The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1901-12-31
A CUBAN EOUNTY.

TIME Cuban tariff issue increases in interest and
! shapes not foreseen in the beginning.
Since General Wood discovered our obga-
ton to make the Cubans permanently prosperous,
the arguments put forth by the junta have been en-
trely worthy of that h;ghly>remarkable premise.
In the symmetrical development Of this country
our policy has been to make production and manu-
facture go hand in hand. When we were part of the
British colonial system the policy of the mother
country prevented the planting of manufactures here
She wanted to do all of manufacturing and COM
pei us to be agricultural and pastoral people. In
retrospect it is remarkable that the fighting men in
population of three millions with no manufactures
powder mills, and without the means to even make
gun fints, should have achieved independence in
contest with maturcd manufacturing country like
England. But they did and took to heart the memory
OF their struggles by beginning at once to protect the
foundation of manufactures.
This policy founded in the patriotic memories of
the Revolution has been applied to one industry after
another, until we have development of manufactur-
ing power and skill excelling that of any other ma
ton. But while this growth has been taking place
our rural industries have begun to suffer Grain has
been our great staple crop in the North and cotton
in the South The farmers need greater variety of
crops to get the return from their land deserved by
their labor. They have claims upon the policy and
the party of protection that cannot be safely ignored
They not deceived They know that real pros
perity must be general, not limited and partial They
have the golden stream that flows from the
planting here of manufacturing industries by
protecting them They have seen tin and plate
glass; buttons silk and other varieties of manufacture
added to our American list and made to prosper by
protection. They have seen these give work at high
wages to tens of thousands of men, and produce
wealth for the capitalists who embarked in them They
interests hOh1v ,,o+o,
full lest Congress lift the protecting hand of the gov
eminent and expose them to foreign competition
From all this the farmers have learned lesson
If wealth come from variety of manufactures it
must also from a variety of crops If it is not
well for country to carry all its manufacturing eggs
in basket, the same rule must apply to its agri-
culture In order diversity agriculture there must
be protection. The only Investigation possible has
been found to be in the production of sugar tobacco
and rice. The latter is confined to narrower borders
than the other two. Beet sugar and tobacco may
cover an extensive and occupy millions of
acres OF land now used in adding to the grain sur
plus which keeps down the price and reduces the
profits of farming.
The farmers have tasted the sweets of diversified
agriculture osered by protection, and they have felt
the benefit of the dused prosperity that has result
ed. They are now asked to surrender this general
and increasing prosperity in order that few score
sugar planters in Cuba may be suddenly and greatly
enriched The many are asked to give up their gen
eral gains in order that the few may gain unduy. 1t
is cold-booded proposition of the junta and its
organs 1t is accompanied by the threat that unless
we destroy three of Our important agricultural
industries Cuba will annex herself to us and as
parasitic addition to body polite destroy them
in spite of us
The people will have something to say about flu
=. Ill II
alarm American farmers That it has somewhat dis
quoted capital is in the proposition that instead
Of admitting Cuban sugar free we pay to the planters
a bounty out of the treasury!
The proposition is remarkable incident in the
whole remarkable situation 1t is so rankIy and OBJ
viousy unconstitutional that there is no danger of its
adoption, but that it is made all is evidence of the
widespread and increasing anxiety caused by the
operations of the junta
Let us Shift the point of attack to another part of
our protected system and how it looks Suppose
some benevolent person, anxious to insure the pros
perity of aliens, should propose that we close orr
American tin, plate glass and silk mills by giving
free admission to Welsh tin, and French plate glass
and silk! Would such proposition find any advo-
cate in Congress outside the small company of free
traders? And suppose again that as an alternative
it should be proposed to pay the Welsh tin makers
and the French manufacturers of plate GLASS and
silks a bounty out OF Our treasury would it be toll
Grated for moment? This country was DOING ver
well before the Spanish war changed the stairs Il
Cuba, and it will continue to do-well after Cuba bos
received the independence we promised and General
Wood is recalled from the palace of a Governor Cen
eral to the quarters of soldier
The American people do not take their economic
policy from generals in the army and it is well that
this be understood now in order that the exar,a1s
may not spread