Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1892-04-14
Herald and Afholds Basunen-noth
republican-prohibition organs were
purchased-and were sssold."
FROM THE TARIFF DEBATE.

any article Oh which that bill i'm
posed or increased a duty that is
not cheaper today than when the
bill was passed as consequence of
that duty.
One can imagine protected man
ufacturer with sly wink at his
brother manufacturers, palming off
this argument on the farmer when
trying to reconcile him to the in
crease Of rates on manufactured fa-
brics, but it is rather dangerous
when the attempt is made
to convince the farmer that the Nc
Kinley bill has done him great SER
vice, when in the words of it's author
it gives the same "meed of protec-
ton to the farm as to the factory"
If the manufacturer was SO unseltish
as to come to Washington and lobby
through bill to cheaper the price
of the things he makes to sell, was
Major Mckinley doing the square
thing by the farmers when he slipped
into the bill, almost "unbeknownst''
to them, whole string of duties on
farm products for the purpose Of
bringing down the things they raise
to sell?
Was that the way to cure the
agricultural distress which his re-
port admitted to be very general
and very severe in the country?
but it would be just as well for the
Protcctionists to be frank and ad-
nit what everyone knows to be true,
that they demanded and secured
higher rates on competing foreign
articles that they might charge
higher prices for the like home arti-
cles, and if the laws Of trade and of
production are stronger in most
cases than the laws Of congress, it
has been contrary to their purposes
and a. disappointment Of their ex-
pectations. The "same need ac-
corded to the farmer" was, on the
other hand, transparent effort to
deceive him and gain his vote by a
delusive statute that proposed to
protect him from foreign competi-
ton at home, when he is obliged to
take his crops to foreign market
to sell them.
A second assertion, pressed with
ceaseless iteration, is that the arti-
cles protected by the tariff are now
produced and sold as chcaply in this
country as anywhere else in the
world, and, therefore, the consumer
is without just ground for complaint.
When asked in reply, if this be true,
what is the use of a tariff? why not
abolish it altogether and let our
producers take their place as COM
petiters for the worlds custom? the
answer is made that, should we re-
move the tariff wall, foreign manu-
facturers will combine to flood our
markets with cheaper goods, even
at great loss to themselves, and
having thus destroyed our industries
they will then have us at their mercy
and exact monopoly prices from us.
This assumes that the foreigners,
scattered through half a dozen na,
tions, are combined in one vigilant
and hostile organization to destroy
our manufactures and hold our mar.
kets tributary to their monopoly:
that they have unlimited capital
which they are willing to lose in the
work of exterminating American in
dustries, and this, as the lawyers
say, totes q4oties, letting in the fiooo
Of cheap fabrics whenever a likely
competitor raised his head in tht
home market. II this were true We
might nearly always be buying for
eign articles at prices ruinous tt
their producers, and make the for
eigner work for us and find himself
; The truth is the competitors agains
whom the home producer asks pre-
lection are not found in any on
country or banded in any one ol
ganization, OF able or willing, singl
or collectively, to enter into a grea
I 4 rf, IN