Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1891-10-14
DEMOCRATIC TICKET
FOR THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES.
G. w. KOINER,
Fl. J. WILLIAMS.

FOR THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES
G. w. KOINER,
FL. J. WILLIAMS.
->-<-
SOUTHERN WAR INDEMNITY.
When we consider that the legislation Of
the Federal Government before and since
the war, and especially since, has been such
as to make the South, year after year, pay
tribute to the North, the wonder is. as we
have heretofore said, that the South has
not been reduced to pauperism. The South
has been taxed, through federal legislation
to put money into the pockets of the people
of the North. The tendency has been, and
the effect has been, to build up the indus
tries in the North at the expense of the
people of the South-to make the North
rich and the South poor. Under similar
circumstances any other people and any
other country would have been, before this
time, utterly impoverished and ruined.
Year after year millions have been drain
ed from the South to enrich the North, and
it is not at all to be wondered at that the
people of the North, with much less natural
advantages, are made rich, and those of the
South comparatively poor; but the wonder
is that they have not been reduced to alb
solute pauperism. The tariff policy of the
present administration and of the Republic
can party is making the Northern people
rich at the expense of those Of the South.
The South is paying a tribute of millions
annually to the North. We should be as
jealous Of our rights as our forefathers, who
declared that they would "give millions for
defense, but not cent for tribute"
In this connection we give what the Rich.
mond Times says in commenting upon the
address of Gov. Holt, of N. G. 1t says that
among the many excellent points which
were made by Governor Holt in the fine ad-
dress which he delivered at the opening of
the Raleigh Exposition was his reference to
the heavy burden of National taxation
which the South has been carrying for so
many years without any prospect of re-
lief. HIf in the articles of surrender at
Appomattox," said he, 'tan indemnity had
been demanded from the South in the
shape of SUM whose annual interest rep
resented the amount now paid by the
South thirty years after the war, the world
would have stood aghast at such whole
sale confscation far exceeding anything
modern history has ever known. Almost
the whole of the immense tribute for PEN
sions streams from the patient South never
to return"
This is an exact statement Of the truth,
and the more carefully it is considered the
more unjust seems the treatment to which
the South has been exposed. One of the
principal causes which led the Southern
people before the war to de- sire separation
from the North was the inequality in the
operation of the tariff in the two sections.
The North being chiefly engaged in man.
ufactures found it to its interest to extend
the scope of the protective system. The
South, on the other hand, being dependent
for its prosperity on agriculture, was anx-
ious to sell in the dearest market and buy
in the cheapest. The tariff in cutting the
South off from the world at large, more
especially England, compelled it to pur-
chase its principal supplies in the North.
For long series of years this section was
thus forced to contribute large proportion
of its means to the Northern merchants
and manufacturers, who rapidly increased
their fortunes at its expense. 1t ia not an
exaggeration to say that the North was
largely built up by the farmers and planters
of the Southern States, and it was as much
recognition of the wealth derived from these
States as it was a patriotic and national
spirit which prompted the Northern people
to oppose secession.
The drain from the South to the North
under the tariff laws existing before the
late war, large as it was, was small in
comparison with the drain which has been
going on since the close of that conflict.
This drain is not only the result of the
operation of the internal revenue system,
but also of the operation of the protective
system. If the Southern people consider
ed the ante bellum tariff laws to be so
onerous and tyrannical as to be in them
selves a justification for secession, what
would they have thought if the Mckinley
tariff had then been imposed upon them9
1t is we'll known what action South Caro-
lima took in the time of jackson to resist
the tariff law passed during his administra-
ton. If the North had succeeded before
the war in enacting counterpart of the
Mckinley law all the agricultural States of
of the Union from the Ohio to the Rio
Grande would have seeded in body, and
by practically unanimous vote. Such a
law would have been looked upon then with
even more justice than now as measure of
legal robbery, which would have been re-.
sisted with as much zeal and determine
ton ss an attempted con6soation of the
slaves.
How far circumstances have controlled
the Southern people independently of their
interests and sentiments is shown most
clearly By their quiet submission to gen.
eral system of taxation, which, as Governor
Holt very truly remarked, surpasses in the
grossness of its injustice everything Of the
kind that the civilized world has yet seer
or shall ever again see."
Charles Stewart Parnell Dead.
The distinguished Irish statesman, who
for so many years led with such incompara.
be skill and ability the Irish party Of
Home Rule in the House of Commons and
before the people in Great Britain and
Ireland, was born in Avopdale, county
Wicklow, Ireland, in 1916. His father was
high sheriff of the county of Meath and his