Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1890-05-20
TAck.-iNo THE LOBSTER.
A Tariff Drag Net with Exceedingly
Small Mehes.


Small shes.
Daniel Webster once told his friends,
after returning from visit to Europe,
that the sublimest thing he had heard
while abroad was spoken by Sir Robert
Peel. The great English statesman was
making his speech in parliament accom-
panying the annual budget for raising
revenues. A dry enough theme, certain
ly; and perhaps no one but Webster saw
the sublimity of the sentence referred to.
Sir Robert was giving in detail the va
rious sources from which money was to
be raised. He had enumerated all the
more important articles of taxation, and
had come to speak of the comparatively
insignificant miscellaneous articles usual
~ grouped together in our tariff sched
ules as ''sundries." Finally drawing
himself up, he said:
"And now we come to the onion seed. J"
1t struck Webster as really sublime
that the mind of man like Peel, who
was then directing the affairs of the
greatest empire on earth, should be so
comprehensive and show such mastery
of details as not to overlook the ssonion
seed"
And now our Mr.. McKinley seems TIC
be in a fair way to rise to the same sort
of sublimity. He is searching about for
all possible subjects for protection,
whether on the earth or under the earth
or in the waters which girdle the earth.
He has cast his great tariff net, with
meshes exceeding fine. into the seas, and
has brought up our old friend who meets
us at church festivals and gives us dys-
peptic nights as a reward for our devo-
ton to him. Mr.. Mckinley has fished
up the lobster, and finds, to his unspeak-
able horror, that this popular crustacean
does not bear the brand of protection
SEQ to-" says Mr.. Nc Einley, ''then we
will protect him
But the lobster packers of Maine do
not relish this at all. They want the
cheap lobster of Canadian waters to pack
for the American mark cts.
HOLSTERS are very cheap up in Nova
Scotia. In Halifax they tell of an Eng
lishman who came there some time ago
and was determined to eat enough lob
ster ''for once" SO he handed the waiter
q u
out in Holsters for him.
What! all this?"
"Yes; all that
The waiter took the Englishman at his
| word, went out into the market and soon
rolled in two barrels o. Holsters before
| the astonished traveller.
Now the packers of Maine object, and
so they have sent a committee down TO
| Washington to fight the protection"
which MIR. Mckinley proposes to give
| them. But the packers. although they
did not ask for protection" are to have
| it forced upon them. They found things
| at Washington even worse than they had
| supposed. Not only is the lobster to be
| protected, but the tin cans are also to l.t.
| provided for by bills now in the hands of
| the committee. These duties will cause
| IA considerable increase in the cost of lob
| ster. and the consumption will be there
| by limited. The packers have already
| sold for future delivery at fixed prices,
and if these duties should he imposed
they would be compelled 10 fill their con
| tracts at loss.
The packers are not likely To be allow
| ed what Robert Burns calls THE glorious
privilege of being independent" Their
| representatives. at Washington found
| that the tariff tinkerers are bent on pro
| tecting everybody and everything,
| whether protection is wanted or not by
| those concerned. Higher protection and
greater appropriations are now the
watchwords at Washington, and the APP
peals of merchants for lower taxes meet
| with little consideration.
As last resort, from which they them
selves hope very little will come, the
packers and dealers are now circulating
petition for signatures urging that the
lobster toe let alone.
The high carnival OF protection at
Washington meanwhile goes forward in
educating the people for the approaching
elections. The disgust o. decent citizens
cannot for much longer time spare this
mad reyel of the gleeful protectionists