The Coconino weekly sun., 1894-02-22
THE DEMOCRATIC POLICY.
Free Traders Hostile to American Ir

teresIhs That the Wilson bill is odious to the democratic party was sharp saying of ex-Speaker Reed, which some are un- fairly using. They twist it into an ad- mission that the bill will leave duties strongly protective, and that the in- come tax IS mere excrescence. Two facts need to be rubbed into the minds of men constantly, until they are thor oughly understood. The first is that the Wilson bill robs labor of it's re- ward, and was meant to do that very thing The second is that the income tax is the inevitable other half of democratic tariff.
 Any duty that is less than protective is as distinctly hostile to American and favorable to foreign interests as if the whole duty were wipsd out and free costing S10 abroad, and with 90 per cent. duty now costing SIS here, while the home product sells for SIS. There is protection, and it gives to the work CTS double the wages paid in England. But cut down the duty to 20 per cent, and the foreign competitor seizes the market as completely as If there were no duty whatever. The American pro ducer can live only by sacrificing profits and reducing wages, and his British competitor can cut down in the same way, with a larger capital and a larger labor market When the American works have been closed the foreign rival can make his profit at his pleas ure. That is free trade, first killing the home manufacture so that there is nothing to protect It cuts down labor for awhile. and then deprives 1t of wages altogether. To some people, as Mir. Reed explained, this is the one object especially desirable. They want cheaper labo!, and look with favor on n tariff which promises to force men to work for lower wages.
 The free traders who framed the Will son tariff have not failed, in regard to a single important industry, to cut down duties far enough to let in the foreign product That is their theory; unless they bring about open competi- tion they hold themselves guilty of causing a monopoly. To cut down just far enough to spoil the home market for Americans, and give foreigners chance with their cheaper capital and cheaper labor to control it, is the pre- else thing for which the measure in all its essential parts was framed If it protects, properly speaking, in any part, it Is either blunder or one of those bits of sectionalism and jobbery which make the measure disgraceful Of necessity such measure is tariff for deficiency and not for revenue. It impoverishes the people so that they cannot purchase or consume as they have done.
 Cutting off s75,00O, 900 revenue on the basis of imports last year, a demo- cratic congress had no other resource available except an income tax. The tax on sugar is emiuently a tax of the poor. The richest family in New York would consume but little more sugar for each person than the family of a day laborer. A duty o. cents per pound would yield only abou SSs0, 000,- 900. nine-tenths of it f'om the pockets of working people at the rate of nc arly s5 for every family. That road was not open to democrats The party which existed by reason of its alliance with the liquor saloors in northern states could not tax beer o: whisky heavily. The tax on incomes appealed to the same property-hating and com munistic spirit which democrats had fostered thirty years in their warfare against bondholders and protected in- dustries To refuse it, and tax the who consume sugar or the saloons which sell liquors was for the democrats an impossibility.
 Republican protection collects the | s75, ,O00,0 900 from the luxury-loving who choose to consume foreign goods, or from the foreign manufacturers or agents who sell such goods Part is paid by each, and practically no part by the millions Instead, the democ- -acy shuts up the American shops, em- oloys the foreign shops to work for us, ,ripples the purchasing powers of our own people so that they import already 'f dutiable goods 4l per cent less than } year ago, and makes up for the de- iciency by putting penalty on hon.. ,stY.-N. Y. Tribune.