The Portland daily press., 1892-02-26
MR.. HALE ON RECIPROCITY
How the Yankees and the Cubans
Are Bettering Their Trade.
FISH COMMISSIONER GOULD ON
THE MENHADEN BILL.

Other Washington News-The Democrats
in Caucus Debated the Silver Question
The Speeches We're Dry aud the
Only Action Was To Go Home-Dis-
putes in Which Eastport is Interested
To Be Settled.
WASHINGTON, February 25. - Mr..
Hale's resolution calling for copies of
reciprocal arrangements made under the
Mckinley bill came up in the Senate to-
day, and Mr.. Vest offered an amendment
calling upon the State Department for an
account of any negotiations which may
have been had with Mexico upon the
matter.
Mr.. Vest, in speaking to his amend
ment, claimed that reciprocity with Bra
zil had been failure, the only increase
in the trade of the United States with
that country being in machinery and 9TH
er manufactures on which Brazil had
never imposed duties and which were
accordingly outside the reciprocity agree
ment. IN the course of his remarks,
Mr. Vest quoted from speech by Mr..
Hale, the statement that it was only the
reciprocity feature of the tariff bill that
had saved the Republican party from be-
ing totally swamped in the last election.
Mr.. Vest said it seemed to his benighted
mind that the results of those elections,
in the Senate and House of Representa-
tives, constituted a swamping process
even on the coast of Maine. He referred
to the famous incident in the Senate
finance committee room, in which Mr..
Blaine was represented as having
Smashed His Silk Hat
in baff1ed rage as he denounced McKin-
ley, and hisocolleagues on account of the
removal of the sugar Duties" Mr.. Vest
said full report of that occurrence was
published in an interview prepared by
William E. Curtis, chief of the bureau
of American Republics and adjutatnt
general of the reciprocity arrangements.
Mr.. Vest quoted Mr.. Hale as saying:
s'Reciprocity with Canada is an animal
of very different breed from reciprocity
with South America" In other words,
the reciprocity which brought free hides
and free rubber to the manufacturers of
New England was very different from
the reciprocity which brought free Cana
dian products to the consumers of the
whole country.
MI Hale said he did not propose to be
drawn now into a general discussion Of
the merits OF weakness of the Mckinley
tariff bill. He supposed, from indica-
tions at the other end of the Capitol,
that ample opportunity would be given
before the session was closed to discuss
the Mckinley bill The Senator from
Missouri and himself did not agree, the
Senator believing the tariff was the
Sum of All Financial Iniquities,
and he believing it a sound and good
measure, and that the sense of its mer-
it's would increase with the American
people the longer it was beheld and ex-
amined by them. The reciprocity plan
did not suit the Senator from Missouri
and did not suit his. associates on the
Democratic side. That was not strange
to him. The school of thought in which
that Senator and many of his associates
had been reared from boyhood would
never have believed for moment in
plan of reciprocity. What that school
believed in was not reciprocity with
countries that could furnish products
not produced in the United States to be
paid for in products those countries did
not produce, but what it believed in, and
wanted, was
Simon Pure Free Trade.
It was not an attractive picture to the
Senator from Missouri, that by reci-
procity more American goods could be
sent to Brazil for which she needed and
which she could pay in goods the United
States did not produce.
AS to Mr.. Vests statement that moth
ing had been accomplished by the reci-
procity plan, MI. Hale read newspaper
paragraph about the excursion of the
American flour millers to Havana to OPP
en- up and increase the market there for
American flour and said that the result
was notable increase of exports of flour
to Cuba. The necessity of Cuban sugar
planters for an American market had
coerced old Spain to reduction of duty
on flour from $5.64 barrel to less than
81. and the result was that old Spain had
been driven out of the market in the
very first month. Mr.. Hale gave other
figures showing the increase of imports
into Cuba of American products. Re-
ciprocity, he said,
Intended Lines of Ships
running from New York and other Amer
ican ports to the ports of South America.
1t intended that those lines should have
more business, and that American indus
tries, which supplied the cargoes for
those ships, should have larger market.
The figures he had given were demon
stration of it's success. Mr.. Hale quoted
from an article in the Frankfurter lei
tung of December 16, 1891, as to the sue
cess of the reciprocity plan. He said
the article showed that the United States
had outgeneralled European govern
ments.
Mr.. Vest replied to Mr.. Hale, claiming
that the Republicans had stolen piece
of Democratic doctrine in adopting their
reciprocity policy.
The resolution went over without ac-
ton.
GOULD TO MADDoCKs.
Maine Fish Commissioner on the Mem