The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1891-11-27
A STRONG CONTRAST.

featuring interest to take care of itself. 1t
is assumed that it cannot compete. even
handed, with foreign manufacturing, and
must therefore be upheld by high duties
that increase the price both of imported
foreign goods and of home made goods
| also. Mr.. CLEVELAND said, September S,
1888, in his letter of acceptance
| l suppose it is needless to explain that all
these tariff duties are added to the price OF
the articles upon which they are levied and
thus become tax upon all who buy those arti-
cles for use and consumption. L suppose too,
1t is we'll understood that the effect of this tariff
taxation is not limited to the consumers of i'm
| ported articles, but that the duties imposed
upon such articles permit corresponding
increase in prices to be laid upon domestic pro-
auctions of the same kind which increase paid
by all our people as consumers of home produc-
| lions and entering every American home con-
st1tutes form of taxation as certain and as
| inevitable as though the amount was annually
paid INTO the hand of the taX-gatherer. .
Every million of dollars collected at our custom
houses for duties upon imported articles and
paid into the public treasury represents many
millions more which, though never reaching the
national treasury, are paid by cur citizens as
the increased cost of domestic productions re-.
sulting from our tariff laws.
But the policy which imposes these du-
ties assumes that the farming interest on
| which they fall with heaviest effect is
prosperous enough not only to take care of
itself, but to help take care of the manu-
featuring weaklings, besides. And for that
reason they have thought it perfectly egit-
innate, and in the highest degree expedient,
to tax farmers and the farming states for
the benefit of the manufacturers and the
manufacturing states.
Both these assumptions are false. Man
ufacturing is net the helpless interest it
pretenas to be, aud farming is not the Wig
orous and prosperous interest it is as
sumed to be- True, by the extraordinary
coincidence of abundant crops at home and
crop failures abroad, western agricultur-
lists have been enabled the present year
to pay off some of their accommodating in
debtedneSs; yet this fact is now being
used as Il reason, not only why farmers
should not complain of the lariff, but why
they should consent to long continuan ce
! of it.
There is great deal more money, per-
haps twice as much, invested in farming as
IN manufacturing, and nearly twice as
many persons engaged in the first as in
the other, yet the nominal profits of agri-
culture are per cent. on the value of their
farms and implements, whilst the profits
of manufacturing are 80 per cent. on the
capital invested. Farming yields an aver
age product of 1900 year for each person
mployed, whilst manufacturing yields
S72O. The tariff policy taxes the interest
which pays only per cent. for the benefit
Of the one that pays 35 per cent; and it
taxes the labor which yields $500 a year for
the protection Of that which. produces S72C
a year. The story this contrast tells, then.
is very interesting one to the farmers oil
the west and south, AMI only little less
directly to people engaged in the trades
aud all other pursuits, as bearing on the
future legislation of the country.
What Mr.. CLEVELAND, in his elaborate
reform message, asked Congress to do, was
that the amount of money accumulated in
the treasury as surplus be. RENTED to the
people. He desired that the people be
longer 5urdened with onerous taxation in
excess of the needs of an economical gov
eminent, in order to prohibit their pur-
chasing the necessaries of life where they
might get them cheapest This course the
Republican party defeated. 1t was urged
that the tariff should be amended by its
friends. 1t was not denied that some
amendment, even considerable amendment,
was really needed but it was not desirable
for the Democratic party to effect it.
! When tho last prnes cd tbo,a
was general public expectation-or al
least an expectation on the part of those
Republicans who had been cajoed into the
belief this idea would be carried out-that
it would relieve the people of some share oil
the excessive and unnecessary taxation
they had submitted to so patiently for
nearly thirty years. 1t was thought the
tariff revision with which the Republi-
can leaders began their work meant tariff
reduction 1t was not IMAGINED, in the
west, at least, that they would dare to in.
crease it. But these Republican leaders
were mainly from the northeast, and thew
had no thought of relieving the people So
| far from it, their purpose was to impose
heavier burdens upon them, aud they exc
cuted it. They revised the tariff SO
as to take the annual surplus out
of the treasury, divert it to the protected
manufacturers and take from the people
some SIC, 900, 900 more and divide that among
the favored manufacturers also. All this
by new tariff which compels the people &c
pay from 10 to 20 per cent. higher for cer-
tain necessaries of life than they paid uu
der the old tariff-whch was itself too
high. The sum or substance of the whole
business was that the surplus was squand-
ered taxes were increased and the treas
ury threatened with deficit And this is
the contrast with the condition of affairs
when a Democratic President and the
Democratic members of Congress sought
to relieve the country and bring it back to
economical policies and methods This 9
the condition which confrouts the Republi
can party on entering upon the campaign
of 1892.
SENATOR ALLISON, of Iowa. may see in
the returns of the election in his state
during the past few years the gradua
workings in the ranks of the Republican
party of the political considerations he
himself once held. For instance, in ,
speech delivered by him March "a, 1870. b,
| said:
The farmer has practically no protection o
all, and whatever benefit he derives is from