The Republican journal., 1921-11-03
PAY WHAT THOU OWEST

MIR. Arthur Balfour, deputy president
of the Association of the British Cham
,ber of Commerce, was the leader, phil
osopher and spokesman of a party of
English manufacturers who recently
spent five weeks in this country. The
avowed object of this visit was to get a
near view of economic conditions in the
United States, but the blawsted H'Amer-
leans are so deuced stupid, ye know, old
top, that the party felt impelled to do a
certain amount of missionary work. At
l55uiIaic, N. Y, where he and his party
were entertained by the Chamber of
Commerce of that city, Mr.. Balfour
said:-"The English people are anxious
to pay their debts to the United States
and they will do so if they have the op-
portunity. England does not care to re-
2&aliate upon the United States with a
nigh tariff. 1t is the duty of the United
States at the present time not to raise
Barriers to employment by allowing the
English mills to perish. The United
States must part with some of its gold,
and the way to do it is to buy from the
rest of the world" In the first TWO SEN
zences of the above there is more than a
mint that unless we make tariff conces-
sions the English government will repu-
sdiate the debt due the United States.
Not content with that Mr.. Balfour had
the audacity to tell the people of this
country what their duty is in regard to
such tariff matters as would interfere
with the prosperity of English business.
Mr. Balfour must have been aware of the
ia ct that his government was formulat-
ing a law which would place an import
TAX of 80 per cent on about 5000 articles,
many of them made in America. That
proposed law was enacted and went into
effect on the first day of October, 1921.
England does not believe in tariff. She
"a vors "Safeguarding of Industries. +"
This new import tax is very much high
eer than any average tariff ever in force
IN America. England is England and it
IS none of our business if she fixes a 100
per cent import tax on every thing
which it brought there for sale. What
excuse can be made for the jug-handle
proposition which was offered by Mr.
3aIfour at Buffalo? On the day that
these English visitors sailed for home
Mr.. Balfour said: "The British people
are most anxious to pay the United
States all the money they owe, both
principal and interest, but unless you al
low US to trade with you freely, this will
become impossible" Mr. Balfour did
not state how Great Britain would pay
her debts to the United States if we
would allow her to ''tIade freely" with
us, but the method is we'll understood
over there and here. England wants to
buy German goods at German prices,
bring them here in English ships, to
sell them to US for American prices, to
take pay for them in gold and to give
Germany credit for the same, minus ex-
lDense: They do not want US to "raise
BARRIERS" They want to ''trade freely"
We have many bankers, brokers, impor-
LeTs and big retailers, especially the mail
order houses who heartily favor the Bal
four propaganda, for reasons which are
entirely selfish. The most of US believe,
however, that THE United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland and of The Do
minion Beyond The Seas; should not
Helch in the payment of its debts of
honor.
The mistress of the SEAS" country
which owns one-third of the habitable
globe and dominates one fourth the peo-
pie of the earth, a country, which, ac-
cording to tte estimates of its own sta
Gisticians has wealth of more than $780,
s000, 900 900 ought not to try to evade the
payment of the $4,000 600, ,O00 we loaned
it when it's national existence was IN
peril