The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1902-10-09

manency under the same shelter. And
we have precisely the same complaint
now in respect of the Dingley tariff as
we had then in respect of the Mckinley
tariff-high commodity prices and pro-
fits of particular industrial class.
made possible by high protective duties
The grievance is essentially the same
today as dozen years ago.
Whether the political outcome is to
be the same at the November elections
is another question. Whether it is de-
sirable, from the standpoint of bringing
to pass an intelligent popular under
standing of the tariff and its relation to
ndustry-whether it is desirable from
this standpoint that the outcome should
be the same, is decidedly to be question
ed. The protected interests can much
better afford to lose these elections than
tariff reformers to gain them We all
know that the victories won by the lat
ter in 1890 and 1892 were worse than a
dozen defeats for that particular cause;
and what is true of those victories is
true of nearly every previous gain of
the kind in the past half century, and
for the same reasons, which are obvious
and more pertinent today than ever be-
fore.
Owing to the vital connection of the
tariff with the public revenue, and of
the latter with the money market and
speculation and business, it comes to
pass that only in times of great prosper
ity and speculative initiation does the
tariff appear not only superfuous TO
degree but also disturbing TO the money
market, as well as q shelter to the pro-
tected interests in exacting the highest
obtainable prices. Hence invariably
we have an agitation for tariff reduction
reaching up to the point of becoming
practically effective just as speculative
boom begins TO eliminate So we have
in due order, decade by decade a tariff
revision followed by speculative col
lapse which was in order in any event,
but which has so often been closely
associated with tariff reduction as pro-
foundly to impress the public mind with
being a case of cause and effect.
This was the experience of 1867,
when "a tariff reduction to relieve an
OVERLOOKING public treasury was closely
followed by a panic 1t was so 30 yea. $
ago, when horizontal tariff reduction
of about 10 per cent in 1872 (made by
the friends of the tariff was followed
by the panic of 1S73-though nobody
seems to remember that a restoration of
the tariff in 1875 had no effect whatever
in restoring confidence and reviving in
dustry. The little patter of revision in
1888 was followed by q panic in 1884,
and 10 years later we saw what every
body now recalls.
THE experience of 90 years shows the
Importance to tariff reform of timing it
more happily than has heretofore been
the case, No one of any study or OBJ
servation, we suppose, connects the pan
les of 1873 or 1884 with the tariff reduc-
tons of 1872 and 1888 and only extreme
partisans of the tariff venture to relate
the panics of 1857 and 1893 to the tariff
reduction of the former year and the
promise OF reduction of the latter year
But so many close associations of two
particular developments impress great
many people, or render them easily sub
ject to the plausible representations of
the high tariff orator and it is desirable
for the sake of straight popular think
ing on the subject, that the number of
these condolences be not added to.
! The current highly inflated state of