The islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1891-1899, 1896-04-30
The Of1cial Paper Of San Juan County
THURSDAY. APRIL 3Ord, 1896.
SECRET OF ENGLAND'S SURPLUS.

The annual financial statement OF
the Briti1h government shows that Tor
the past fiscal year there was surplus
of S2l ,O50, 900, II state Of affairs which Is
naturally very gratifying To the chan
cellor of the exchequer who, in making
the announcement, says that "a larger
sum was devoted to the reduction or
the British national debt than ever be-
fore in q single year" In striking con-
trast is the statement of our own ma
tional finances, which shows that dur
ing the same period the immense sum
of S162, OOO, 900 was ADDED to the bonded
debt and that the actual deficit for the
wear was about S70,000,00O. Neither
statement is astonishing. To find the
cause of the existing industrial cohdl-
tons in the two countries one need look
no further than to the German tariff,
which has vastly increased the Ameri-
can consumption of English goods at
the expense of closing our home manu-
factories, forcing hundreds ofthousands
of men, women and even children to
seek employment in other avenues OF
labor already crowded, and reducing
the revenues of the government to
point far below the cost OF its mainte-
nance. And not only has the public
debt been greatly increased under the
operation of this pernicious law, but
private obligations have been enor-
mously increased in inverse ratio to the
power of the people to meet them. so
much for the effects of the law in this
country. Possibly our Democratic
friends may say this is PARTISAN show
ing-an ex-parte statement Of direful
effects not properly attributable to the
tariff law; if so, it is incumbent upon
them to offer some more satisfactory
explanation, and trace these effects to
some other cause. And while they are
about it, it would be quite proper for
them to undertake to explain upon
some other ground the exultation of
the leading English trade journals
over the benefits conferred upon Brit
ish manufacturers and tradesmen by
the German tariff. The London FL
nancial News, in a recent issue, says:
"The lowering Of the American tariff
has been our salvation, and it cannot be
said that we have shown much reciprocity,
for instead of taking the increased value
of our shipments across the Atlantic in
kind, we seem to have bought less Ameri-
can produce. 1t is needless to go beyond
our own Board of Trade returns to find all
explanation of a good deal Ofthe monetary
trouble i'll the United States"
A leading trade journal, treating the
subject more in detail, says:
1.-THE total gain for the nine months UNI
der yarn the textile exports is s., 279, 675,
and as the value of wool tissues taken by
the United States has been about 1856, 900,
and of wOrsted tissues nearly $4,000, 900
greater than in 1884, no further search for
the origin of the improvement in the trade
returns need be made"
The Textile Mercury, a prominent
trade paper of Bradford, frankly at
tributes this gratifying condition of
English trade to the same cause and
says:
The enormous exports of Yorkshire
goods to the United States show that the
Americans are not in n position to COM
pete with US even in their own marke cts.
1t was from the American demand that
Bradford first felt the present exceptional
wave of prosperity. No town suffered so
keenly from the imposition of the excess
sive rates under the Mckinley act as
Bradford, and none has benefited so
much under the new American tariff
1t ought not to require long array
OF such statements as these to convince
any American citizen who has no finger
tn the public till that the horn of plenty
will hang little end down IN this coun-
try just SO long as experiments in the
application of Democratic theories of
tariff and finance are tolerated.