Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1892-04-14
onLY FOR TRUSTS.
The Republican Plan Is for the Benefit
Corporations Alone.

O1IY FOX lROS
The Republican Plan Is for the Benefit O,
Corporations Alone.
The democratic party Is trying to re-
monetize the real wealth of the country
its wheat. corn, cotton, provisions
and other articles of international ex-
change.
The price of all commodities exported
by us under the republican tariff
against return cargoes is subject to the
limitations of the European gold sup
ply. and it is universally admitted
fact that there is not gold enough in
Europe to carry on the international
trade OF the modern world. The re-
publican secretary of the treasury, the
late Mr.. Window. admitted this in his
reports, and he reiterated it in the last
speech he ever made.
Yet while this is admitted, we put a
tax averaging sixty per cent. on the
buying power of all the surplus the
Mississippi valley exports to Europe.
This tax is not levied on the outgoing
commodity, for the constitution forbids
taxes on exports. The same end is
reached. however, by levying the tax
aga inst return cargoes of manufactured
in manufactured goods. 1t can pay in
manufactured goods for our surplus far
higher prices than it can pay in any
other way. But we are not allowed to
take the surplus of Europe. The tariff
forces us to sell for gold or for few
selected articles of raw material. No
one can fail to see that this limits both
the quantity and the price of our valley
exports.
We. ship cargo of wheat or cotton
to England or Germany. We demand
gold for importation to America. The
answer is: 1--WE have no gold for ex-
port. There is barely enough to make
our clearings here. Our governments
have demonetized silver. We need
your goods, but we are practically out
Of money, and if you demand gold only
we cannot trade"
This is not said in so many words, for
business men do not take time for $50
many words" They simply decline to
trade. Then the seller looks around
for something he can buy with his val
ley products, which, offered in exchange
for gold only, have gone to a less than
living selling price. AS measured
against the scarcity of gold in Europe,
they become too cheap to bear the ex-
pense of exporting. He finds on exami-
nation that if he buys raw sugar and a
few other like articles. he can get them
into the United States without being
fined for it. So he exchanges them for
raw sugar and other articles needed by
our trusts and sells to the trusts what
he is allowed to bring back as return
cargoeS.
OF course, this is not intended to be
accepted as a statement OF the details
of the trade, but it is a fair and accu-
rate outline of the general course of
our valley trade with Europe. But for
articles of foreign production now on
the free list, we would have no exports
at all, for there is not gold enough
loose in Europe or in the world to move
out any considerable portion of the sur
plus we produce or could produce in the
Mississippi valley if we were allowed to
exchange it freely on it's merits at it's
exchange value in comparison with
what we need most in exchange for It.
And this must always be remembered
: that where for our valley surplus of
agricultural exports we are allowed to
take foreign products in exchange, it
is only and always for the primary
benefit of manufacturing corporations.
The republican party is in favor of
free trade-for the trusts only.
All articles on the free list. all
articles we can bring in from abroad
without being fined for it under the
Mckinley bill, are for the use of manu-
featuring corporations only. We are
forbidden to bring in a single dollars
worth Of any article that is in a shape
in which we are likely to be able to
use it at once.
Convince the republican party that
free trade in any article will help the
trusts, and they will put that article on
the free ist at once.
See how this works out in the Harri-
son-Blaine reciprocity Spanish
America is farming country with no
manufactured goods to sell. So the re-
publicans say to the exporters of the
farm products of Mississippi valley:
''Send your farm products to the South
American farmers. who have nothing
to sell in competition with the trusts,
and you can trade all you like as long
as you do not try to buy anything the
trusts want to sell YOU"
There is nothing new about this It
it simply the old republican plan of
free trade for the trusts only. We are
only allowed to buy abroad what the
trusts want bought, and we are only al
lowed to sell abroad in the measure of
the quantities of foreign products the
trusts are willing to have imported.
We must either accept this or bid for
gold only with our exports, which
means no trade at all abroad and ruin
Gus prices at home.
This is the trouble with cotton now,
and except in European famine years
it is the trouble with all the products Of
the valley.
The republican rule works both ways.
1t is protection for the trusts only"
and free trade for the trusts only
st. Louis Republic.
A PARTY QUARREL.