The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1895-11-03
that there should be equal and exact
justice to all men and special privileg-

that there should be equal and exact
justice to all men and special privileg-
| eS to none.
1 R. That sounds very pretty, but the
trouble is that your principles will Sc
weaken the government as to destroy
| its influence at home and respect for
it abroad.
D. In that you mistake. It is not
the despotism that is the strongest,
but that government which being the
freest is founded not upon the fear but
upon the love of the people.
! R. Yes, but of what practical value
is your fine-spun theory about broad
and narrow construction?
d. Fortunately, [ can give you a To-
/ cal Illustration of that The law es-
cheating the Mormon church property
was attacked by the church as uncon-
stitutionai, but was sustained as con-
stitutional by the United States Su-
preme Court. The Court, however,
was divided, six judges, all Republi-
cans, constituting the Constitution
broadly as became their mode of
thought. said that Congress inherited
the right TO pass such laws,
while Fuller, Field and Lamar,
the only three Democratic judg-
es, reasserted the fundamental
Democratic doctrine and pro
nounced the law as unconstitutional,
not being justified by any express pro-
vision of the Constitution nor by neces-
sary implication therefrom. Don't you
see that the people would not have
been deprived of hundreds of thousands
of dollars worth of property had Demo-
cratic ideas prevailed? Be it said, how
ever, that a Democratic Congress
righted the wrong by restoring the
property-at least the personal part of
it.
R. The explanation of all that is that
the Democratic judges were playing for
political advantage.
D. This suggestion is not new. 1t is
a vile SANDER on the most august tri-
bunal on earth and is disproved by the
many decisions against the interests of
| the Mormon people.
R. Well, this is merely speculative
advantage without real value.
D. Not SO; in making laws and in
! constituting them, wherever popular or
individual rights are. involved, Demo-
Gratis will be found on the side of lib
the governing power.
R. Let's come down out of the
clouds of theory and talk about
schemes for the development of the
country. 1 favor protection and boun-
ties as a means of building up the
country, furnishing more labor and
higher wages to the laborer by protect
ing him from the paupers of the old
world, of furnishing a home market for
our agricultural products.
D. One would suppose from such a
category of blessings that all that
Greenland needed to make it as pro-
ductive as Ohio is a good stiff tariff.
Do you ever stop to consider, my friend,
that a tariff is merely tax, that in
and of itself it produces nothing, that
its only effect is to produce prosperity
in certain industries at the expense of
all other industries? You concede the
tariff is a tax, and that the foreigner
does not pay the tax, I presume?
r. Oh, yes. That is self-evident. But
people can afford to pay a tax if their
wages are increased by reason of it. A
coat is dear at amy price to a man
who has not a cent.
D. Yes. true. But these facts are
well established. Wages depend upon
supply and demand. In crowded coun-
tries they are lower, the supply being
larger than in new countries. There
fore wages differ vastly among the
states or even in the same state while
being subject to the influences of the
same tariff. If tariffs control wages
the Chinaman at home should be the
best salaried man in the world, for
eign goods being practically excluded.
While wages in America are higher
than in Europe, Mr.. Blaine tells us
! that our cotton employees are the
cheapest paid workmen in the world
when wages and production are con-
sidered. Free trade England pays bet
ter wages than protected Germany and
conditions are about equal The poor
est paid worklnen in America are en-
gagged in the protected industries and
the best paid among the carpenters,
masons printers and others whose
product cannot be imported. American
labor is open to competition from all
the world, since laborers may freely
enter our ports without let, hindrance
or tariff. The great protected indus
tries who ask for tariffs Gin order to
enable them to pay higher wages.
put the profits in their pockets and go
into the open markets and get the
cheapest labor they can find. So far as
your farmer is concerned it is his priv
ilege to pay about SO per year tax and
| increased cost of goods for every mem
Der Of his family by reason of the
tariff and must compete with all the
world in selling his produce because
we raise a surplus. So far as the home
market is concerned it is a delusion
and a snare-since under thirty years
of tariff we now export a greater per-
centage of the total amount of farm
products raised than we did thirty
years ago. This home market theory
presupposes either that large numbers
of people will be driven out of the in
dependent occupation of agriculture
into mills or that great numbers of
immigrants will be brought into the
country to compete with home labor,