from his message, it was a condition that confronted us, and that condition was an overflowing treasury, under Republican legislation. Now I come back to you, and it is a predicament that confronts the people of the United States, because of a deficiency created by the legislation of a Democratic congress and administration.

"I am sure, however, that there is wisdom and patriotism ample enough in the country to relieve ourselves from this or any other predicament, and to place us once more at the head of the nations of the world in credit, production and prosperity. The Republican party needs but to adhere faithfully to its principles-to the principles enunciated by its great national conventions, which guided the republic for a third of a century in safety and honor, which gave the country an adequate revenue, and, while doing that, labor received comfortable wages and steady employment, which guarded every American interest at home and abroad with zealous care-principles, the application of which made us a nation of homes, of independent, prosperous freemen, where all had a fair chance and an equal opportunity in the race of life. You do not have to guess what the Republican party will do. The whole world knows its purposes. It has embodied them in law, and executed them in administration. It has bravely met every emergency, and has ever measured up to every new duty. It is dedicated to the people; it stands for the United States. It practices what it preaches, and fearlessly enforces what it teaches. Its simple code is home and country. Its central idea is the well-being of the people, and all the people. It has no arm which does not take into account the honor of the government, and the material advancement and happiness of the American people. The Republican party is neither an apology nor a reminiscence. It is proud of its past, and it sees greater usefulness in the future."-Michigan Club, Feb. 22, 1895.

THE M'KINLEY TARIFF OF 1890.

"I do not intend to enter upon any extended discussion of the two economic systems which divide parties in this house and the people throughout the country. For two years we have been occupied in both branches of congress and in our discussions before the people with these contending theories of taxation.

"At the first session of the Fiftieth congress the house spent several weeks in an elaborate and exhaustive discussion of these systems. The senate was for as many weeks engaged in their investigation and in debate upon them, while in the political contest of 1888 the tariff in all its phases was the absorbing question, made so by the political platforms of the respective parties, to the exclusion, practically, of

every other subject of party division. It may be said that, from the December session of 1887-1888 to March 4, 1889, no public question ever received, in congress and out, such scrutinizing investigation as that of the tariff. It has, therefore, seemed to me that any lengthy general discussion of these principles at this time, so soon after their thorough consideration and determination by the people, is neither expected, required, nor necessary.

"If any one thing was settled by the election of 1888, it was that the protective policy, as promulgated in the Republican platform and heretofore inaugurated and maintained by the Republican party, should be secured in any fiscal legislation to be had by the congress chosen in that great contest and upon that mastering issue. I have interpreted that victory to mean, and the majority in this house and in the senate to mean, that a revision of the tariff is not only demanded by the votes of the people, but that such revision should be on the line and in full recognition of the principle and purpose of protection. The people have spoken; they want their will registered and their decree embodied in public legislation. The bill which the committee on ways and means has presented is their answer and interpretation of that victory and in accordance with its spirit and letter and purpose. We have not been compelled to abolish the internal revenue system that we might preserve the protective system, which we were pledged to do in the event that the abolition of the one was essential to the preservation of the other. That was unnecessary.

"It is asserted in the views of the minority, submitted with the report accompanying this bill, that the operation of the bill will not diminish the revenues of the government; that with the increased duties we have imposed upon foreign articies which may be sent to market here we have increased taxation, and that, therefore, instead of being a diminution of the revenues of the government, there will be an increase in the sum of $50,000,000 or $60,000,000. Now, that statement is entirely misleading. sumption that the importation of the present year under this bill, if it becomes a law, will be equal to the importations of like articles under the existing law; and there is not a member of the committee on ways and means, there is not a member of the minority of that committee. there is not a member of the house on either side, who does not know that the very instant that you have increased the duties to a fair protective point, putting them above the highest revenue point, that very instant you diminish importations and to that extent diminish the revenue. Nobody can well dispute this proposition. Why, when the senate bill was under consideration by the committee on ways and

It can only be accepted upon the as

means, over which my friend from Texas presided in the last congress, the distinguished chairman of that committee (Mr. Mills) wrote a letter to Secretary Fairchild inquiring what would be the effect of increased duties proposed under the senate bill, and this is Mr. Fairchild's reply:

"Where the rates upon articles successfully produced here are materially increased, it is fair to assume that the imports of such articles would decrease and the revenue therefrom diminish.'

"He further states that where the rate upon an article is so increased as to deprive the foreign producer of the power to compete with the domestic producer, the revenue from that source will cease altogether. Secretary Fairchild only states what has been the universal experience in the United States wherever increase of duties above the revenue point has been made upon articles which we can produce in the United States. Therefore, it is safe to assume that no increase of the revenues, taking the bill, through, will arise from the articles upon which duties have been advanced. Now as to the schedules:

