Norwich bulletin., 1913-04-09

. country has witnessed within the last l geIeSation. While the whole face and method of our industrial and cOmmer- cial life were being changed beyond
 recognition the tariff schedules have remained what they were before the | change began, or have moved in the 1 direction they were given when nc 1 large circumstances of our industrial l development was what it is o-day ] Our task is to square them with the 1 actual facts. The sooner that is done i the sooner we shall escape from suffer i ing from the facts and the sooner our men of business will be free to thrive 1 by the law of nature (the nature or l free buSineSs) instead of by the law 1 of legislation and artificial arrange ment.
 | We have seen tariff legislation wan I der very far afieId in our day 1 very far indeed from the field in which our prosperity might have had a nor l mai growth and stimulation No one who looks the facts SQuarely in the face or knows anything that lies be- meath the surface of action can fail to perceive the principles upon which re- cent tariff legislation has been based We long ago passed beyond the mod
 est notion of protecting the indus
 tries of the country and moved boldly
 forward to the idea that they were
 entitled to the direct patronage of the
 Government For a long time-a
 time so long that the men now active
 
 conditions that preceded tive have
 sought in our tariff schedules to give
 each group of manufacturers or pro-
 ducers what they themselves thought
 that they needed in order to maintain
 a practically exclusive market
 against the rest of the world. Con- sciousIy or unconsciousIy, we have
 built up a set of privileges and exemp- tions from competition behind which it was easy by any, even the crudest, of hi ina m monopoly: until at last nothing is normal nothing is obliged to stand the tests of efficiency and economy, in our world of big business, but everything thrives by concerted arrangement Only new principles of action will save us from final hard specialization of monopoly and a complete loss of the influences that quicken enterprise and keep independent energy alive.
 It is plain what those principles must be. We must abolish everything that bears even the semblance of priv ilege or of any kind of artificial ad- vantage. and put our business men and producers under the stimulation of a necessity to be efficient. eco and enterprising, masters of competitive supremacy, better workers | and merchants than any in the world. ] Aside from the duties laid upon arti- | cles which we do not, and probably 1 can not, produce. therefore, and the 1 duties laid upon 1uxuries and merely | for the sake of the revenues they yield, l the object of the tariff duties hence 1 forth laid must be effective competi- 1 ion, the whetting of American wits 0y contest with the wits of the rest )f the world.
 It would be unWise to move toward his end headlong, with reckless haste, )r with strokes that cut at the very cots of what has grown up amongst IS by long process and at our own invitation. It does not alter a. thing 0 upset it and break it and deprive it ,f a chance to change. It destroys it. We must make changes in our fiscal avs in our fiscal system. whose ob- ect is development, a more free and wholesome development, not revolution ,r upset or confusion. We must build ID trade, especially foreign trade. We need the outlet and the enlarged i ie1d of energy more than we ever did before. We must build up industry $ well. and must adopt freedom in the ,lace of artificial stimulation: only so