The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-04-12
PLAIN AND PERTINENT TRUTHS.

PLAIN AND PERTINENT TRUTHS.
The speech Of General Grosvenor in the
House on Thursday, judging from the alb
stract. contained great deal Of timely
information regarding tariffs, protection
and reciprocity. His views or protection
are those of the men who received their
elementary instruction from Henry Clay
Wings. Protection is a principle, and not a
particular tariff law; yet few men in and
out of Congress and some newspapers hold
to an altogether new theory that the pres
ent tariff law is in some way infallible
and that any cutting of the schedules of the
Dingley tariff is to betray protection. Not
long ago the Washington correspondent
OF the St. Louis Globe-Democrat alluded
TO the Republicans who were opposing
! the sugar concession TO Cuba as 'the Re
publican protectionists in the House." thus
forcing the inference that all but thirty or
forty Republicans in that body are not pro-
tectjonists, and that the late President
Mckinley, if he were alive, would have had
his loyalty TO protection under the sus-
/ picion of the publishers of certain ultra
protection organs. Months ago, when Mr..
! Babcock presented a bill 10 modify the
duties on steel, the ultra protectionists
/ threatened to have him kept off the COM
mittee on ways and means and to have him
set aside i'm some way as a backsIding Re
/ publican. That such men do not control
/ the Republicans in the House to-day is
| proved by the unanimous selection of Mr..
/ Babcock to continue as chairman of the
Republican congressional committee. Gen
| eral Grosvenor is right, therefore, when he
says the entire tariff must be revised at
an early day to make it conform to the
] changed conditions.
What General Grosvenor said about the
\ sugar tariff is pleasing to the Journal be-
cause it is what this paper has been say
/ ing ever since this matter of tariff conces-
sion on sugar has been under discussion
namely that the duty on sugar is alb
normally high, and that an industry which
cannot live with the protection of an ad
valorem duty of 80 or IS per cent. had
better be abandoned. General Grosvenor
boldly told his party friends in the House
that if the beet-sugar interest cannot thrive
behind protection hess than s1.4O a hun
| dred pounds it had better be abandoned.
If a reasonable expectation cannot be given
that this tax on sugar can be reduced in
the course of a few years, what General
Grosvenor says is correct. The duty on
sugar is a tax, and the one great tax upon
the consumers that the tariff imposes. The
millions will not submit to paying a tax
of $40 per hundred pounds on sugar sim
ply to keep alive an industry in which
/ even one or two hundred thousand people
are interested
/ Another point of interest which General
| Grosvenor made in his speech was that,
with the present 20 per cent. reduction in
the sugar duty for Cuba, the duty will yet
be higher by per cent. than it was in
the sugar schedule which Mr.. Dingey pre-
scented to the ways and means committee.
What influence led to the increase of the
/ duty does not appear, but it could have
! been made on the ground that it was the
surest way to get the revenue which the
government was so much in need of at that
time. So long as high duty is needed
on sugar to obtain revenue it can be de-
Tended, as it is the greatest revenue pro-
Queer we have, but a perpetual tax al
most doubling its price cannot be de-
Tended on that ground. So long even
20 per cent. of our sugar shall be imported
the consumer will pay the duty added tc
the outside world price as a tax.
The idea of a tariff duty as put forth by
the Oxnard organs is not TO reduce the
highest duty. as it will be the entering
wedge to free trade. Fortunately the true
policy of protection was set forth before
Mr.. Oxnard was born. and its true disciples
have held TO the faith as delivered once by
Jackson and Clay, and in later years by
Abraham Lincoln. the late Senator Nor.
rll of Vermont, Blaine Harrison and Me
Kinley 1t is well that General Grosvenoi
made such a speech, if the Tawneys anC
the Taylers will heed its wisdom.