Low Tariff In Belgium

Belgium is a small country only one-fifth as large as Michigan, yet it supports a population of over 5,000,000 people. Only half of its area is arable land. It has tried both high and lovv tariff and its experience under these two tariffs, the one for protection and the other for revenue, may prove instructive reading. During the French occupation at the beginning of che century, protection was absolute. The importation oí foreign goods was strictly forbidden and all foreign goods found within the territory were seized and burned. iet this policy of extreme protection did not have the desired effect of building up home manufactories, so that in 1S14, when the Dutch came into the possession of the country, it was desolate and nearly depopulated. This country adopted unothcr method of building up Belgium. They swept away the protection which had destroyed. The duties were limited to three per cent. on raw matenals and six per cent. on manufactured articles. Under these low duties, manufactories sprang into existence in Belgium and the country rapidly grevv in prosperity. Sixteen years later when Belgium became independent, those who antagonized the commercial methods of the Dutch gained the ■ascendency and Belgium returned to a protective tarifF with high and discriminating duties. So bad was the effect of this tariff 011 dotnestic industries, that in 1851 the minister of finance declared that this policy would ruin dome&tic industry and in 1855 the country returned to low duties, very muchjovver than is now contended for in this country. Now vvhat is the reduit? Manufacturing feit the ímpetus, of competition. Exports largely increased and the evils of overproduction failed to retard the growth or pro6perity of the country. In fact, to-day, Belgium maintains the densest population in Europe. She consumes more silks than any other country. She has a greater variety of texile manufactories than any other country and her export trade quadrupled in ten years. In proportion to her population, her exports are eight or nine times as great as those of this country. If low tariflf has proven so beneficial to Belgium, what might it not do for this country ? That it is not alone the democrats who approve of the President's message in favor of the reduction of the tarifF, is shown by a number of republican papers who approve and by the utterances of several leaders. No one has accused Hon. Tim .' ester, mayor of Marquette, elected by a unanimous vote, of being anything but a republican. Yet this is what he says in an open letter to a republican who attempted to 'scare him for standing vvith the President on this matter: "I desire to state that I stand squarely on the Republican platform of 1884, which pledged the party to a reasonable reduction of customs duties and revenue taxes, in order that the burden of maintaining the government might be equitably adjusted, and its income kept down to the limit of its necessities. In other words, I do not beheve in taxing the people unnecessanly. A dollar may seem a small thing to a man with a large bank account, but to the poor man whose labor must support his faniily it very often seems as big as a cart whcel. The proper place for our"surplus" dollars is in thepockets of the men who earn them, and not in the vaults of the Urrited States treasury. The government which exacts from its people a vast revenue in excess of his actual wants is essentially despotic. It is a misuse of terms to cali a system by which this is accomplished "protective." Under t a few may thrive inordinafely, but the masses are oppressed." Rowland G. Hazard, the great woolen manufacturer, explained recently in an article on the tariff, that there were woois not grown in the United States, that it was absolutely necessary that the American manufacturer should have, if he desired to compete with the manufacturer of Europe. He instanced a course grade of wool, grown in South America that was required for mixing with North American wools, A hundred pounds of this wool "in the grease" only yielded f rom 12 to 20 pounds ot clean wool, so that the tariff compelled the manufacturer to pay 10 cents a pound on from So to 88 pounds of dirt in the hundred. The more of this wool the manufacturer obtained, the more American wool he required to mix with it. This is respectfully called to the attention of the wool grower. It is strange that any argument for a reduction in the tariff should have to encounter a prejudice. Yet ■such seems to he the case. There is 110 question that the surplus taxation in this nation not needed for an economically administered government is over $[00,000,000 a year. And yet any one who proposes to reduce this enormous taxation is branded as a person working in the interest of England, or an enemy of his country. But this prejudice has lost its fbre. The intelligent voters of this country will no longer heed it for they, one and all, will acknowledge that it is foolish to pay higher taxes than are necessary.