Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1894-01-11

vi
reform wherever they undertook to
reform the tariff.
If ever a protective tariff had full
opportunity to display its beneficent
workings, if it has any, the tariff upon
wooden goods and upon wool has had
that opportunity. From 1867 down
to the present time the wool grower
on the one hand and the producer of
wooden goods upon the other have in
union and in accord made their own
tariffs. irrespective of the interests OF
all the other people in this country.
From the time that they met in New
York, in 1867, and adjusted their tariff
taxes upon wool and their compen-
sating taxes upon wooden goods down
to the present time, if Baal could send
the lire of prosperity, they have
called upon him and have had free
opportunity to test his power. And
vet he would be a hardy man who
would rise in this House and say that
the wool-grower had prospered-that
the production of wool in this country
had prospered underall the favoritism
and all the protection. He would b'
a hardy man who would rise in this
House and say that even the McKin-
lev bill, with its increase Of taxes on
wooden goods and its prohibitory
taxes upon everything that it was
thought could interfere with the use
Of wool in this country, had been OF
any benefit whatever TO the Ameri-
can wool-grower.
He did not hesitate to say that even
if by protection upon wool the price
of that product could be raised, the
right to raise it did not exist at the
expense of the seventy million wear
ers of wooden goods in this country.
Applause.
In 1857 large part of the wool i'm
ported into this country was put upon
the free list. A very slight tariff was
left upon the more expensive wool,
costing over twenty cents a pound
abroad. and suddenly there was such
revival and such growing pros
perity of wooden manufacturing in
this country that the price OF domes-
tic wool went up higher than it had
been for years before.
There is a tariff tax of - cents a ton
on bituminous coal. It's not contend
ed that at any point in these United
States the cost Of mining a ton of coaI
ever goes bevond sixty cents. In the
testimony before the committee on
WAYS and means it was proved that
i'm his own district the cost OF
mining was from forty TO sixty cents
a ton. It was proved that IL the
Pocahontas region the cost of mining
ton Of coal was from % to 81
cents a ton. That is what is paid 10
the miner. Yet under tariff which
proposed simply to equalize the
difference between labor in this coun
try and labor in foreign countries
here is n tax of seventy-five cents on
a ton of coal.
We have in these United States to-
day 1872, 900 square miles Of territory
underlaid with coal, 129, 0O0 square
miles of which can be today protitably
worked, three times more than all the
coal of all the rest of the world put
together. With these eXhaustless
supplies so close = the surface that
the cost of ni has been reduced
to a minimum@ess than is possible
in England-the question of IA tariff
upon coal is neither question oil
protection nor question of revenue
but simply question of subsidy &c
the great railroad corporations of the
country. Applause. Upon neither
Democratic ground nor Republican
ground can you continue tariff upon
coal, Unless You believe that the PEG
| pie of the United States should be
taxed TO pay bounties or subsidies tC
the great railroad carriers of thu
country.
The country had reached such al
extrt me of protection that any pro
Queer anywhere in the United States
thinks a tariff is not u protective
tariff TO him unless it gives him al
the country from the Atlantic to the
Pacific for his own market without
foreign competition, aud is left hist
enough to pay the transportation tt
the remotest parts of the United
States. applause.