Weekly expositor. (Brockway Centre, Mich.) 1882-1894, 1893-08-18
The Weekly Exposition.
FRIDAY, AUG. IS, 1898.
TINES.
CAUSE AND CURE.
ARTICLE III.


ent year it was frequently asserted
that dealers were cautious about buy
ing on account of fears that the pres
ent administration would carry out
their expressed intentions to change
the entire tariff system. Manufacture
ers who employed thousands of hands
and who send out the hundreds of
thousands of dollars to purchase the
clip asserted that they must buy the
present stock with reference to what
change the administration might
make, that if wool was to be reduced
in price next year they must purchase
with that fact in view from the fact
they must carry this stock over to
another year.
So they did just what any sensible
farmer or business man would do-they
invested as little cash as they could
until it is determined what the admin
istration will do with the tariff as re-
CARDS this industry. If it is to be prac-
tically wiped out; if we must depend
upon foreign manufacturers to make
our WOODEN goods; if the mills in other
lands shall be kept running TO make
goods and these goods are to be brought
here and sold here until the market is
filled; then what prudent business
man will invest large sums of money
to be made into goods to be sold in the
future?
Such business man knows that we
have good mills, plenty of labor seek
ing employment, and farmers who are
willing and anxious to furnish this
wool at fair prices and thus keep these
laborers employed at decent wages.
lie also knows for Il certainty that
if the foreign mill shall be run to
furnish goods for our people, then his
mills must run on short time or shut
down; that If the labor is to be furn-
ished to the workmen of other nations
then our own must do that much less.
These facts are not mere speculatiOns;
they are hard, cold facts, and upon
these facts are based the present prices
paid for wool. For these reasons COM
paratiyely little money has been in
vested in the wooden industry and this
lessons the circulation of money just
that much and aids in causing string
ency of money.
But it was asserted that these fears
were groundless: that the administra-
ton did not contemplate making any
changes. Upon this point we refer
to the recent message of president
Cleveland dated August :. 1898, in
which he says:
ct may be true that the embarrass-
ments from which the business of the
country is suffering arise as much from
cells dpprehended as from those
actually e.riSting.
at was my purpose to summons Con-
gress in special session early in the
coming September, that we might
enter upon the work of tariff REFORM"
These utterances prove that fears
that the protective SYSTEM will be
abolished and our doors thrown open
to freely admit the product of foreign
pauper labor are not groundless-that
they are well founded.
Now, both Harrison's prophecy and
Cleveland's declaration indicate that
business difficulties are arising from
"evils apprehended". Then why
should the matter have been deferred?
If the Administration are going to
change our business basis the sooner it
| is done the sooner will business inter
ests become settled. At present all is
uncertainty and distrust; and inasmuch
as the administration have full power
of both houses of Congress the respon-
sibility for this suspense rests solely
with the party in power, Tor Congress
is composed as follows:
I