| Show IF THE CASE WEUK REVERSED It is diverting to see with what exuberant exuber-ant pleasure the Republican organs hail any indication of a softening disposition of foreign countries towards ours in the way of admitting American products They can see nothing wrong in the free trade policy when adopted by other nations but on the contrary think it very wise and proper But it is only when the products admitted to the United States from abroad do not compete with tho articles produced In the manufacturing states and when by the admission of these terms can be made for the entrance free of duty of American manufactured goods that the merits of reciprocal re-ciprocal trade can be seen by them They deny that the high protective policy that has been in operation for nearly thirty years is a sectional policy and that its effect is to enrich one section and one claas I at the expense of another This policy rl they declare benefits all classes nnd the whole people all sections and tho whole ioantry It they say not only builds up manufactures and increases the industrial population and thereby multiplies the consumers con-sumers of farm products but It imposes duties on foreign farm products and thereby protects our own farmers from foreign competition Now if the agricultural interest shares the advantages of the protective system finally with the manufacturing interest where are the evidences of itJ The past seaSOn has been an extraordinarily prosperous one but aside from this whore are the proofs of the wonderful wonder-ful affluence of the west Do western farmer live in palatial 100000 mansions like those of the nabob manafauturant of the northeast Do they own yachts and stables of 1000 horses and 3031 carriages car-riages livened coachmen and outriders J Do they spend their summers in beautiful and costly cottages by the sea or in tho gorgeous wulenngplace hotels or in the resorts where millionaires congregate to display their wealth Do they cross the ocean every year or two in British steamers steam-ers to learn British manners and return vith costly outfits of English and French clothinc Do westerners invest surplus millions in eastern railroads as eastern capitalists invest tbeirs in western rail reads How many hundred millions of hardearned western dollars are invested in eastern real estate mortgages Has the protectie policy made the western west-ern farmers reasonably prosperous Has I it helped them to hold their own Is agriculture agri-culture as profitable as it was twentyfive or even ton years ago t No none of these And why t Because all the predictions and promises of the protectionists have been signally falsified Protected and prosperous prosper-ous manufacturing has not made better prices If the people of the northeast were living under a system which bred millionaires in the west and mortgages In the east which caused all their railroads to be owned in the west which made a western loaning agency necessary in every one of their towns and which gorged the western banks with six sevenths of all the savings deposits in the country whilst tlitlr share was only one i tenth they would cry out against it as sectional partial unjust and unpatriotic and they would never cease demanding its repeal |