"The bill recommends the retention of the present rates of duty on earthen and chinaware. No other industry in the United States either deserves or requires the fostering care of government more than this one. It is a business requiring technical and artistic knowledge, and the most careful attention to the many and delicate processes through which the raw material must pass to the completed product. For many years, down to 1683, the pottery industry of the United States had very little or no success, and made but slight progress in a practical and commercial way. At the close of the low-tariff period of 1860, there was but one pottery in the United States, with two small kilns. There were no decorating kilns at the time. In 1873. encouraged by the tariff and the gold premium, which was an added protection, we had increased to twenty potteries, with sixty-eight kilns, but still no decorating kilns. The capital invested was $1,020,000, and the value of the product was $1,180,000. In 1882, there were fifty-five potteries, 244 kilns, twenty-six decorating kilns, with a capital invested of $5,076,000, and an annual product of $5,299,140. The wages paid in the potteries in 1882 were $2,387,000, and the number of employes engaged therein 7,000; the ratio of wages to sales, in 1882, was 45 per cent. In 1889, there were eighty potteries, 401 kilns, and decorating kilns had increased from twenty-six in 1822, to 188 in 1889. The capital invested in the latter year was $10,957,357, the value of the product was $10,389,910, amount paid in wages, $6,265,224, and the number of employes engaged, 16,900. The ratio of wages to sales was 60 per cent of decorated ware and 50 per cent of white

ware. The per cent of wages to value of product, it will be observed, has advanced from 45 per cent in 1882, to 60 per cent in 1889. This increase is not due, as might be supposed, to an advance in wages, but results in a reduction in the selling price of the product and the immense increase in sales of decorated ware in which labor enters in greater proportion to materials. The total importation for 1874 and 1875 of earthenware was to the value of $4,441,216, and in 1888 and 1889 it ran up to $6,476,190. The American ware produced in 1889 was valued at $10,389,910. The difference between the wages of labor in this country and competing countries in the manufacture of earthenware is fully 100 per cent.

"The agricultural condition of the country has received the careful attention of the committee, and every remedy which was believed to be within the power of tariff legislation to give has been granted by this bill. The depression in agriculture is not confined to the United States. The reports of the agricultural department indicate that this distress is general; that Great Britain, France, and Germany are suffering in a larger degree than the farmers of the United States. Mr. Dodge, statistician of the department, says, in his report of March, 1890, that the depression in agriculture in Great Britain has probably been more severe than that of any other nation; which would indicate that it is greater even in a country whose economic system differs from ours, and that this condition is inseparable from any fiscal system, and less under the protective than the revenue tariff system.

"It has been asserted in the views of the minority that the duty put upon wheat and other agricultural products would be of no value to the agriculturists of the United States. The committee, believing differently, has advanced the duty upon these products. As we are the greatest wheat-producing country of the world, it is habitually asserted and believed by many that this product is safe from foreign competition. We do not appreciate that while the United States last year raised 490,000,000 bushels of wheat, France raised 316,000,000 bushels, Italy raised 103,000,000 bushels, Russia 189,000,000 bushels and India 243,000,000 bushels, and that the total production of Asia, including Asia Minor, Persia and Syria, amounted to over 315,000,000 bushels. Our sharpest competition comes from Russia and India, and the increased product of other nations only serves to increase the world's supply, and diminish proportionately the demand for ours; and if we will only reflect on the difference between the cost of labor in producing wheat in the United States and in competing countries, we will readily perceive how near we are to the danger line, if indeed we have not quite reached it, so far even as our own markets are concerned.

"Professor Goldwin Smith, a Canadian and political economist, speaking of the Canadian farmers and the effect of this bill upon their interests, says:

"They will be very much injured if the McKinley bill shall be adopted. The agricultural schedule will bear very hardly on the Canadian farmers who particularly desire to find a market in the United States for their eggs, their barley and their horses. The European market is of little value to them for their horses. If there shall be a slow market in England all the profits will be consumed on a cargo of horses and great loss will entail. I do not see how the Canadian farmers can export their produce to the United States if the McKinley bill shall become a law.'

"If that be true, Mr. Chairman, then the annual exports of about $25,000,000 in agricultural products will be supplied to the people of the United States by the American farmer rather than by the Canadian farmer; and who will say that $25,000,000 of additional demand for American agricultural products will not inure to the benefit of the American farmer; and that $25,000,000 distributed among our own farmers will not relieve some of the depression now prevailing, and give to the farmer confidence and increased ability to lift the mortgages from his lands?

"The duty recommended in the bill is not alone to correct this inequality, but to make the duty on foreign tin plate high enough to insure its manufacture in this country to the extent of our home consumption. The only reason we are not doing it now and have not been able to do it in the past is because of inadequate duties. We have demonstrated our ability to make it here as successfully as they do in Wales. We have already made it here. Two factories were engaged in producing tin plate in the years 1873, 1874, and 1875, but no sooner had they got fairly under way than the foreign manufacturer reduced his price to a point which made it impossible for our manufacturers to continue. When our people embarked in the business foreign tin plate was selling for $12 per box, and to crush them out, before they were firmly established, the price was brought down to $4.50 per box; but it did not remain there. When the fires were put out in the American mills, and its manufacture thought by the foreigners to be abandoned, the price of tin plate advanced, until in 1879 it was selling for $9 and $10 a box. Our people again tried it, and again prices were depressed, and again our people abandoned temporarily the enterprise, and, as a gentleman stated before the committee, twice they have lost their whole investment through the combination of the foreign manufacturers in striking down the prices, not