situation.
 MT. sherman must revise his arith metic This is not the administra- tion of Arthur or Cleveland, but of