The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-10-05


that the debt was paid to our own people
and invested in cities and railroads. We
remarked at the time that neither of the
stories is true, as the government bends
are held by all people, by foreigners and by
citizens.
Here is the organs latest answer:
The main fact in both cases was correct We
have paid of nearly all the Indebtedness which
our country owed in Europe. AT the same time
the dividends and interests paid to eastern
capitalists have amounted to quite as much
more.
A happy thought, by which to escape-the
interest in fifteen years has amounted to as
much as the principal; but If the reader
will glance back at the second statement,
he will see the words 'interest and princi-
pal" for what was paid to our countrymen
Now comes something good:
The money that has been paid in this country
has been invested in fancy railroad stocks, IN
the building and booming of cities and in sup
plying cities with gas works, electric light,
street cars, electric cars and all the various en-
terprises which thrive in cities. The invest
ments have not gone TO the firms, because the
prices of farms and farm products have been
steadily falling.
But where did the money come from with
which all these brilliant things are done!
Mainly from the tariff, which falls chiefly
on the farmers. The farmers sell their
products in the worlds market at the
worlds price, but they buy everything
they use in the protected home market at
protection prices Everything the farmer
must buy has its price enhanced by the
tariff bGt nothing he has to sell is thus IA
vored The manufactures, chiefly city
products, are protected farm products are
not protected, nor can they be protected.
The farmers, then, pay in this money and
the government pays it out to be invested
in cities, as the Tribune asserts, yet it says
the decline in farming is not due to the tar
if. According to the Tribune, the way TO
build up cities is for the government for
ever to be paying an enormous debt; but 1t
forgets that whatever money the cities get
in this way must come from somewhere,
must under our tariff laws come mostly
from the farms.
The Tribune, as usual, runs away from
the question in hand, by saying The HERALD
''says in effect that it is savagery for the
United States to lay tariff on lead, that
the idea of protecting American miners
against the peon labor of Mexico is in the
direction of barbarism."
Now, THE HERALD did not mention Lead
or the tariff on lead, nor the American
miner or the peou of Mexico; nor was there
the remotest reference in the article Il
these new issues, which the sheet is il
such nervous haste to introduce in order t.
, escape from Its mesh of con tradictions.
We are quite unlike the sheet on the tar
, if question. We have no theory which w
are bound to advocate, whether free tr. dec
protection. We maintain that the burden
Of proof rests upon the protectionist, t.
show that the proposed taxation is botf
necessary to the maintenance Of the pro
tected industry and beneficial to the coun
,, try as whole. That is, each case shall b
investigated and it's merits thus decided
! Now, we have investigated many of thes
protected industry cases, and we find tina
the tax is not necessary to the support o
the industry and is burdensome to the PEG
> pie. Accordingly, we have laid before GU
ESducIS OuO ldClS III lucSc Eases, CUNeTlH
the iron, tin, wool, cotton and other indus
tries. We have not yet investigated tn
lead tariff, because we have been unable t
9 find data concerning it. Ii the Tribun
:. will furnish the labor cost of mining to
q of lead in Mexico as compared with the la
Dor cost in Utah, we will speedily inforl
the public how much tariff protection
:, necessary on lead. We want the offiei;
:. figures, however, and in the absence {
= these, we do not care to discuss the lea
:, tariff on imaginary or insufficient data.