The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1894-01-26
THE MIDDLE GROUND.
SEEKING BOUNDARIES BETWEEN HIGH
AND LOW TARIFF.

Not Much Prospect of Settling vexed
Observation-Disclosures of Values and I'm
Halt-A Constitutional Amendment.
WASHINGTON, D. c., Jan. Especial. i
After week of debate on the tariff bill in
the house it is doubtful if any one knows
any more about the question than he did
before. The discussion has for the most
part been rather perfunctory and uninter.
esting. The simple truth is, and every one
recognizes it, that the tariff as a public
question is becoming more than ever before
a local matter. In Washington there is a
distinct though perhaps tardy WEAKNESS
of the whole question as a national issue.
The men who have spent their lives in max
ing tarif Hills, in discussions of them and
in deb reon upon the political stump
are fl, ,nfess that the further they 90
the less Icy know-the less clearly do they
see their way.
The frankest of these men on both sides
are ready to admit that the more familiar
they become with the details and effect of
the various laws imposing customs duties
and their effects upon trade and national
prosperity the less they are inclined to think
themselves wholly in the right and the
other fellow altogether in the wrong. In
other words, the practical politicians and
legislators of this day, when brought face
to face with this great business question,
are able to see but little more than that
there is middle ground between high and
low tariffs, between stone wall protection
and out and out free trade, which promises
the best for the country.
Trying to Find the Borders.
The great difficulty which every one feels
Is that this middle ground cannot be staked
out. No one knows what it's borders are,
where one part of the territory begins and
another ends. Struggle as hard as they
may, after years of effort the brightest and
most honest men in congress find them
selves as much in the dark as they were at
the outset. Not one of them would know
just what to do if he were given sole charge
of the making of a new tariff law. AS TO
coal or iron or lead or something else, he
might fix the rate just to suit one part of
the country, while another would suffer
grievously on account thereof. What is
one mans food is another mans poison in
the tariff business.
These facts, which every one has run
plumb up against in his pursuit of this
question, have greatly discouraged great
many public men. They see the country
in continual turmoil over the tariff, first
one party and then the other taking power
on account of popular dissatisfaction with
a scheme of taxation, and they can discover
no daylight ahead. The absolute impossible
ity of making tariff bill that is just to all
sections of the country and to all business
or consumers interests in it has led more
than one man to adopt the extreme view
that there should be no tariff at all. There
are men in congress today preaching pro-
lection and profiting by it politically who
privately say that scheme of taxation in
which justice is impossible and injustice
should be abandoned and some
thing else put in its place.
These men believe the day is coming
when we shall have free trade in the sense
that Great Britain has it, or, in effect, the
tariff shall cease to be a disturbing inf1u-
ence in the realms of commerce and in
dustry, and therefore shall be taken out of
politics. On the other hand, a very large
of lawmakers who stand nominal
for free trade, or at least lower tariffs, &C
tually believe in high protection and lots
of it, They believe it would be ruinOus to
the country to drop the tariffs to point
that would stimulate foreign competition
in our own markets.
An Incessant Juggling.
Thus we appear to be at a standstill.
There is shifting about as to men and as to
sections of the country, but the net result
is a counterbalance. If any one could see
a prospect of settlement of the question, it
would be more encouraging, but they can't.
1t is first one party and then the other.
When the country votes to change parties
and presumably policies, it rarely knows
what it wants except that it is discontinued
with what is. Amid the general gloom in
which this shuttlecocking of the tariff
question is shrouded one fact stands out
clear and strong, one tendency in the pub
lie mind is wildly reflected in congress and
among the public men of the capital
Some method must be devised by which
legislation shall be made something be-
sides menace to the prosperity of the
Frank men of both parties adj
NIT that any readjustment of the tariff is
bad for the country. 1t is the uncertainty,
the disturbance of values and unsettling of
that cause the trouble. One party
is as much at fault as the other. The men
who think of country first and party after
ward land there are a few such in Wash
ington) say it is time to call a halt.
A tariff commission, a nonpartisan body
to take entire charge Of the details of tariff
has been suggested. 1t would be
hoped in this way to take the question out
Of politics. But it is considered doubtful
by the men who have studied this phase of
the problem if that would do it. A tariff
of absolute nonpartisanism
and perfect impartiality would be impossi-
BILE. There would be jockeying for conJrol
of the commission, just as there was smart
work for mastery of the famous electoral
of nearly 20 years ago. Be
sides, no commission that ever was organ
lied or that ever will be created could con-
struct scientific and just tariff measure.
A Remedy Suggested.
The wisest men we have in congress, who
have studied this matter as the greatest
problem before the American people today
not the problem whether tariffs shall be
lower or higher, whether Democracy or Re
publicanism is best, but how to secure a
rest from the tariff at least for known pc.
in saying that the only prac-
ticable method appears to lie in consti-
tutional amendment which will forbid re.
vision of the tariff by a mere ajority vote in
either branch of congress.eXcepting during
the life of the congress which sits immedi-