Show LEAD 0 JH Answers HDJ SALT LAKE CITY Dec 12182 Editors Herald Your correspondent II D J seems to me to be hard to please He perhaps doesnt know that Mr Hoi den is a democrat and that all you have to do to make a protectionist out of a democrat is to translate argument into facts that is togo to-go on from talking to working The argument is with the free traders no doubtif I can buy a coat in London for half what I can in Salt Lake I oaght to be allowed to do it I ought not to be forced to raie my oranges in Utah I ought to be allowed to raise heat and trade it for oranges wherever I can do so to best advantage But in government one cant always proceed pro-ceed logically Ic is otte i most always a question of what can bed be-d ne rather than what ought to be done We have to have 300000000 or such a matter a year to pay the cost of government and the practical question is how can we easiest get it V Put the most absolute free trader iu theory put Mr Carlisle himself at the head of the treasury or of the ways and means committee and he would be obliged to concede the folly of talking talk-ing about free trade under such circumstances Our tariff system is supposed to be unnecessarily complicated and unequal and unjust un-just in its workings By many the duties are supposed to be too Mghj certainly on many commodities but we must raise about 200000 000 a year from customs dutiesor else by excise taxes The practicaf question ques-tion is thereforeone of adjustment equalizing reducing where it can be done without injury But if it were otherwise if it were a question ques-tion between protection and free trade our history would show that while the freetrader may have the argument the protectionist right The former has involved all kinds of business in ruin wherever he has undertaken to put his theories in practice Suppose five millions of our people now earning their bread and supporting their families as manufacturers were thrown out of that kind of employment and driven to farming taking that countless host from the ranks of the consumers consum-ers and adding them to those of the producers Can any one contemplate contem-plate the probable result with satisfaction satis-faction H D J doesnt like Mr Holdens report Why then didnt he appear ap-pear at the meeting and object to it have it modified or rejected Pes sibly there were persons there who thought it raised quest ons that neednt be brought into our lead tariff matter and may be if they had had a leader they would have been able to have the report modified It is too late now and the chances are Mr Hol den will never have any opportunity opportu-nity to urge the theory of protection on the comnittee The meeting thought it didnt matter It was well enough it would have been well enough without it H D J wants to kno v why we dont move for the protection of silver too it being so much the more important product Well he knows that when the people discovered that silver had been demonetized they undid that work speedily This coast did Its part The Salt Lake HERALD was then edited adoctnnairewho would be logical if it took his life but for years it has made the defense de-fense of silver almost a hobby The mining people of the coast know that whenever the Wall street hatred of silver goes beyond talk introducing bills and all that it will be stepped on by the people of the entire west and south In other words what harm can be done in that line has been done and has also been remedied as far as it could be remedied With lead it is different The duty on lead and lead and copper ores has induced the settlement < < of half the republic it is hardly too much to s iv A movement is beginning be-ginning to reduce taat duty We then begin to i rgtmze to light it In the reduction of tariff duties business miHreats are effected interests iu which hundreds of millions are invested and upon which the all of thousands depends de-pends Tell all these interests organize raise means send their agents and fight to theast extremity ex-tremity to defend their interests In the prodigious pressure if there is an interest that is not represented repre-sented it is the one that catches it What is unloaded from other interests inter-ests is loaded on that and it is killed That is why we move If we cant prevent any reduction in the duty we will prevent all we can and at least be organized for he future Notwithstanding the comparison drawn by H D J between silver and lead for the year 1881 it would not be hard to show that lead is at the foundation of Rocky Mountain I industry Of all the pi ecioub metals the country now produces nearly ohehalf are in a lead matrix and for a large percentage of these lead ores the lead is worth more than the silver In Utah estimating product this year at the same ap thdt of last year there has been turned out in twelve years 220000 tons of lead which at five cents a pound in New York or Pittsburgh or Chicago and that nuit be below the average price for ttoe yearn was worth 22000000 During the same years our product of silver was 31586790 ounces of gold about 100000 ounces worth at the mint on an average for these tpr silver say S117 gold 820 i j 538898044 It will be seen that our lean constituted nearly forty percent per-cent of the entire value or our mineral output for these years If it had constituted but twenty percent per-cent and there had been no profit in producing it it whould have been enough to kill the business Besides in all ores carrying less than thirty ounces of silver per ton the silver is worth less than the lead and would not be taken out were the lead worth nothing In Colorado there is a smolting capacity of seventy ordinary lead stacks and all of them but the Argo works depend upon lead ores What would the cities the farming the trading the manufacturing the stock or wool raising the railroading railroad-ing and banking of Colorado be but for this lepdsilver ore producing and reducing business Compare what they were before the discovery discov-ery of Leadville with what they are row Compare Utah in 1869 with Utah in 1882 Idaho Montana I Nevada Arizona New Mexicoall exhibit the same dependence of every industry on mining and three fourths of the n iaing of the country exclusive of that of California Califor-nia is that of leadsilver mining Mining has drawn a million people into the country west of the Missouri Mis-souri within twentyfive years and principly induced the building of 10000 miles of railroad Now the Ie uctiop of the tariff is proposed because we are raising too much money It is safe to say we are not realizing any from imported lead and mighty little from ores of lead and copper But if the duty is reduced so as to break up the business busi-ness in this country there will be money flowing into the treasury from imports of lead and ores and that is precisely what isnt wanted Again the duty is to be reduced so that users of lead and copper can get it where it is the cheapest abroad But stop the production at home and turn the money invested in the business into some other channel and blight and largely depopulate de-populate the mining states and territories ter-ritories and then they would become be-come scarce and dearer than now so that that object would be defeated de-feated Finally if the object were to raise money directly from importations importa-tions ot lead and copper not one dollar would be secured where now a hundred dollars are indirectly derived de-rived from the general growth and prosperity of the whole mining region re-gion a million square milesbased as it is on the growth and prosperity of its prime industry silverlead mining So that object would be defeated And what would be gained > 1 Yet the argument that I ought to be allowed to buy lead or copper or the ores of either or anything elsewhere else-where I can buy cheapest remains unanswered As a fellow said to me once a Confederate prisoner whom I had been disputing with half a day Youve got the argument but by Gd I i know Im right So Bro Holden I i fancy or any other protectionist might say to H D J or any other free trader OJH |