The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1896-07-23

Gle if he has no money and can earn none
| to buy it? A protective tariff which shall
| prevent foreign goods made by cheap la
Dor from coming freely into our market,
and taking the place of our own products,
| will give our working men something to
do and fair wages. They will then have
the power to buy. In them the farmer
and trader will find good customers, all
our industries will be quickened, we will
| produce for ourselves what we consume,
our money will be kept at home, we shall
then have sufficient circulating me-
dunn, the balance of trade will be with
us. as it has always been under Republic
can rule and never under Democratic rule
since 1886, and we will become debt
paving instead of a debt making people.
But ! see that Democracy in certain
! parts of the country, is making as bril-
liant and delusive promises to the people
of the benefits which they will confer
upon the people with free silver as they
did with free trade. What will it give
You, gentlemen? 1t Won t open the doors
of a factory 1t will not start the fires in
a furnace. 1t won sell cord of lumber,
/ on a pound of wool, OF bushel of pota-
toes. OF furnish day labor, except pos
sibly in the silver mines.
Ii thousand millions of isilver or gold
We're issued neither you nor | could have
a cent OF it, unless we paid for it in other
money or products or labor. There is no
dearth of money in the country. The
trouble is that it does not circulate. 1t
will not circulate unless people do bust
ness TO call it out of its hiding places.
People will not do business in this country
unless they can sell what their business
produces, and they cannot do that while,
through the influence of Democratic free
trade. we buy our commodities across the
water and not here.
Had we retained the Mckinley law we
should have produced here by our labor
the millions upon millions OF dollars
worth of woolens which we are hiring
foreigners to make for us and import into
our country. We should be producing
the enormous amount of wool that we are
importing from Australia and other for
eign countries. Maine instead of Canada
| lumber would lie now furnishing our lum-
Der markets. Everything that the farmers
raise almost would be bringing the prices
of 1892. We should be making all our
iron, and our idle workmen would be
earning money and paying it out for much
better living than they are now able to
get.
This would keep our money at home
| 1t is strange that our free silver men who
| re not silver producers, and wish only to
increase our currency, should never con-
| slider the TACT that protective tariff, by
| causing the employment OF our own peo-
/ pie TO do our work and develop our re-
sources and the consequent payment OF
our money ont here instead of abroad,
would do more to keep up the volume of
our circulating medium than any new is
sue of money. We may as well try to fill
our pockets while there is big hole in
| the bottom, as endeavor to keep a large
volume Of currency at home when we buy
! abroad instead of producing here what we
consume, and it is equally true that no
scheme of finance can be devised which
/ will make the nation rich or till the vaults
Of the treasury except by borrowing, so
/ long as we purchase abroad more than we
/ produce to sell. When we buy abroad
we add no wealth to the country. When
we have both the product and the money
at home, and so increase our material
wealth,
What we most want is stable currency.
| Business men want to know what kind of
a medium of exchange they are to use
what its value is to be--and working men
and farmers want TO know the character
of the money in which they are to be paid.
/ one great danger OF establishing a silver
| basis is that our credit abroad would be
| destroyed. our securities would be return
ed for payment, our gold would go out of
| the country ana our currency would be
seriously contracted. We are a debtor
nation, and the debtor must have good
credit or stop business. The creditor has
no use for credit.
1t will be well for those who think they
see panacea in free silver for the disas-
ter which Democratic rule has brought
upon the country to look abroad and see
| what it has done elsewhere. Japan is
free silver country and her people work
for ten cents per day. Mexico is a tree
silver country and her working men get
but little more, while in free silver China
the laborer gets even less. He works for
merely an existence and yet he is a good
and willing worker.
But who is it that works the free silver
argument9 Why no one but the mine
owners and the Democratic party. Of
course the former wish to raise the price
of their product. The latter wish, and
do not blame them for it, to call the at
tention of the people away from the dis
asters which they have brought upon the
nation by their ruinous policy of low
duties. The Wilson bill has cursed the
nation as no other nation was ever cursed
in time of peace. Democrats, and especial
ly Southern Democrats, don't want to dis
cuss that. The real sore on the body
polite, that which they have created
that which must be cured before the ma
ton can get WELL they wish no attention
to be paid to. They wish it to remain
open and bleeding. while they point the
people to an other issue which they raise
in order to save themselves.
They have been accustomed to do this
After their iniquities during the war and
days of reconstruction, they became the
''liberal party and voted for Greedy
But that did not cover their sins. Then
they became ''reform party" and voted
for Tilden. Then they cried for ''econo-
my and reform" and for the first time in
81 years elected President and Congress
and got full control of the government.
Since they came into power they have
given us an economic policy that has
melted the wealth, crippled the industries
of the land, and denied TO the working
man the right to toll for comfortable
livelihood. They have given US financial
policy that has made the treasury Dor
rover and almost a beggar. They have
given us hating, hesitating, uncertain
and at times ridiculous foreign policy