The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1897-10-02

THE TARIFF AND PROSPERITY AN OBJECT
LESSON.


We rejoice every time a factory that
has been idle is again at work. We are
glad when wheat brings dollar n
bushel. We feel happier when idle men
can find employment. Every such evil
dence of better times means more COM
forts for laborers and more success for
the owners, for both classes have suffered
by the depression.
If it shall turn out that the employ
ment of more men and the utilization
of more spindles is a permanent condi-
ton, none will rejoice more than those
who regard the present increase of manu-
featuring as a temporary necessity to-
supply the fall trade and not based upon
conditions that make for permanen
growth in business.
The history of the country abundantly
proves that there can be no general per
manent prosperity under a high protec
tive tariff coupled with diminishing
quantity of money in circulation. The
Dingley bill has increased the price OF
all goods to the consumer. The manu-
facturers have a clear profit on then
books of the amount of increase, AZ
they have billed the goods to their job
bers at the Dingley rate. The jobber>
have on their books the apparent ris
at which they have billed the goods to
the retail merchants. All the prosperit.
which the increased prices imply, is de-
pendent upon whether the merchant can
sell them at the higher prices. If the
people can buy largely at the prices fixed
there will be demand for more goods.
and the present starting up of the ma
chinery will be permanent. If the peo-
pie get so little for their crops or labor
that they cannot buy largely, the goods
will remain unsold on the shelves of the
merchants. The hope of lasting pros
perity, therefore, depends in the last
analysis upon the prosperity of the
farmers and mechanics and other toll
ers.
The notion that prosperity can be re-
stored by ignoring currency legislation,
and by increasing the cost of what the
people have to buy, is an 'irridescent
dream" What has been will be again.
In no decade, through ordinary causes,
except when the money in circulation
was large, has prosperity come to the
masses under high protective tariff |
More than this: high protection has
been a fruitful source of national dis
turbance and unrest. The Wings
thought they would restore prosperity
through protection in 1888. 1t outraged
the peoples sense Of justice as well as
prevented prosperous times and the law
was repealed. 1t was under the low
tariff era from 1916 to 1858 that the
agricultural sections enjoyed an equal
degree of prosperity with other sections.
No tariff except low tariff gives them
a fair chance.
The Mckinley tariff largely produced
what we have called ''the Cleveland
panic" and the Wilson tariff failed to
reduce it's evils because it was shaped
too much on protection lines. In the
history of the Mckinley tariff may be
read the result Of the Dingley tariff. Ii
will create squirt in manufacturing. Ii
will infuse prosperity in a few highly
subsidized manufa ctures, but for every
enterprise thus artificially assisted it puts
additional burdens on the back of labor
The unexpected calamities abroad that
insures big price for wheat will give
q larger temporary market for many
lines Of goods, but with the return of
favorable conditions abroad this mar
ket VIII be largely lost to our manufac-
turing establishments.
We have lost our foreign market. Ex-
portations of our manufactures will fall
off. and when the Fall supply has been
filed what ground is there to warrant
the expectation that the factories will
continue to run? With nothing but q
home market. and with spindles enough
to supply the need many times over
the operatives now employed are in dan
ger of losing regular work. The Associa
ton of Knit Goods Manufacturers of tn,
United States have adopted the follow
ing resolution:
'Resolved. That according to the
relative amount Of wool and cotton