The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-05-07

bein' truant. Gee, Guess I'll go te
ing American consumers upon their re-
lease from the burden of sugar tariff.
and President Mckinley owned up when
he ordered the tariff taken from the
necessities of life in Cuba and Porto
Rico-that the foreigner does not pay
this imDost taX-that the consumer
pays it, or pays it's equivalent to the
manufacturer.
And when these fast developing trusts
were claiming governmental aid that
they might have the American con-
sumner all to themselves, they were
then, at that very time, packing and
shipping their wares, transferring
them from car to steamer and from
steamer to a foreign dock, paying trib-
ute to foreign protectionists, placing
their goods on foreign markets right in
sight of pauper labor competition, and
underselling the foreign manufacturer
in his own home. These embryonic
trusts were making a profit over and
above all this expense of transporta-
ton and foreign duties, and sellir-
their goods to foreign consumers for
almost half of what they charged the
people here at home. And the Salt
Lake Tribune aided and abetted in the
preparation of this wrong.
1t told us that competition between
home concerns would keep prices down
to he.American consumer. The forma-
Of
ton as completely as tariff protection
does. Our neighbor cannot dispute this
fact. Nor may it claim in seriousness
that new concerns will be started as
often as prices are raised by the trusts.
Experience teaches that new factories
erected for trust-fghting purposes are
of few days and full of trouble. Prices
are cut by the big combine, railroads
are subsidized or chartered, and the
small competitor is forced to surren-
der
Nor is it a matter of three or four
years past, as our neighbor intimates,
that home manufacturers have been
able to compete with foreign goods. AS
the secretary of state said last June, in
his explanation of request for $4,000
to send a commercial commission to
China, for a number Of years the United
States has held a place in the front
rank of producers and her manu-
facturers have long been able to enter
any market and control it, but were de-
TERED from doing so because of the fine
picking the protective system gave
-f&t tab thnxy
loath to part, and which they were
enabled to retain mainly by concealing
their operations abroad and their abil-
lty TO cope with the so-called pauper
labor of Europe. The secretary said:
The export trade of the United States is
undergoing transformation which prom
ises to profoundly influence the whole
economic future of the country. As Is
well known. the United States has reach
ed the foremost rank among the in
dustriai nations. For number of years
its position the greatest producer of
manufactures as well as of raw products
has been undisputed. but. absorbed with
its own internal development. and salts
fed. for the time being. with the enor-
nous home market of 1O.O00.O0C people, 1t
has until recently devoted but little con-
certed effort to the safe of its manu-
features outside of its own borders. Re-
Gently. however the fact has become
of the United States manufacturers has
developed by the remarkable inventive
genius and industrial skill of our people
with a rapidity which has excited atten-
ton throughout the great centers of
manufacturing activity in Europe. and
has reached the point of large excess
above the demands of home consump-
ton.
The old Mckinley cry of American
consumers for American goods" has
been hushed. The home market theory
is evidently abandoned, since the secre-
taryi comedies that we are quite able
to compete with any other nation in the
markets of the world. AS a matter of
course. this is no more true than it has
been for years past. But Republican
leaders have seen that their tariff !
scheme has failed to bring relief to the |
country. and they are now wildly seek |
ing relief by the new theory of colo |
NAL system and a movement toward
free trade, which once they referred to
as reciprocity" but designate of late !
as the open door"
Most up-to-date Republicans ac-
knowledge that their party is drifting |
away from its old moorings. They !!
realize that their plan of making the |
markets of the country sufficient for the J
national production, has brought about |
many evils. 1t has hung like a weight /
upon the productive energies of the |
and has diminished consump-
ton by decreasing opportunities. In |
the new policy they see a reawakening |
Of the dormant energies of the country, !
A general forward movement, indus
trially. politically and commercially,
and are willing under changed condi-
tons to change also some of their po-
itical convictions and their theories of
political economy.
For this reason it will not be possible
10 make the tariff an issue again. As
rapidly as Republicans are coming
around to sense Of the true inward