Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1901-01-19
IT is UNPARALLELED,
WAVE OF PROSPERITY STILL
ROLLING IN.
The DfnEIey Tariff Bill Has Brought
Good Times to Nearly Everybody-
The Tremendous Balance of Trade
In Our Favor.

The third full year of the Dingley
tariff finds the total volume of our
foreign commerce far beyond the two
billion-dollar mark, with exports of
more than 81, 500, 900 900, or about
5000, DOC, 900 mEre than for 1899, and an
apparent trade balance of about $780,
100000 in our favor. Here is a ire
mendous increase over all previous
records Of trade and commerce. Inn
ports have increased, too, though not
in the same proportion, and We have
been more liberal buyers than ever be-
fore of foreign commodities True,
these commodities are largely non-du-
table and non-competitive articles re-
Quired for use in American manufac-
lures; and with the exception of
few Injuries or fads we are buying
less of foreign goods that are as we'll
or better made at home. Commenting
on these remarkable conditions the
Chicago Inter Ocean says:
I'm the light of these facts and
figures and the events of the last eight
years, it would be interesting to learn
what the wise men of the Cleveland
period really think of their system OF
political economy To paraphrase a
celebrated free trade epigram, they are
confronted with conditions, not the
cries. Professor Simmer and his
school would have told us, say twelve
years ago, or even six years ago, that
the Protective policy of the Republican
party would, within a decade, close
the markets of the world against our
products and manufactures, paralyze
our industries and pauperize our work
ingmen. They not only would have
told US SO, but they did tell us SO, and,
what is even more to the point, they
proved to the satisfaction Of millions
of our people that they were right.
Yet the prosperity which these aca-
denies promised would come under a
reversal of the protective policy did
not materialize; on the contrary, some
of the cruelest years of the republic fol-
lowed the practical application of their
theories by Mr.. Cleveland. And now,
in spite of the "stone WALL the Re
publican party erected around the
country; in spite of the tbarbarous
methods in economic reasoning" en-
ployed by the Republican party; in
spite of 1.-The perversion of the natural
laws of trade" by the Republican
party; in spite of the refusal of the ma
ton to be guided by the learned doc
trinaires of the great universities,
cur exports to foreign countries this
year bid fair to reach the amazing to-
tai of 1.5OO, 0O0, 900, or $500, 000,O 900 in
excess of our imports"
Add to this enormous bulk of for
eign trade, by many hundreds of mil
lions greater than any the country
ever knew under free trade or low
tariff policies, the stupendous increase
that has taken place in purely do
nestle trade between 10000, 900 of the
best paid and most liberal buying peo-
pie on the face of the earth-an in
crease that must be measured by bill
lions of dollars-and you have an ag-
gregate of prosperity so huge that to
compute it takes ones breath away
1t makes the academicians look ex-
tremely silly 1t ought to make them
keep still. But it doesn't. There are
lots of them left yet who will tell you
that a protective tariff is a clog upon
domestic trade and foreign commerce.
Queer people, these academiciansi