Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1895-01-23
$tauntott Spectator.
WEDNESDAY JANUARY %
Foreign Regulation of our Tariffs.

Foreign Regulation Of our Tariffs.
Senator Aldrich is quite right, says
the New York Journal Of Commerce,
when he points out the vital fact that
the discriminating duty, which Ger
many is now protesting against as a
violation of the most favored nation
article in an old treaty, existed in the
Mckinley law without protest from
Germany or any other country. He is
not entirely justified in inferring that
the retaliatory measures now resorted
to by Germany and threatened by
other countries is not connected with
this differential, but is attributable to
the general repeal of the reciprocity
agreements 1t should be a sufficient
reply to Germany that the alleged vio-
lation of her treaty rights existed for
four years without word of complaint
from her. 1t is not material that under
the Mckinley law Germany made more
than she lost; right is a right, and ii
her treaty right has been invaded now
it has been invaded for four years
without word of complaint from her,
and if she assented for four years to
the construction we put on the most
favored nation" article it is pretty late
in the day for her now to object to it..
If we claimed the right in the case of
Colombia to make reciprocal trade
agreements which destroyed the value
of third nations most favored ma
tionn agreement with us, it is scarcely
dignified for us to confess our error
and make our apologies to Germany.
This controversy does not prove, as
Senator Aldrich says, the wisdom OF
restoring the reciprocal agreements
authorized by the Mckinley law. 1t
proves the extreme unwisdom of
making our trade relations depend
upon lot of special bargains with
various foreign countries. Such ar
rangements put our tariff legislation
in the control of foreign governments.
Except in the case of Cuba we gained
little or nothing from any of these re-
ciprocal trade agreements. The dis
aster of Cuba of shutting out supplies
from the United States may be de-
pended on in a reasonable time to force
Spain to give us at least as good terms
as we had prior to 1890. Small as was
the benefit to US of the reciprocal
agreements, our abandonment of them
and return to the wiser and broader
and traditional policy of the United
States is the occasion for various ma
lions to attack or threaten to attack
our trade. While treating all nations
alike we Jared quite as well as we could
hope to ON the whole and in the long
run, but having made special bargains
with several countries we find ourselves
compelled to continue them or invite
reprisals. We find that we cannot
even protect our revenue from the at
tack Germany makes upon it by grant
ing an export bounty on an article upon
which we have imposed an ad valorem
duty.
We are peculiarly vulnerable to in
jury from trade retaiiations of the sort
threatened. Cuba produces practi-
cally no food and Spain cannot allow
her to starve, but Germany and other
countries contain large political and
economic interests which are deeply
anxious to reduce importation of those
foods of which we produce quantities
much in excess of our own needs, and
which it is of the utmost Importance
taus to market abroad. Reciprocity
naturally invites retaliation and the
German landowners are selling the OPP
portunity, in the interest of the wheat
and the rye and the pork which they
wish to sell. The pretext for tariff
war against our agricultural products
is sometimes trichinae, sometimes
pleuro pneumonia, and sometimes a
discriminating duty which merely re-
stores that equality of trade conditions
which it was the purpose of the most
favored nation" article to establish,
and which an export bounty defeats
In all cases it is merelya pretext of the
meat and grain raisers of Germany to
defeat American competition, and it is
more effectively met in the long run by
tariff policy which treats all nations
alike than by one which seeks to make
a special ''deal' with each.