Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-01-21

THE Democracy is divided on the issue Of
military preparedness.
Its most influential leader in private life,
the man who had and probably has the larg
est personal following of any individual
Democrat is opposed to any increase in
the army or navy and he is preparing to
fight any program looking toward strength
ening the military forces. His followers in
and out of Congress are ready to Join hands
with him.
But the warliite attack upon us to resist
which all far-seeng Americans are demand
ing that we be made ready. is distant. The
commercial crisis that will follow the end
ing of the war is so near that there is no
time TO be lost in getting ready to avert it If
disaster is to be avoided
The Democracy, however is practically
unit in opposition to the only course which
can protect American industries II finds
itself without sufficient revenue to run the
Government and it is planning to increase
the internal taxes and to levy new ones
which will burden business, instead of re-
sorting to the revision of its own tariff law.
a revision that could be made in such way
as both to raise revenue and protect industry.
The tariff is the most efficient instrument
for trade control that was ever devised If
use was imperatvely demanded that time
is here and now. The war has given to us
a period of unnatural prosperity The bal
ance of trade in our favor is unprecedentedly
large, but it is due to the demand for war
supplies. The excess Of exports of such ma
terials in the last fiscal year over the exports
in the year before was S7S5,OO00OO. But our
exports of ordinary articles, not used directly
i'm warfare. decreased 1896, 900, 900 in the same
period.
Europe has been put to it in order to get
money with which to pay for what it has
been buying. At the close of the war it will
exert itself to flood our markets with goods
in order to pay by barter for what it must
continue to buy. England and France will
seek also to get the trade, which Germany
had before the war, with South America and
Asia where we have been weakly trying to
enlarge our own sales. And Germany will
attempt to sell in the United States those
goods which the British and French will re-
fuse to buy.
Our own manufacturers will be confronted
by a foreign competition fercer than any
that has been known in the history of trade.
The Germans know how to compete. Their
iron manufacturers in order to enlarge their
markets have been in the habit of selling
in South America, the Orient and in Eng
land for from 1O3 20 10 marks iron for
which they charged 12O marks at home; and
in ordeE to get into the Italian markets they
have at times cut the price to 10 marks. They
have made the price low enough to sell their
goods and their Government has encouraged
them in this policy.
The same kind of efficiency that has en-
abled Germany to hold her own against the
great Powers OF Europe for eighteen months
will be applied to rehabilitating German
trade when the peace treaty is signed The
other Powers will be efficient in their peculiar
ways for the same purpose.
To ignore the evident warnings of the
present and declare that our tariff law must
not be changed because under normal coadi-
tions 1t would have raised sufficient revenue
is the height of folly. Conditions are not
normal. The law might have been the best
that the wit of man could have devised
when it passed and yet need revision
today. The conditions confronting us have
radically changed in eighteen months. We
are living in a different world. In the sum
mer of 1914 our great manufacturing compet-
itors were prosperous and engaged in the
peaceful extension of their commerce. Today
they are in need. When peace comes they
will be hungry while we have plenty. They
will begin to raid our markets at the earliest
possible moment after the fighting men have
left the trenches and returned TO the mills
and factories They will cut prices and under
sell one anoth-r and our own producers in
their g'aed to get trade. If the counsels of
the men now in power in Washington prevail
they win find that task comparatively easy.
Conditions demand the best skill of the
abest commercial statesmen. We must con-
tinue TO buy from Europe in order TO enable
Europe to pay for what she is to buy from
us. But our tariff | ws must be framed for
the purpose of protecting our producers from
ruinous competition and for the purpose of
opening favorable markets for our goods in
competing countries. The Underwood law
has not enlarged the market of a single
American producer The opportunity offered
tariff concessions from other countries in re-
turn was neglected. The avowed purpose of
the law was not TO help our producers but
10 increase their difficulties by making COM
petition with them at home easier for the
foreigner
The Democracy is proving more conclu-
sively every day that it is incapable OF deal
ing with the pressing commercial problems
confronting Its leaders are busy prepar-
ing TO defend their past actions instead of
drafting laws intended to ward off imminent
perils and are proving once more that the
task of governing the country is too big
for it, just as the duties of the State Depart
ment were beyond the abilities OF MIR. Bryan
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