St. Paul daily globe., 1891-06-22
MEDIEVAL ECONOMISTS.

Republican papers of the true Nc
KINLEY kidney are paradlng figures OF
imports showing a greater OF less de-
crease over those of corresponding peri
DDS last year, and are quoting exultantfy
reports of failing or diminishing indus
tries abroad, whose products we have
been receiving, and truthfully claiming
them as the results of the MCKINLEY
tariff. Such ideas spring from the con-
ception that men prosper by injurlng
each other; that necessarily in every eX-
change of products one party loses and
the other gains; that the prosperity of
any nation is only at the cost of others,
and is thing to be deplored and pre-
vented by all means possible. So these
medieval economists roll under their
tongues as sweet morsel the news
that in England and Austria thousands
of button workers had been cast adrift
vocationless because a party that once
gave freedom to 100000 negroes had
put prOhibitOry tax on the buttons i'll
making which these poor toilers gain a
livelihood; and they gloat over the re-
cent news of the discharge of workmen
in the Huddersfield mills because the
wOolens they have been making for us
can no longer find profitable sale in
our markets, for the tax they must pay
to get to our people. And, incompre-
hensible as it may seem, they actually
think that we, that is all the people, are
being benefited by this inhumanity
And these same myopic publicists in
dulge themselves in the delusion that
they are believers in and practicers of
the doctrines of the meek aud lowly
Christ, and their columns bleat Occa-
sionaily with pity for the cruelty of the
Russian bear to the Jews and the neceS-
sity of Christianizing the beDighted
heather of Borrioboola Cha. Ii their
McKinleyism is the true economic
policy to pursue. this country has been
making some serious mistakes. In
the last analysis of that doctrine
all trade is an injury and all attempts
to expand it are mistakes. Opening
trade with China should have brought
disgrace instead of honor to BURLIN-
GAME, and we blundered in establishing
closer relations with Japan. Those
capitalists who have pen etrated Mexico
Will OhOO HOLC puOliN OLlCthiOo, anu
the rejection of the treaty with Mexico
and the bar put on Mexican ores have
probably opened the eyes of these mis-
guided men to that fact. Mr.. HARRI-
SONS administration was right in re-
fusing to join the other nations in their
efforts to open the Dark Continent to
the control of our modern civilization.
In all these instances the effect intended
and inevitable was to make these
countries more prosperous, and, accord
ing to McKinleyism. this can only be
done at the cost of the countries more
advanced. 1t is great mistake,
an economic crime, to attempt to
change the non-producers Of Africa into
producing people; for the less their ca
paclty to produce, the greater are our op-
portunitieS. No greater misfortune
could overtake this country than to have
the millions of negroes in that country
JekylliZed into a thrifty, industrious,
productive people, busily engaged in
developing the natural resources of
their country. and exchanging the'prod-
ucts with every people on the earth who
wanted them. 1t would be infinitely
to our gain if every manufactory in the
world could be destroyed beyond restO-
ration. 1t was this Mckinley ism that
made the late 'Pig Iron'' KELLEY wish
that the Atlantic were a sea of fire inn
passable to trade.but over which his he
loved manufacturers could somehow
still continue to have free trade in men.
All such ideas of trade are but surviv
al in this nineteenth century of the
ideas of the tenth; and. if they serve no
useful purpose, they at least show the
difficulties of progress and make US
marvel at the uplifting power which
has brought humanity so far and so
high in spite of these retarding forces.