Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1906-09-13
ONLY PLAIN SENSE.
TO INSURE COMMERCIAL PEACE
BE PREPARED FOR WAR.
~ Europe Marks Up Its Tariffs
Against American Exports, Then
We Should Be Ready to Play the
Same Game

We Should Be Ready to Play the
Same Game.
'"The favorite device of the stand
patters to construct a maximum and
minimum tariff, taking the present
rates as the minimum, would only
complicate the situation further. That
is to say, any such device, instead OF
giving us a basis on which to make
bargains with foreign powers, would
be generally accepted as declaration
OF tariff warfare and there would be
prompt and all but unanimous effort
made by the nations of continental
Europe to place prohibitor. rates on
the imports Of all our finished prod
ucts."-New York Journal of Com
merce
But that is precisely what other gov
ernments have done. Germany has
marked up her tariffs enormously so
as to mark them back again to the
former rates-and not in all cases as
low as the former rates-when we
shall have been bulldoZed into mark
ing down our level and unvarying
many's competitive exports.
Spain has lately gone into the mark
ing up business with the same end in
view. On the basis of her marked up
rates Spain now proposes to make con-
cessions, and it is understood that
somebody in Washington-the Third
House," it is sometimes called--i5
silly enough to nibble at the bait and
to seriously contemplate a limited
reciprocity deal with Spain under sec
tion 3 of the Dingley law.
Peanut dickers cf this sort do not
have to run the gauntlet of the Senate.
They can be put in force by proclama-
tion merely.
1t is proposed, in return for Spain
splendid generosity in giving to GER
tain American exports of the non-com-
petitive sort the benefit of the tariff
which prevailed prior to the marking
up, thimblerig game, to reduce our
tariff rates on Spanish exports of
argols, paintings, statutary, brandies,
champagnes, vermuth and still wines.
Thus we shall consent to be forced
into giving an easier right oil way into
our market to at least one product
that will prove seriously competitive.
Next to France, Spain is the largest
producer of still wines, and she pro-
duces these so much cheaper than
France that she is able to export large
quantities to that country.
Still wine production IS an impor
tant and a growing industry in the
United States. 1t is one of the leading
industries of the Pacific coast, while
In some of the eastern states it brings
into operation million or more acres
of land, and employs some thousands
of wage earners and several millions
of capital.
By so much as we increase by lower
duties our purchase of Spain's cheap
wines we shall decrease the market
for American still wines and inflict
injury upon American agriculture,
American labor and American capital.
Such discrimination against an i'm
portant home industry would be open
to adverse criticism even if adequate
compensation were given and the deal
was a square deal; but to sell out the
grape growers and wine makers of a
dozen states for SO paltry a conside-a-
ton as the marking down of tariff
schedules previously marked up for
the express purpose cf being marked
down places this country in the pitiful
attitude of the little boy forced by
fear of the big bully to swap jack
knives 'unsight and unseen"
If we are going to be bulldozed by
foreigners into lowering our tariff
schedules, let use a least have some
thing to bulldoze back with. Let us
follow the European fashion and be
prepared to do some marking up on
our own account. The McCleary bill
provides for this. is better on all
accounts to hold to the level and i'm
partial tariff that we now have-a
tariff that treats Ill products of all
nations excepting Cuba) precisely
alike--but if foreign nations insist
upon tariff cat fights, then the Amer
ican cat should not be without claws.