Show TARIFF REVISION THE ISSUE The Washington the Chicago Tribune says that although there be no tariff legislation at the approaching session of congress It will willbe willbe be one of the chief issues issue In the prest presidential campaign He might have gone further and said that It wilt will be the main Issue above all others In the ten years since the Dingley tariff went Into effect the people of the tha States have paid about two WI bil billions lions and a halt half of duties on Imported articles Last year they paid almost an even million dollars a day In duties Or Of this amount about was over and above the revenue needed for forthe forthe the most extravagant national expend expendItures expenditures the country has ever known It goes without saying that there can be no such thing as free trade so long longas as the principal revenue of the nation depends upon customs and Internal revenue taxes The defeat of the In Income come orne tax law by the tho supreme court In Insured Insured that necessity and no party would attempt to pledge Itself to unrestricted unrestricted tree free trade or anything like it ft But the evIl Of the Dingley tariff Is not alone nor chiefly In Its burden of taxation The crime of the tho tariff Is In Inthe inthe the monopoly It has given every trust that depends upon a protective tariff to pr prevent vEnt competition The Tho steel trust for Instance has been able to charge what It pleased for tor such quality of s SLed el as It chose to make because the prohibitive tariff places It beyond any fear of competition from abroad The watch trust has shown the beautiful workings of a tariff which gives a mo monopoly monopoly of the home market to a trust It has sold watches abroad for tor so much lower prices than It charged domestic consumers that American dealers found a profit in buying c American n watches f 1 I abroad from EnglIsh merchants and Importing them for sale at ho home e eIn In n nearly every instance where the markets by a trust It can be shown that the tariff has made the trust possible by insuring It a complete monopoly enabling it to charge exor exorbitant exorbitant bitant profits S Scarcely arcely an article of food of clothing of common human need Is sold without paying tribute to toa toa a trust of some kind and the exactions of these trusts back In Inevitably Inevitably to the as the bu wark of commercial crime Having erected this bulwark for themselves aid aid of the Republican lican party part the trusts now find refuge behind the cry that any revision of the tariff tarm will inflict an injury to th bust busl or of the country That Is probably true and it is one of the main reasons why revision of the tariff tarI has beep been postponed so long Neither the Dem Democrats Democrats nor the tariff revisionists of the Republican party would like to start a campaign for the violent and radical reduction of the tariff on all manufactured manufactured articles or on all raw material The shock to every Industry would be unbearable and no party could carry an election on such a platform But that furnishes no argument against a reasonable reduction of an exorbitant tariff on goods that are arenow arenow now sold abroad for much less than the American consumer Is made to pay If the have any political or economic sense at alt all they will read the handwriting on the wall and recognize recognize nize the fact act that revision is inevitable ble and that further postponement is only an invitation to a reaction which might sweep out of power every con conservative friend or of a decent honest tariff Either the tariff tarm must be cor corrected scientifically and in the Interest of the people as against the trusts or there will be a political revolution that will wok Infinite harm hann to to the commer I and manufacturing interests of the i whole country I |