The Saint Paul globe., 1899-04-21


Every sign of the political field indi-
Gates that the Republican party is try
ing to unload its policy of protection.
The Dingley act, that was proclaimed as
a revenue producer which, as soon as
the anticipatory glut of imports made
to avoid its increase of duties was con-
sumed, would increase revenue income
S1c0, ,0OO, 900 over that produced by the Will
son-Gorman act, has proved a dismal
failure. The deficits, that caused such
shivers among Republicans prior to 1896,
continue The excess of expenditures
over receipts for the eight months Of
the current fiscal year is $99, ,629, 81. Gus
toms yielded $150,07S 75S for the last fiscal
year, So 000O,0 900 less than the Wilson-Gor-
man act yielded in its last year. The re-.
ceipts for eight months Of the current
year give $3.50. 900, 900, with four months in
which to bring the total for the year up
10 the prediction of the author of the
measure. And the Fifty-fifth congress
broke all records and raised Tom Reeds
classification of this country as "a bill
hon-dollar country to a billion and a
half
The administration Is busy with the ne
gotiation of reciprocity treaties reducing,
within the limits of the Dingley act, the
duties laid on imports, and we have seen
it baffied by the lumbermen in it's efforts
to negotiate a treaty with England that
would lower the trade barriers between
us and Canada. On the other hand, we
find leading Republican papers frantically
demanding free trade in all articles made
monopoly by the trusts ostensibly as a
means of curbing their rapacity, but
really as cover for the retreat of the
party from position that has become in
defensible 1t is not alone the fact that
protection is killing revenue while ap-
proprations are expanding that is caus-
ing this revusion in the Republican
party, for with their territorial expansion
has come its inevitable sequence, COM
mercial expansion, and our manufac-
turers are finding the tariff on their raw
material serious handicap in their COM
petition for the foreign markets.
Most noteworthy as indicating the de-
velopment of this sentiment, we find the
Manufacturer, the organ of the National
Association of Manufacturers of Phila-
dephia, sending forth this strange note
from that quarter:
The old protectionist, with the stock ar
aDT1tC sah NeF1.
wages and all the rest of it. is beginning
to die out. He told US all he had to saw
about the pauper labor of Europe bv
which he often meant the best educated
and most skillful artisans of the world
We got tired of hearing about how the
Importer paid the tax. A season of high
prices was real heaven. To say that an
article was cheap was to say that the
political party in power was unworthy
OF pubhc confidence. 1t was re-
lated that each government could make
the world could be disregarded
Seriously. who believes this stuff now
Rdays? The protectionist is not reckoning
with such popular impotency and stupid
ity. He is not sure that a protec-
tive tariff in and of itself will increase
the wages OF the workmen. He is
certain that "a cheap coat does nto
necessarily make "a cheap man." but the
cheaper the coat the better 1t will be for
the wearer.
And this from the organ of club to
which, two years ago. President McKin-
ley preached the doctrine of protection,
and predicted the prosperity that was to
follow the enactment of the Dingley bill
as its sequence.
There is that in this matter which
should set Democrats to thinking about
something else than the squabbles of
leaders There is in it the message of
golden opportunity for them; for a re-
newal of the struggle on which they won
their only presidential victories in forty
years; for reunion on lines whose De-
mocracy none can doubt or deny; for a
reoccupation of ground traditionally ours
before Republicanism can jump our claim
to it; for contest for mastery with the
trusts with the only logical and effective
weapon. a worldwide competition. and