Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1893-12-23
FROM THE OTHER SIDE.
THE TIMES AND ECHO ON THE
WILSON BILL.
Aa English Newspaper Discusses Freely
the Subject of Protection and Free
Trade and Their Effect
Upon Labor.

! LONDON. Dec. 23.-Thecu current num-
Der of the Weekly Times and Echo,
the special organ of the radical work
ing class element and which boasts
OF q circulation of 100000 a week,
contains an editorial under the cap
ton American Tariff Reform which
is thoroughly an English view of an
American economic question as has
ever found expression in print on
this side of the water. It says: THE
adoption OF the Mckinley tariff by
the American people heralded, il it
did not help, the advent OF the hor-
rible depression from which we are
all suffering. There are signs, we
think. that tue introduction of the
new tariff which President Cleveland
and his Democratic majority hope to
carry will precede, and perhaps in no
small degree help to bring about the
much desired revival in trade. Really
and truly, the workers OF either
country will not benefit muef-that
/ 10 tIASG W lIO tblt ctbIC ~ 81 ioAi ~
paid work at present-but renewed
activity in trade and manufactures
would absorb at least part OF the
great fringe of unemployed, at pres
ent starving at every great labor
center, and that would at any rate
be a temporary alienation. Free
trade and protection have come in
our days to mean little more than
| the tactics of rival schools Of capital
lists, each soaking to benefit itself at
the expense OF the other. Now and
then victory on either side Temporal
rily benefits the vassal of the land
lord or the wage-slaye OF the manu-
| facturei. The freshly gained wealth
of the new rich, too, is layishly spent.
as rule, in luxuries, al those who
exercise the arts and crafts which
minister to the pleasure OF the
wealthy gain something from the
specious prosperity which guilds the
commercial horizon with q lurid sun
shine which too surely predicts the
next commercial cataclysm and
long after succession of dull times.
But, in the long run, the upward
rush OF prices more than balances
any advantage the worker may gain,
and Just as we have found here that
while free trade has brought us
cheap bread and cheap rubbish made
| in Germany and elsewhere, while
most other essentials, needed by the
workers have gone up in price, so
presently the Americans will find the
rise in price of their agricultural
produce more than outweigh the
greater cheapness OF manufactured
goods. Here at home the landlord
! is protectionist because high prices
| for corn mean high rents, while the
manufacturer is free trade because
unrestricted import means huge
profits. In America the manufac-
turers are protectionists because the
exclusion of foreign goods keeps up
their gains, while the agriculturalist
is. as a rule, seeking for higher prices
in some mysterious Encouragement
4 OF the currency ratios. For the time
the Democrats, however, seem
strong enough to carry America a
coed days journey on the road
toward free trade
The editorial proceeds to resume
at length the leading articles upon
which the Wilson bill makes heavy
reductions, and concludes as follows:
1.-The. question is, Will the bill pass?
/ We think it WILL though we are by
no means blind to the danger before
i it. Still. President Cleveland is
strong in many respects. The Amer
lean exchequer is empty. SO unpro-
i ductive have become the heavy Inn
posts which the Mckinley tariff
levied, aud the choice is apparently
between some modification OF the
! revenue laws and the adoption OF
some form of direct taxation, and
the ordinary American hates the
very mention of income tax. we
think that the tariff bill will pass
and that the coming trade revival
will be FASTENED by it. The demand
for labor will probably be once more
maintained in America as conse-
auence, and the general result will be
so satisfactory to the manufacturers
that further advances in the direction
| of free trade will be made, Each adj
. vance will iift the price OF corn and