The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1898-07-16
DESERVING THE OLD SHIP

of high protection, and to return to
the principle of lower taxation. Those
in congress have little to say about
protection, but devote their time to
singing the praise of the gold stand
ard. In recent issue of the Oregon
ian there appeared the following edi'
torial which plainly indicates the way
the republican party is drifting on the
subject:
Civilization moves in mysterious
way. Its goals are reached by devious
paths. We go to war to free Cuba,
and get colonial empire and the Mic
aragua canal. We elect Cleveland for
the sake of lower tariff, and we get
an anchor in the silver gale and the
Olney doctrine. We learn, not by re-
fection, but by hard knocks. We
never find out the road is going to be
rough till the wagon begins to jolt
over the stones.
The American manufacturer has
been trying all along to keep himself
down to the home market. The task
was so difficult that he spent consider
able money to secure government aid
for his own suppression. He thought
that if he could be insured the home
market, he would rather be content
with that than to contemplate fair
field and NO favor, with the home mar
ket open to the foreigner.
But circumstances are forcing him
off the high protection track. 1t is to
be feared he leaves it with regret, and
not from intellectual conviction. His
condition, not theories, have changed.
Inventive genius has supplied him
with machinery, the gold standard
with cheap money, aud the resultant
multiplicity of his wares is beyond the
capacity of tho home market. He
opens his eyes and covets the markets
of the world. And he is practical
enough to see that if he is to carry his
locomotives, bicycles, tools and ma
chinery abroad with easy access, some
compensatory breach must be made in
our own tariff wall. We cannot very
well object to paying toll on our neigh
boris road, as long as we insist on col
lecting at our own gates.
A good place to study manufacturing
sentiment is in the Manufacturers
club, of Philadelphia. Its organ. the
Philadelphia Manufacturer, has just
announced it's purpose of supporting
movement for tariff concessions on
Canadian goods in return for similar
concessions by Canada on certain of
our goods. The Manufacturers idea
is that ''if Canada desires to send US
her wool and lumber, her wood pulp.
agricultural products and fish," then
we should be willing to ''recieve them
at rates lower than our regular rates
in return for concessions which we
hope to be able to secure from her in
respect to textile goods, iron and steel,
machinery and other lines OF mer.
chandise which we can now send over
the border at a good profit"
The justification for this obvious
change of front in the citadel of high
protection is this: ''Events supplant
theories. Facts present themselves:
we have got to face them, and the sit.
uation today is such as to demand a
freer trade with Canada if this nation
is not to stand in the light of its owu
commercial progress and advance
ment." Which means, evidently, d
grert deal more than the words imply.
"Freer trade" is not phrase of pro-
tectioniem.
The significance of this Philadelphia
announcement does not end with the
manufacturers desire for tariff conces-
sions from Canada. Notice the COM
pensation offered the Dominion. The
manufacturers will caeerfully accord
low tariff on wood and lumber, agri-
cultural products, fish. Their eDlarg-
ed views of trade comprise that the
American lumberman, fisher and
farmer shall forego their benefit from
protection. The manufacturer will
sacrifice all his wife's relations on the
altar of his country. He will bear
with heroic fortitude the corns on the
farmers toe.
But what will the sacrificed lambs
say when they are consulted? The
farmer might say that the manufact-
urers may go to pot with their tariff;
that it has never benefited him any
how, and that while he has ostenta-
tiOusly been given a high tariff on
wheat, the boon is hollow delusion
because the price of his wheat is the
export price, regardless OF import
duties. Some of the farmers may say
this, but The farmers along our north
ern border, who are brought into di-
rect competition with Canadian hay
fruit, potatoes and grain, will not.
Neither will the lumber kings of the
northwest, who have influence at
Washington and know how to use it.
But this is not the real significance
of the Philadelphia pronunciamento.
The main thing is that powerful bull
wark of high protection, perhaps the
most powerful of all, has crumbled
utterly away. When the gospel of
"freer trade" is preached by makers of
textile goods, iron and steel, ma
chinery and other lines of merchan-
disc which we can now send over the |
border at good profit" who is left to |
sustain the cause of "the home mar !
ket?" When our pleading infant in
dustries have taken on such size and
arrived at such maturity as to make
them no longer susceptible of benefits
from high duties, but clamorous for
ower duties on other products, how
shall the divided house of protectedin,
lustry stand? What patience will the
people have with our tariff regime.
when it descends to a fight between
flashing interests, each of which
wants 'freer trade" for the others?
every industry that outgrows the need
# protection becomes the inevitable
hampton of lower duties. Their num-
'er is growing year by year, and the
minority still demanding protection
7ill be chided for seeking to tax the
7hole people for their own selfish
nds."