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SEPTEMBER 20, lf07'
The Commoner.
15
THE COST OP liXVING THE
. TARIFF
Up to about 1803, while the high
tariff was an insidious means of tax
ing the majority for the benefit of
the minority, it was claimed in its
defense that workingmen in protect
ed industries received Hho greater
share of the steady increase in pro
duction. That 1b no longer the case.
By 1900 the trust movement was
getting into swing, but had not fully
wrought its astonishing changes. In
ten years the number of manufactur
ing establishments had increased
forty-four per cent, the total capital
thirty-five per cent. The increase in
value of product less the cost of raw
materials was thirty-four per cent,
the increase in total wages only
twenty-three per cent. Production
and capitalization had both grown
faster than the wage fund.
"Miscellaneous expenses," a sinis
ter term, rose sixty-two per cent.
The next five years saw the great
"American invasion" of Europe by
cut-rate prices, while high prices
were maintained at home by trusts.
In 1905, at the end of this event
ful half decade, combination was in
full swing. The number of estab
lishments had increased only four
per cent, capitalization by forty-one
per cent. None of the promised
economies of large production had
appeared. The large factories, con
trolling 81.5 per cent of the nominal
capital, employed only 71.6 per cent
of the wageworkers. The salaries
account had risen by fifty per cent,
and the sinister miscellaneous ex
penses by sixty-one per cent.
Wages and product had grown by
almost the same increment, 29.9 and
29.7 per cent respectively, but both
were far surpassed by the rise in sal
aries, superintendence and miscellan
eous expense, and by the swollen cap
ital which demands its profits either
in dividends or by "unloading" stock
upon the public. In Canada within
the same period the total of wages
paid rose by forty-five per cent. -But
'value product per employe" rose
thirty-one per cent, the average indi
vidual wage only twenty-seven per
cent. There also the wagearner un
der a tariff did not get his share' of
increased production or of the econo
mies of invention.
Mr. Haldane, the British war sec
retary, hai just placed an order for
400,000 horseshoes in this country.
Horseshoes are protected by a tariff
of one cent a pound. Under Shat
duty the American buyer of horse
shoes pays a considerable- higher
price for them than the British army.
This is only one recent example of
the familiar fact of high prices for
home consumption, low prices for the
foreign buyer.
The Standard Oil monopoly is a
fattened child of the tariff. Oil itself
is duty free. In practice the Stand
ard would stamp out foreign competi
tion as it stamps out domestic com
petition; and upon many of its more
than a hundred by-products it is
heavily protected. So It too sells
abroad far cheaper than at home.
The tariff duties on potatoes, blan
kets, knit goods, tin plate, woollen
yarns "and clothing, soap, oilcloth,
linen, glassware, affect directly every
shopping woman; upon a thousand
articles they affect her Indirectly. A
reasonable reduction'of the tariff, not
In 1909, but now, would reduce in
every homo the cost of living. New
York World.
Ahiy
Don't you give your heart the same
cluinco you do tho other organs?
Why? Because when any other or
gan is in trouble, It refuses to work,
and yow hasten to repair It.
The heart, tho ever faithful servant
never refuses as loner as It has power
to move, but continues to do the liest
it can, getting; weaker and weaker,
until It Is past repair, and then stops.
It is just as sick as tho other organs,
but because it will work you let it.
However, it's not too late for a
"change of heart," ho remember
Dr. Miles' Heart Cure
will give your heart strength and vi
tality to overcome Dizziness, Palpita
tion, Short Breath, Faint Spoils, Pains
In Heart and Side, and all other Heart
aches and difficulties.
"My heart would ache and palpitate
terribly, and at times I could hardly
breathe. Dr. Miles' Heart Cure has re
stored me. to perfect health, and I am
very grateful.
MISS EMMA J. BARTON.
No. 1 Sill St., Watertown, N. T.
Tho first bottle "will benefit,, if not,
the druggist will return your money.
FEDERAL LIMITATIONS
Roosevelt and Taft have joined
forces this week in urging a danger
ous usurpation of power by the na
tional government. To each of these
leaders of republican thought the
federal authority appears tho only
effective power for the restraint of
trusts and the great monopoly cor
porations. Thoy would brush away
the authority of the states by strained
construction of the federal constitu
tion, because some states, or all
states, fall short of their ideas as to
needed remedies for generally con
ceded evils.
National incorporation, which
President Roosevelt so emphatically
advocates, Is not a democratic doc
trine and will not have democratic
support. Democrats will unhesitat
ingly join issues on that proposition.
Democracy recognizes that the fed
eral authority must be employed for
the effective control of all public
service corporations doing an inter-,
state business, and perhaps, also, to
some extent for the successful regu
lation of the great monopoly corpor
ations that are not conducting busi
ness of a public-service character.
But democracy holds that federal
remedies ought to be added to state
remedies, not substituted for them.
There is nothing vague in tho dis
tinction. Democracy would preservo
that division of power between the
states and the national government
which the makers of the United
States constitution planned with ex
ceeding care and the wisest fore
sight. They deny the right to force
implied meanings by farfetched con
structions wliich defy the spirit of
the instrument and are as unneces
sary as unlawful.
It is not a proper function of the
national government to compel the
people of the states to administer
their affairs along exactly tho same
lines in every state, whenever these
affairs touch the interests of a cor
poration engaged in business of an
Interstate character. " There Is just
as good a reason today as there was
when the organic law of the United
States was framed that the people
of the various states should have un
restricted power to govern their local
affairs as they please, except to the
extent to which the constitution has
explicitly conferred power on the fed
eral government.
In its control of interstate com
merce the United States can add to
the remedies provided by state laws,
without attempting to displace the
states or usurp their powers. That
is the function it is intended to per
form under the spirit of our consti
tutional government which has so
far preserved for us the "vital ele
ments of a true democracy. To a
centralized national government,
dominating puppet states deprived of
every substance of individual sover
eignty, the American people are as
much opposed today as they have
ever been, and they have more than
once in the past given emphatic ex
pression to their feeling on this sub
ject. They will see to it that this
issue is not forgotten in the cam
paign of 1908. St Louis Republic.
Home
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Jobs KtMKWm
1
Tools and Cutlery
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9
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JHI2ERMK
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