Bisbee daily review., 1905-10-29
TARIFF RETALIATION
Foreign Countries Establish
 Prohibitive Rates.
wHATwILL CONGRESS DO ABOUT IT

Win Republican Majority LegiSIate In the Interest of Trusts or People [ Our Surplus Farm Products Win Find Many Markets Closed to Them ] Through Our Present Tarin system. The urgent need of action by con | gress on the tariff will at once be seen when it is considered that the foreign
 market for our surplus agricultural l products is at stake. Germany and ! other European countries have imposed 1 tarin to prohibit as far as possible American products being imported there in retaliation for our tariff, which | excludes most Of the products of those countries. The new German tariff will
 take effect in March. 1906. and the rates have without exception been in- creased on every line of exports from
 this country. On corn the German tar if has been Increased to 40 cents 6 J bushel and other cereals and provi-
 sIons in proportion. These prohlhtive
 rates will greatly reduce the market for the surplus of our agricultural products, and when our crops are good and this country has large surplus to
 dispose of it will certainly affect the
 home price of these products.
 The United States, like all countries
 that have surplus of any product to
 sell, has to seek a foreign market for
 1t and sell it in competition with the
 surplus of other countries, and the
 price for such surplus product in those
 foreign markets fixes the price for the
 whole of the product at home We
 have been exceedingly fortunate for
 the past one or two years in having
 fair crops when Europe had lean ones.
 and that gave us an opportunity to re-
 verse the usual order of things and de-
 mand a good price for our surplus.
 But that cannot be expected to con
 tinue, and when this year or next there
 are good crops the world over down will tumble the price to what the coun- tries like England which do not raise enough to supply their own people will pay. Then, being shut out from most of the European countries by their high or prohibitive tariff, 1t will leave us but those low tariff or free trade countries like England to sell our sur plus to, and the price they will pay us will be fixed there in competition with all the countries which have like us surplus to sell
 That will give England cheap food and allow her wOrkmen, as they havs in the past, to live better on less wage, in proportion than any other country. It must also result in the increased price of such agricultural products in Germany. and if long continued the | wages of her workmen must be raised l to meet the advanced cost of food.
 Who will first call a halt in this l economic war is a question. Our pro tected industries are protesting that | the present tariff rates are none too | high. They of course do not want ei- | ther German products or those of any l other country to come in and compete l with them The higher the cost of liv- l ing here the more profit for those who ! nave a monopoly, as the trusts have, | of supplying our people. The farmer, | the workingman and the middle class | generally must in the meantime see the | cost of living advance without a similar | increase in the money they earn to pay it.
 The reciprocity treaties, or the maxi mum or minimum tariff, that some Re publlcans are proposing will only help those industries which now find them selves likely to lose the chance to sell their surplus products to foreign coun- tries, and some of those must be con tent to see part of the profit they have been charging go to tbe reciprocity hopper so that others may benefit by the reduced tariff of the country with which the reciprocity treaty Is made. This reciprocity plan or the maximum and minimum system Is not intended to reduce prices, but to open a partial market abroad for our surplus manu- factures. The trusts will still charge all the consumers can pay, for they will still have a monopoly of the home market. Nor will these plans of tariff tinkering add much to the revenues Of the government.
 The only tariff reform that win re- auce the present high trust prices is to SO reduce the tariff rates on those trust products that they are selling cheaper abroad than here that our own peopls can buy at the same price as the for signers. It will be interesting to watch he Republican majority in the coming congress and notice if they favor tbe trusts or the people.