The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1913-04-15
SQUARE DEAL WITH
FACTS As THEY ARE"
(From Saturday Advertiser)

"Square with the facts as they are.''
This is what President Wilson asks Con-
gress to do in considering the new tariff
bill. The declaration is contained In
his message to the national lawmakers
of the sixty.third session, assembled in
extraordinary session April s. The mes
sage reached Honolulu yesterday.
Though the President announces that
he stands squarely for tariff reform,
friends Of sugar in Honolulu, who have
read the statement, believe there is
nothing in it which precludes the pos.
sibility of an agreement on the sugar
tariff which will yet save the principal
industry Of this Territory. Following
is the message in full:
Presidents Message.
To the Senate and House of Repre-
'sentatives: / have called the Congress
together in extraordinary session be-
cause duty was laid upon the party
now in power ~ the recent elections
which it ought to perform promptly,
in order that the burden carried by the
people under existing law may be light
ened as soon as possible and in order,
also, that the business interests Of the
country may not be kept too long in
suspense as to what the fiscal changes
are to be which they win be required
to adjust themselves. 1t is clear to
the whole country that the tariff duties
must be altered. They must be, changed
to meet the radical alteration in the
conditions of our economic life which
the country has witnessed within the
last generation. While the whole face
and method Of our Industrial and com
mercial life were being changed beyond
recognition the tariff schedules have re.
NAMED what they were before the
change began, or have moved in the
direction they were given when no
large circumstance OF our industrial de-
velopment was what it is today. Our
task is to square them with the actual
facts. The sooner that is done the soon.
er we shall escape from suffering from
the facts and tho sooner our men of
business will be free to thrive by the
law of nature (the nature of free bust
ness) instead of by the law Of legis-
lation and artificial arrangement.
Tariff Legislation.
We have seen tariff legislation wan
der very far afeld in our day--very
far indeed from the field in which our
prosperity might have had a normal
growth and stimulation. No one who
looks the facts squarely in the face or
knows anything that lies beneath the
surface Of action can fail to perceive
the principles upon which recent tariff
legisla ton has been based. We long
ago passed beyond the modest notion of
"protecting the industries of the
country and moved boldly forward to
the idea that they were entitled to the
direct patronage of the Government.
For long time-a time, so long that
the men now active in public policy
hardly remember the conditions that
preceded tive have sought in our
tariff schedules to give each group of
manufacturers or producers what they
themselves thought that they needed in
order to maintain practically exclu-
sive market as against the rest of the
world. Consciously or unconsciously,
we have built up set of privileges
and exemptions from competition he
hind which it was easy by any, even
the crudest, forms of combination to
organize monopoly; until at last nothing
is normal, nothing is obi ed to stand
the tests of efficiency and economy, in
our world of big business, but every
thing thrives by coneerted arrangement.
Only new principles of action will save
us from final hard capitalization of
monopoly and a complete loss of the
influences that quicken enterprise and
keep independent energy alive. .I
1t is plain what those principles must
be. We must abolish everything that
/ L.. A L. - &.
or of any kind of artificial advantage
and put our business men and produc.
ers under the stimulation of constant
nece ssity to be efficient, economical
and enterprising, masters of competi
tive. supremacy, better workers and
merchants than any in the world. Aside
from the duties laid upon articles which
we do not, and probably can not, pro
duce, therefore, and the duties laid
upon luxruries aud merely for the sake
Of the revenues they yield, the obieci
of the tariff duties henceforth lait
must be effective competition, the whet
ting of American wits by contest witt
the wits of the rest of the world.
| Advises Careful Confederation.
IT would be unwise to move toward
this end headlong. with reckless haste
or with strokes that cut at the yer,
roots of what has grown up amongs
us by long process and at our own. in
vitation. 1t does not alter a thing t
upset it and break 1t and deprive j
of chance to change. 1t destroys il
We must make changes in our fsca
laws, in our fiscal system, whose objec
is development, more free and whole
some development, not revolution %
upset or confusion. We must build u
trade, especially foreign trade.y W
need the outlet and the enlarged feel
of energy more than we ever did ibt
fore. We must build up industry a
; well, and must adopt freedom, in th
place of artificial stimulation only 5
far as it will build, not pull down. l
! dealing with tho tariff the method b
! which this may be done win he ma
ter of Judgment, exercised item b