Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1893-04-08
"VESTED RIGHTS"
The Manufacturers Have Had Their Day
Now Give the Farmers a Chance-Protec-
tion Encourages Sloyenly Methods Of
Manufacture.

i 1t appears that the American Woo
and Cotton Reporter has heard that tn,
traif reform committee Of the Reform
club, in preparing such a tariff bill a.
: it would like to see adopted by the pres
ent administration, has placed the duty
on imported woolens at p per cent al
yalorem. The Reporter can scarcely BE-,
lieve that this committee, even though
ii contains such theorists and hobby.
riders" as E Euery Anderson, David A
Wells, Edward Atkinson, Thomas G
Shearman, John Dewitt Warner. Charlie,
5. Fairchild and Everett 2. Wheeler,
can be foolish enough TO think serious.
ly Of proposing such a low duty, yet ii
devotes several columns to showing the
need of much higher duties and OF a
gradual reduction.
Forgetting that the democratic party
has taken its stand against the FRAUD
protection the Reporter still imarines
that the next tariff bill is going to be a
protective one and pleads for protection
to those who have capital invested in
wooden mills But it gives away their
case when pleading for more than the
40 per cent duty proposed by the Mills
bill 1t says;
Were the Mills bill put in operation
to-day, the measure of protection at.
forded by it, so far as pertains to the
wooden industry, would be far less than
would have been realized at the time
tho hill woe farpnr,1n.a T..l..
have changed considerably during the
past four years, and what would have
been a sufficient measure of protection
then would be inadequate to-day. The
foreign manufacturer, because of the
obstacles of higher duties, has been
forced to a lower plane of economy,
while the domestic manufacturer, with
a wider market than formerly to cater
to, has had less incentive to restrict and
economic, These conditions have
widened the difference between them,
and have increased the advantage the
former has over the latter
This means simply that protection
encourages bad management and waste,
and that the manufacturers when they
have the home market all to them
selves, do not proceed as they pretend,
to make goods cheaper, but become so
s%lovenly that they actually cannot
make them as cheaply as formerly.
And the Reporter, unmindful that there
are a thousand to every
manufacturer of woolens, would
have us continue, on a slightly reduced
scale, this incentive to sloyenly methods
and high prices, knowing full we'll that
the people, already hard worked and
poorly fed, housed and clothed, must
pay for all Of this waste and extrava-
gance. Bosh! We hoped the day was
passed when democratic journals, as
the Reporter pretends to be, would
print such nonsense as this, 1t would
be far better to say to the manufactur.
ers, as the people practically did on
November S:
1--WE have for thirty years given You
all the protection YOU wished. You
promised US cheap goods and high
wages, You have been unfaithful tc
the trust imposed upon you. You have
taken no pains to adopt improved ma
chincry and methods, but taken great
pains to reduce wages, by importing
contract labor, and to prevent the
natural decline in prices. You have
formed trusts and combines, for these
purposes, until to-day wages are nearer
the European level than ever before !
and prices are further away from it.
You have sold your goods, when posi-.
Bile, to foreigners at much lower prices |
than to Americans. You have con
tinually, under the infant industry
plea, clamored for higher duties and
have falsified statistics, bribed congress
and corrupted legislation to secure
more protection that you might increase
the robbery of the great majority of
the American people for the benefit of
the few For these and other reasons
we will hereafter pay no attention
whatever to your requests or your pro.
tests, but proceed to make a tariff bill
which shall produce the greatest amount
OF revenue with the least burden to the
people and upon legitimate industry.
II such a bill happens to leave consider.
able protection for you, so that o can
compel us to pay taxes that will not in.
crease our revenues, that is our mis-
fortune; if it leaves you without protec.
ton and you are unable to compete in a
fair field with foreign manufacturers,
that is your misfortune. We are done
with your deceit and treachery and
propose to sell the products of our labor
where they will bring the highest prices
and to spend the proceeds where they
will purchase the most"
Equally absurd is the vested rights
plea. The Reporter says: Surely the
government which has fostered indus.
tries could hardly with consistency or
change its policy in such a way
as to jeopardiae these vested rights"
Are there NJ vested rights" but
those of protected manufacturers?
What about the farmers and those en-
gagged in other unprotected industries?
lave thirty years of high protection so
preyed upon the vested rights of the
farmers that there are now none left?
IL would seem so; and the statistics of
farms, homes and mortgages, now be-
ing issued, and the fact that farm val
ues all over the east and in parts of the
south and west have diminished, often
to the vanishing point, helps to
strengthen this theory. But, because
their great numbers, it is likely that
The vested rights left to these pauper-
lzed farmers, in mortgaged farms, even
now exceed the vested rights of the
few thousand millionaire who control
our protected industries, and perhaps
by reversing the wheel of fortune, or
by a%bolishing the fraud of the
manufacturers, which means, s'heads I
win, tails you lose" the farmers NAV
day inherit their own and have
rights which will make them once more
social and political power, instead of
being, as they are to-day, social and
outcasts-powerless, over
worked and under-fed slaves of million
lires-plutocrats who have no cares ex. I
'ept to see that interests and rents are {
aid promptly and that no radical leg. !
Station disturbs their vested riphts;o !
% collect the hard earnings of honest !
Bynoy w Un,m |
All Right, Canada!
The Norfolk Reformer of wa
)nt, said on March 12: