The herald., 1898-02-07
THE COMMERCIAL WAR

Most of the horses that pass along the
streets with their varying burdens ap-
pear to be good horses. 1t is rarely that
one sees a spawned OF string-halt ami
NAL in the public thoroughfares. 1t Is
only when we need a horse and go into
the marts to make a purchase that
something seems to be the matter with
every one offered. Who that has ever
had occasion to buy a horse for what
ever service has escaped the experience
here noted?
A child once wrote home to her parents
in the east that she had visited nearly
every town of Importance in California,
and that there was not one but she could
find fault with! She was dyspeptic.
Until the adoption by this country OF
the Mckinley bill the Germans were
very fond of American meats, and large
quantities of our succulent hog found
their way into Fatherland and were
eagerly purchased and consumed. Not
so many Germans died in year from
eating diseased American pork as We're
recently killed by the pagans in the ori-
ent in a day. But Mckinley duties
seemed to have an immediate effect
upon the health of the Yankee pig, and
his infection with trichina was contem-
poraneous with the receipt in Berlin of
a certified copy Of the schedules.
Coincident with this remarkably sud
den appearance of an epidemic of trichi-
nosis in the American hog was an
nounced the discovery of Texas fever
in the cattle being shipped into England.
It is possible that the mysterious disease
did not injure the fine beeves unloaded
at Liverpool so much as the sale of their
carcasses did the British butchers. But
that is neither here nor there. The
duties on cutlery, textile fabrics and
other commodities quite exclusively
English had filled the cattle with the
deadly and insidious nematoid worm in
numbers myriad. And so the English
barriers were raised against American
beef.
The French are not nearly so dainty
in an epicurean way as tradition would
lead us to believe, for we have heard It
said they do not disdain to eat horse.
But the French, too, once the Mckinley
schedules were put in effect, discovered
the unsavoriness of American meat
Italy, Austria and numerous other
countries in either hemisphere have not
failed to discover defects in American
products Immediately following the
adoption of new tariff regulations by
our congress, not before noticed.
1t was not until last week that the
Germans discovered the prevalence of
influenza in the horses imported from
the United States and the presence of
the San Jose louise in the beautiful fruit
we have been sending them from Cali
fornia- The discovery comes a little late
in the season, but it is doubtless genu-
inc. At all events the Teutons are
firmly convinced of it, and strong evil
dence will be required to dispel the
doubt-something in the nature of a re-
vision and horizontal scaling down of
the Dingley schedules. Indeed, our Sec
retary of agriculture-fearing a wrong
Interpretation may be placed upon these
hostile demonstrations against Ameri-
can industries and American labor
tacitly comedies there may be something
IN the claim of the Prussians that the
American horse now touring Europe
may have the grip, and that our decidu-
ous fruits may have contracted bugs
in the buzzun' on the passage.
But the events and circumstances here
briefly referred to are not without their
lesson. We do not need to go abroad to
discover that the Dingley tariff law is