Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1903-04-16
HOW 1T WILL BE BROUGHT ABOUT
IF IT COMES AT ALL.

Neciprocity In Competitive Products
would Inevitably Lead to the
Downfall of the system of Protect
ing Labor and Industry.
In contending that reciprocity in
competitive products is the right policy
for the United States to adopt the Des
Moines Register and Leader, Repub-
lcan newspaper exhibits ''progres-
Biye" tendency far in advance OF the
general mass of Republican writers
and speakers. AT its present rate OF
progress" it will soon land squarely
in the free trade camp. 1t can land
nowhere else, for once the system of
protection begins to be abrogated in
spots through special trade arrange
ments whereunder foreigners are en-
couraged to undersell American prod
ucts in the American market protec-
ton as national and uniform policy
must cease to exist.
Reciprocity in competitive products is
the beginning of the end of protection.
That is why such reciprocity is OPP
posed by the American Protective Tar
if league. For the same reason the
best Republican thought of the country
opposes it. Outside of few special To-
calities which clamor for free trade i'll
the things they have to buy, but insist
upon protection for the things they
have to sell-outsde of Iowa and GER
tain parts of New England, where some
people foolishly imagine that they can
have free COAL free iron ore, free wool
free hides, ETC., while at the same time
retaining tariff protection Oh their fin
ished products-generally speaking, we
say, there is no sentiment among Re
publcans for reciprocity in competitive
products. If therefore the Tariff league
is in line with Republican thought on
this question, is it not doing a good
work for Republicanism and protec-
tionism in endeavoring to point out the
dangers and disadvantages of reciproc-
ity in competitive products? The Des
Moines Register and Leader, however
thinks otherwise:
"The Protective Tariff league and the
American Economist in their opposition
to Cuban reciprocity have done more to
weaken the hold which the protective
policy has upon the American people
and to give color to the suspicion,
which Democratic free traders are al
ways ingeniously encouraging, that
perhaps after all the policy is dictated
more by selfish interests than any other
two agencies that have been engaged in
the recent discussion. Reciprocity may
not prove to be all that James G. Blaine
pictured it, but reciprocity IS firmly
enough established in the confidence of
the friends of protection that the man
who opposes it is aiming the most effec-
tive blow at the whole American sys-
TEN that he is capable Of"
1t is easy to say that protection is a
policy dictated by selfish interests"
Free traders have said it many times.
In fact, it is about all they can say 1t
seems to be by some people considered
crime to stand hard and fast for an
economic system that invites the in
vestment of capital and insures the EN-.
ployment of labor. Altruists of the
Golden school of superior thought see
only selfishness in such system. The
Register and Leader appears to share
this view. 1t is concerned lest too much
zeal for the preservation of protection
as the American policy should work
the downfall of that policy. We think
the apprehension is unfounded. When
protection falls, it will fall through the
treachery of professed friends and not
through the fidelity of true friends.