The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1892-08-10
Mckinley in Nebraska.

Governor Mckinley of Ohio addressed an
audience OF 15,OOO persons at the Chautau-
qua grounds, Beatrice, Neb., on last week
Tuesday. He was given grand reception.
He began by calling attention in detail to
the tariff resolution which was voted down
at the Chicago convention, and then held
up the substitute plank for examination.
The constitutionality of a protective tariff,
he said, has not been seriously questioned
in more than one hundred years. " Never,
believe, before was it questioned in the
national platform of any party. The plat
form of today reads like the ordinance of
qualification which passed a general con-
vention in South Carolina sixty years ago.
Indeed, after carefully reading the two
documents, you may gravely suspicion that
the latter was copied from the former"
He then took up the report of the senate
committee on prices and wages, and after
stating its general conclusions said: "The
truth is that the protective tariff has cheap
ened every manufactured product-not by
cheapening labor, but by its high rewards,
securing from labor its highest efficiency.
Manufactured goods are cheaper to-day
than they were under the revenue tariff
policy inaugurated forty.six years ago, and
which continued down to 1861. They are
for the most part cheaper than before the
passage of the tariff law of 1890. A days
labor will buy more to-day than it ever
bought before. The products of the farm
OF life, more cloth and cotton, more iron and
steel, more glass and pottery, more sugar
and salt, than the same quantity would
ever buy before. Substantially everything
which protection directly affects has been
reduced in price, except labor. 1t alone
has been able, amid the most general re-
ductions of prices, to maintain its own"
The speaker next took up the question of
who pays the tariff tax. 1t is said that
the tariff law of 1890 is grievous wrong
upon the consumer. l have before me the
bermuda COlonist paper published in
Hamilton, Bermuda, dated April %, 1892,
containing the proceedings of the colonial
parliament, which had under consideration
at that date the American tariff and how
its burdens were to be removed from the
inhabitants of that island. You will observe
that the producers of Bermuda believe they
pay the increased tariff under the new law,
Notwithstanding the tariff reformers claim
is otherwise This is the language of the
message to the governor: The amount OF
Bermuda products shipped to the United
States from January to June inclusive, in
1890, amounted in value to S569,755. On
this amount under Che old tariff rates, the
duties amounted to not less than $50, 234.
In 1891 the quantity of produce shipped to
the United States from January to June
amounted to 1881 ,113. On this amount I'M
der the new or Mckinley tariff, duties were
paid amounting to not less than S134, 876.
the United States in the year 1892 was $685.
600 less in value than in 1890, the amount
paid as duties was $79,6i2 in excess of duties
paid in the former year, making a direct
loss to the growers in each case of large
percentage of the amount, as the market
value of our products in the United States
will not allow Of any advance in price COM
mensurate with so heavy tariff That be-
ing so, who pays the tax? They assert they
cannot add the tariff to the price to the
American consumer; so he gets it at the
old price, Notwithstanding the increased
tariff-that is, the consumer pays no more
for Bermuda products than he did previous
to the new law; the Bermuda producer
gets less and the American treasury more
money. Who contributes that money to
the treasury, the foreign producer or the
American consumer
Proceeding, the governor said; ave in
crease the tariff in the new law upon a
number of foreign products which compete
with home products but in NO single in
stance, except possibly in the case of pearl
buttons, has there been any advance in
prices to the actual consumer. When the
tariff has been increased upon foreign
article, and it does not increase the price to
the American consumer how does the
American consumer suffer? He gets the
commodity at as low price as he got it
under the old tariff, Notwithstanding the
increase, so he loses nothing; but labor in