Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1904-01-03
PHOENIX. ARIZONA, JAN 3, 1870
What Protection Has Done.

Intelligent estimates in transporta-
tion circles place the number Of cars
necessary to move the present crop
Of California oranges forward 20 mar
AUTOMATICALLY those in the east
AT about thirty thousand. The. cost
of transporting this fruit from where
il grows and is plentiful and cheap to
where It doesn't grow, and can't be
made to grow. and is therefore scarce
and dear, is set at fully S9,O3o,OOO. me
crop this year viii yield over $4,000
600, the great bulk of which is collected
bv the retail fruit dealers from the
consumers, in sums ranging from
nickel to a quarter" Thus the rail-
road companies get about one-iourth
of the cash that this great California
orange crop yields annually, the freight
charges on it being considerably higher
than they would he did not most Of
these specially constructed fruit cars
return t. the west coast empty. The
east produces nothing that the Cll!for-
mans need and that requires to be
shipped in that sort Of cars.
Fifty years ago" says the Boston
Journal. commenting On this compar-
atively new condition in the citrus
fruit trade IF anybody had predicted
that the sub-tyopical fruits of the
United States would ever be of such
fabulous va:ue, he would have been
pronounced insane. Under the Ameri-
vii of
agriculture as we'll as of manufacture
have been narvelousiy developed
Yes. Indeed the same thing would
have happened had anybody in 1850
ventured to say that in 1903 the bread
of the people of New England would
come chiefly from wheat and corn rails
ed in Kansas, the DakOtas, Nebraska.
and the vast trans Rockies region: or
that their beef steaks and pork chops
would be hauled 10 them thousands of
miles from the great grazing lands of
the far west and the southwest and be
landed at their doors at prices that
would discourage the Yankee cattle
breeders from continuing in the bust
ness.
The fact is that the protective sys-
tenn has bred an fostered conditions
that have yielded the means neces-
sary for the construction of a most
marvellous transportation system here
in the United States; and that, in
turn. has been a chief factor in our
phenomenal agricultural development
during the last half century.
In view of all this there is little to
be wondered at in the fact that the
most conservative and far-sighted of
our lawmakers at Washington depre-
cate any movement that locks to a
general revision of existing tariff
rates. They insist on speaking we'll of
the bridge that has brought us safely
over" from a position of dependence
and weakness tc one of independence
and power.
"Reformers" may rail as they will
at the comparatively few inequalities
in our present tariff system. This is
not a time to tear down the wall and
essay to build it up anew. II is the
time of all times to stand pat" When
the people of one vast section of the
United States can afford to have the
fruits of another section hauled to
them over thousands of miles of terri
tory and to pay the SS6,OOO 900 year
involved in the growing, the hauling
and the profits, there Is nothing in
particular the matter with the couu-
try, any way