Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-01-09
FREE TRADE PLAN
AFTER WAR SEEN
in WILSON SPEECH
congressman Discuss Article
Three as Presidential Feeler
to Ban Protective Tariff

Washington Jan. 9.-Is President
wilson attempting to write Free
Trade into the future national policy
of the United States by way of the
peace treaty that is to end the great
war?
VIII his warm espousal of Russias
cause suffice to break Off negotiations
between the Bolshevik government
and Germany?
These are the big question that
are being discussed in Washington
by Senators and congressman who
heard his wholly unexpected and
sensational speech.
Article No. 3 of the OpTesident's
peace proposals is being generally re-
garded as a Free Trade fecler. The
President declines to amplify or to
explain it further than the words of
the paragraph. Democrats in high
authority hail it gleefully as a pro-
nouncemcnt OF new International
policy; as formal abandonment OF
Americas traditional protective tariff
system.
Republican leaders decline to dis
cuss it at this time for publication.
They are awaiting further definit' on
by the President or his spokesman.
Privately they talk in a militant
strain of future opposition to any at
tempt to commit the United States to
anything approaching free trade.
They argue that protective tariff
Will be more necessary than ever be-
fore to recoup us for the enormous
outlays made in connection with our
war preparations and our aid to all
the allied nations.
But these same Republican leaders
will not hinder the policy of the
President in war or in peace negoti-
ations until it shall become apparent
that the destruction of the Repub-
lican Party and the Republican poll
cies is a part of the administration
program.
Article Three iss susceptible to sew
eral constructions. In it's succession
OF well-turned phrases it defies exact
definition and only the President can
say clearly what is it's entire sig
nilicance. When he declares for the
removal, so far as possible, of all eco
ncmic barriers and the establishment
of an equality of trade conditions
among all the nations consenting to
the peace and associating themselves
for its maintenance, he places Ger
many, England, Austria, Italy. France
and the United States upon an equal
ity of trade relations, but what
equality of trade relations" means is
wholly up to Woodrow Wilson.
This much is known; the President
is committed to a policy of unrelent-
ing opposition to Republican protec-
tive tariff ideas. England is antitar-
iff. So are France and Italy. Ger
many alone of the nations that VIII
| sit around the peace council table mas
built up it's industrial fabric upon the
| same protection theories as the Unit
| ed States.
Ban on Protective Tariff:
Are we about to join with England,
France and Italy in an insistance
upon the abandonment by Germany of
that protective tariff policy the Unit
ed States covenanting on its side TO
| cut loose from protection?
This question was put up to Sem
ator Knox, but he declined to discuss
it for publication. He further declined
to discuss any part of the Presidents s
message. The intimation was made
by other Republican leaders that
there might be Interrogation upon the
| floor of Congress that would bring
an explanation from the White
House.
Businessmen and manufacturers
who have been rendering patriotic
! service unselfishly to the Government,
are utterly dumfounded by Article 3.
While they, the Republican leaders,
| do not wish to take ground anlaS-
onistic to the President, they see in
the apparent meaning of the clause
| nothing but the surrender of Ameri-
| can industry to European competi-
tors, who, because of lower labor
| market, will be enabled to undersell
America.
Attention is called by these manu-
facturers to the action of the War
Trade Board in it's ruling announced
to-day that mo individual licenses
shall be required for the expectation
of raw cotton to the United King
dom, France, Italy Japan or their col
onies."
This means that American cotton
is free to get the highest prices in the
world: that there is to be scarcity
and consequent high prices of this
staple in America, and that the south
is to profit by this war to the limit.