Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1894-01-24
Stauntolt Spectator.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY "a
Erroneous Charges Refuted.

Erroneous Charges ke1uted.
In an article controverting the ale
cations of the Republicans, that the
hard times are due to the introduction
in Congress of the Wilson tariff bill,
the BALTIC. San says that business did
not begin to show signs of disorder and
distress with the election of Mr.. Cleve-
land. The year 1898 was but the cul
mination of long period OF years
during which, with spasmodic rally
here and there, the times had been
growing steadily more and more out
of joint. Protection has been per-
sistent blight on our manufactures, our
agriculture and our commerce. IL mas
only enriched favored few OF the pro-
ducing classes by impoverlshlng the
consuming millions. Our agricultural
exports, which increased 20 per cent.
yearly from 1850 to 1860 under low
tariff, have increased only 8 per cent
yearly under the high tariffs of the last
80 years. In 1860 the farmers owned
one-half of the wealth of the United
States. After 30 years of high tariff
they own only one-fourth OF it. what
is the use of prating about protection
to wool growers, when the recorded
fact is that wool brought 50 cents a
pound under low tariff in 1853, and Is
worth only 90 cents pound under the
high tariff of 1898?
The plain truth is that high tariffs
have resulted in congested manufact-
ures-producing more than we can
consume ourselves and at the same
time locking the entrance doors to for
eign markets against ourselves and
throwing away the keys. They have
simultaneously made manufactures
improbable and agriculture unremu-
nerative. They have given England
our export trade and made her pres
emit of our share of the worlds ship
ping. They have taxed the farmer and
the planter beyond all endurance and
reason, and left them to furnish i've
sixths of our entire exports in open
competition with the lowest paid labor
of the world. And while doing so they
have made him pay artifcially high
prices on everything that they buy for
their own consumption and use. AT
last, after playing the horse-leech on
all honest and legitimate American
industry for thirty years, protection
has turned all our manufacturing cities
into free-soup kitchens, at which hun
dreds of thousands of laboring people
the very people who were promised
american wages and protection
against pauperism" by the bunco tariffs
of 1883 and 1S9O-are being fed by the
hand of charity.
1t is in the face of such hard, indis-
putable facts as these that the republl-
can leaders have the effrontery to be
arguing in Congress that prosperity
would be filling the land but for the
demand of the people for change of
the conditions that have created their
miseries, and the effort of the demo
cratic party to obey that demand"
The New York Journal Of Commerce
says that it cannot be complained that
Secretary Carlisle has been precipitate
in calling on Congress to help the
Treasury out of it's endorsements
He might be criticised perhaps for
waiting too long for Congress to take
the initiative. The revenues fell off so
greatly during the second quarter OF
the fiscal year and show such per-
sistent refusal to rally in the third
quarter that it is no longer possible to
doubt that the deficit this fiscal year
will be much in excess of the estimates,
including the estimate of the Secretary
himself made after the close of the first
quarter of the fiscal year. The country
is in the position of a merchant OF
ample means who allows his bank &C
count to drop so low that there is i'm
minent danger of his checks being pro-
tested. Congress has sho Hn an ex-
asperating apathy on this subject, as
though Jerry Simpsons idea that the
gold and silver in the mines were secu-
rity for the Government notes. The
only measures that Congress has been
paying any attention to are measures
to still further reduce the revenues
Until the revenues increase by natural
expansion. or by new taxation, it will
be absolutely necessary for the Secre-
tary to borrow money, not merely to
maintain the notes of the Government
at par but even to provide the Treasury
with currency for the payment of sal
aries, the purchase of supplies and the
meeting of the general obligations of
the Government. The Secretary has
certainly not been hasty in announcing
to Congress that he shall borrow
money under existing laws if more adj
vantageous ones be not promptly sup
piled.