The Washington times., 1894-04-11
TWO POINTS FOR The TARIFF
Senator Lodges Speech and the New
York Legislatures Resolution.
HOAR SPRINGS A SENSATION
After Lodges Invective the Senate Hears
That New York's solons Approve Hills
Arrangement of the Income Tax, the Tariff
Bill, and the Administration.

| Senator Hoar sprung sensation at the
close of Senator Lodges speech yesterday
afternoon by stating that he wished to make
q speech which he would have read from the
desk
He thereupon sent up an Associated Press
bulletin, stating that the New York Legisla-
ture had passed resolution Of thanks to Sen
ator Hill for his speech in opposition to the
tariff bill in the Senate yesterday.
This was greeted with some applause in the
gallery. which the Vice President quickly
checked.
Mr.. Gray, Of Delaware, explained the action
| OF the New York Legislature by saying that
the Legislature of New York was overwhelm-
ingly Republican.
YES" replied Mr.. Aldrich, smilingly, 'but
not by such majority as shown in the dis
patch. There is majority Of fourteen on a
joint ballot, 50 that at least forty Democrats
must have voted for the resolution" The
following Is the dispatch read to the Senate:
ALBANY, n. Y, April 10.-Assembyman
Ainsworth, the Republican leader. offered the
Whereas Early in the session of the present
legislature a respectful message was sent by
this house to the hon. David b. Hill, requesting
him TO oppose the passage of the Wilson bill in
the Senate of the United States. and
Whereas, The morning papers contain a copy
of his speech delivered in the Senate yesterday;
therefore
Resolved, If the Senate concur That the
thanks of the legislature are hereby extended
TO Hon David b. Hill for his mastery arraign-
ment OF the foreign policy Of the present admin
tax features of the Wilson BILL and his denun-
citation OF un-Amertcan features OF the present
tariff legislation
The resolution was adopted-ayes. 102: nays,
3-Messrs Carroll, Roche, and Ryder Messrs.
Bush, Bowling, and Southworth were excused
from voting On party lines the House stands "A
Republicans, "a Democrats
The text of Senator Lodges speech in op-
position to the tariff bill was as follows:
1t is always well to look at things as they are.
even if the thing be free trade, TO which some
persons in beautiful language have consecrated
themselves. 1t is best if we would treat it INTEL
ligently to know that by itself and of itself the
tariff is business question. and that protection
and free trade only take on different and far
deeper meaning when they are considered as
parts of question between far-reaching prin-
ciples, which believe involves the future of our
race and the existence and progress of the
graver aspect, as have already said, that l
prefer first 10 treat them.
To the practical man of affairs the theoretical
and convinced free-trader is generally extremely
exasperating. But 10 the student of history and
and to the disinterested observer, to men of
phlosophic minds and blessed with n sense of
hunOr, he is OF the most interesting and
entertaining of hum an phenomena These con-
vinced free-traders generally have some educa-
tion and invariably think they have a great
deal They are provided wilh a set of little say
ings and aphorisms which can be carried with
out intellectual strain in a very small compass,
and which to their own thinking complete
solutions OF all social and economic questions
These they draw forth on all occasions and
present them 10 the world with entire confidence
In the hnality OF their sentences and profound
contempt for all persons who venture TO differ
with them and who do not think that the diff-
culties of humanity can be so easily disposed of.
on WHAT FREE TRADE RESTS
Free trade rests entirely on the let-alone doc
trine. he continued-that is, upon the doctrine
that the least interference Of the state the best
and, comparatively speaking, is not a very large
question 1t is merely the expression in one
limited direction of much broader principle
If the let-alone theory is correct a general
economic principle and If the experience and
practice of mankind show that ii is correct, then
free trade IS Of course correct one Of its parts.
But il, on the other hand. the let-alone doctrine
can be proved in many directions to be incorrect,
II ii has been abandoned again and again in
practice by the most civilized nations, then the
presumption is against free trade or any other
single expression Of the central principle.
lie then went en- 10 show that France and most
other countries had gone back TO protection after
spasnodic attempts at free trade. England
alone had retained free trade uninterruptedly
since adopting it, but the British colonies, which
usually initiated the mother country in every
thing had adopted the principle of protection.
The underlying proposition of thc free trader
is that ii is idle TO attempt modify by legisa-
tion the working of immutable economic laws.
lie fOrCets or has never learned that scarcely
anything is imnutable into which enters the
heart and mind and emotions of humanity The
personal equation plays large part in all things
which human beings affect by their own actions.
"Raise wages by law" Make yourself richer by
taxation says the free trader. bringing out
again his little collection of epigrams. at is
like lifting yourself by your boot straps" And
then he thinks he had answered the whole case.
And while he thinks lie has settled the universe
in this fashion the plain sense OF the American
workingman has shut out Chinese labor and
contract labor, and Will in long time shut
out the imported products OF that same labor
Continuing the argument, he said that the
next point to determine was whether free trade,
contrary as ii was TO the general principles on
which human society has been built up could
Justify its existence We could settle this by ex-
amipinc the results of free trade and. as only
one civilized country had adopted it, that was
easily done.
England had adopted free trade, not because.
as principle, she believed it Just, but because
she believed it would pay. England was small
country, densely populated, and having small
agricultural interests: the United States was
large, spGrseIy populated according to European
standards) and with immense agricultural inter-
ests.
TIE AMERICAN MANUFACTURER.
If, he argued, the American manufacturer
does not make money, it is quite certain that he
will not employ labor, and therefore the work
ingmen will not make money either Our manu-
believe that under free trade they must
either go out of business or reduce labor costs
lNn 10
that is ruin, and they are very unwilling to try
the latter, because reducing labor costs means !
lowering wages, which means in turn vast in /
dustrial disturbances; and that is ruin, too, or
very near it. How widely different is /
Our situation to-day from that Of England fifty |
years ago, so far as the manufacturers are con- !
cerned. Most striking of all these differences,
moreover, IS the fact that while the English par
lament listened to English manufacturers a I
majority of the American Congress not only |
turns n deaf ear to American manufacturers, |
but treats them as If they were enemies of their |
Having found that the conditions in England |
at the time of the adoption of free trade were ,
wholly unlike our conditions here to-day it now !
remains TO inquire whether the English policy !
has produced results which make it beyond |
question the proper policy for every other coun- |
try:
lie showed that in spite of all the supposed
blessings of free trade England was cursed with |
constant labor difficulties, and since the adop-
tion OF that principle, which, il was prophesied,
would bring peace on earth and good will among
men, she had had on her hands an average of |
about one war year.
Turning from industry to agriculture. he in
CURED: Has English agriculture been benefited
by free trade, as Golden and others of his school
predicted, 1t is matter of public notoriety
that the record of agriculture in England of late
years is little but record of disaster
There was nothing left, then, of the boosted
superiority of free trade over protection but the
promise of increase trade, and to refute this
claim he gave the percentage of increase,lby dec
ades, Of England and the United States, which
showed that in the decade 1S7C-1Ss0 the trade of