comforts of life back to our people. This will only come with the employment of the masses and such employment is certain to follow the reestablishment of a wise protective policy which shall encourage manufacturing at home. Protection has lost none of its virtue and importance. The first duty of the Republican Party, if restored to power in the country, will be the enactment of a tariff law which wrill raise all the money necessary to conduct the Government, economically and honestly administered, and so adjusted as to give preference to home manufactures and adequate protection to home labor and the home market. We are not committed to any special schedules or rates of duty. They are and should be always subject to change to meet new conditions, but the principle upon which rates of duty are imposed remains the same. Our duties should always be high enough to measure the difference between the wages paid labor at home and in competing countries, and to adequately protect American investments and American enterprises. OUR FARMERS AND THE TARIFF. Our farmers have been hurt by the changes in our tariff legislation as severely as our laborers and manufacturers, badly as they have suffered. The Republican platform W’isely declares in favor of such encouragement to our sugar interests “as will lead to the production on American soil of all the sugar which the American people use.” It promises to our wool and woolen interests “the most ample protection,” a guaranty that ought to commend itself to every patriotic citizen. Never was a more grievous wrong done the farmers of our country than that so unjustly inflicted during the past three years upon the-wool- growers of America. Although among our most industrious and useful citizens, their interests have been practically destroyed and our w’oolen manufactures involved in similar disaster. At no time within the past thirty-six years, and perhaps never during any previous period, have so many of our woolen factories been suspended as now. The Republican Party can be relied upon to correct these great wrongs if again entrusted with the control of Congress. RECIPROCITY AND ITS EFFECTS. Anotl er declaration of the Republican platform that has my most cordial support, is that which favors Reciprocity. The splendid results of the Reciprocity arrangements that were made under authority of the Tariff Law of 1890 are striking and suggestive. The brief period they were in force, in most cases only three years, was not long enough to thoroughly test their great value, but sufficient was shown by the trial to conclusively demonstrate the importance and the wjsdom of their adoption. In 1892, the export trade of the United States attained the highest point in our history. The aggregate of our exports that year reached the immense sum of $1,030,278,148, a sum greater by $100,000,- 000 than the exports of any previous year. In 1893, owing to the threat of unfriendly tariff legislation, the total dropped to $847,665,194. Our exports of domestic merchandise decreased $189,000,000, but Reciprocity still secured us a large trade in Central and South America, and a larger trade with the West Indies than we had ever before enjoyed. The increase of trade with the countries with which we had Reciprocity agreements was $3,560,515 over our trade in 1892, and $16,440,721 over our trade in 1891. The only countries with which the United States 13
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