PRICES-What, etc.-Continued. numbers in the following table are his index numbers, with 1847-'50 The first thought that comes up in any candid inquiry about protection is that it is natural and in accord with the habits of men. It prevails in the family as regards its relations with other families or with society. It pervades society as regards its relations of each part with every other. It characterizes the laws which guard the citizen from the dangers that spring from avarice, or crime, or negligence. It protects society as a whole against the injurious actions or aims of its component parts. It is applied not only to health and morals but to property. The State covers all its subjects, in all their relations, with the panoply of protection and thereby aims to promote the greatest happiness of all. It is the very end for which governments are instituted; protection to the individual at home and protection to the community from all adverse foreign forces whatever. No. 301. RAILROADS-Losses, 1896. The startling fact is set forth by the annual report of the Interstate Commerce Commission that during the fiscal year ended June 30 the railroad companies of the United States lost in their operations the enormous sum of $29,845,241. The report gives the amount of capital invested as $63,330 a mile for the whole country. On this capitalization 70 per cent. of the stock failed to pay dividends for the period indicated, and there was default in the payment of interest on 17 per cent. of outstanding bonds. In other words, the income of the roads as a whole decreased considerably, while there was practically no diminution in their operating expenses. As a matter of course, all the roads did not sustain lcsses; if they had done so the total would be very much larger, but the statistics go to show that there has been great prodigality and recklessness in the management of a great many, and that excessive capitalization and bonded indebtedness made it impossible for a considerable number to earn sufficient to pay fixed charges and dividends. No. 302. RATIO-Coinage. Coinage ratio between gold and silver is fixed by law. The original law of 1792 made 1 ounce of gold equal to 15 ounces of silver. The act of 1834 changed the ratio to 1 of gold to 16 of silver. How to determine the value of the cheaper metal: One ounce of pure gold 1000 fine is worth $20.68; divide this sum by the silver. Example: 1 of gold to 16 of silver is 2068÷16=$1.29.29; the price of one ounce of silver at the present ratio, at 1 to 20; 1 to 20—$1.04.3 per ounce for silver. The ratios from 16 to 20 are as follows: Ratio 1 to 17; value (*438.60 grains) $1.22 −|~ Ratio 1 to 19; value (*490.20 grains) $1.08 -| Ratio 1 to 20; value (*516.00 grains) $1.04 -|- No. 303. RATIO-Commercial. Commercial ratio between gold and silver is the difference between their commercial market value at the same time. The commercial value of both gold and silver bullion may be the effect of statute RATIO-Commercial-Continued. law, for if one of these metals be deprived of its money use by statute law it must change its commercial value by limiting its use. The market or commercial price is therefore to be considered as affected by money use. No. 304. RATIO-Silver te Gold. The ratio at which gold and silver are coined in the United States is 15.988 to 1-that is, 15.988 ounces of silver are treated as worth 1 ounce of gold. In England the ratio is 14.287 to 1, and in France 15% to 1. The ratio of silver to gold prior to the Christian era, so far as can be ascertained from ancient records, ranged from 14 to 1 in Greece about 340 B. C. to 8.93 to 1 in Rome 58 to 49 B. C. From the beginning of the Christian era to the discovery of America the ratio was from 10.50 to 1 to 14.40 to 1, and from 1492 to 1700 from 10.50 to 1 to 15.40 to 1. From 1700 to 1850 the commercial ratio of silver to gold ranged from 14.14 to 1 in 1760 to 16.25 to 1 in 1813. The ratio since 1850 has been as follows: The active endeavor to extend the export trade of the United States in the Latin-American republics and colonies by means of reciprocity treaties was inaugurated by President Arthur in 1882, when Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and William Henry Trescot, representing this Government, and Matias Romero and Estanislao Canedo, representing RECIPROCITY-Continued. the Republic of Mexico, negotiated a treaty under which certain merchandise from the United States was to be admitted free of duties into Mexico, and certain products of that country were to be admitted free into the United States. But the Congress of the United States failed to enact the legislation necessary to carry it into effect, and the treaty expired by limitation upon the 20th of May, 1887. In 1884 John W. Foster, then Minister to Spain, negotiated a similar treaty with that government, acting in behalf of its American colonies, Cuba and Puerto Rico. A third treaty was negotiated by Mr. Frelinghuysen, then Secretary of State, with Don Manuel J. Galvan, a plenipotentiary appointed for that purpose by the government of Santo Domingo. Both of these treaties failed to receive the sanction of the United States Senate. During the same year, under the authority of Congress, President Arthur appointed a commission "to ascertain the best modes of se curing more intimate international and commercial relations between the United States and the several countries of Central and South America." The commission recommended that an international conference be held in Washington, to which all of the republics visited had consented to send delegates, and a list of topics for consideration was submitted. A bill was passed by Congress to carry out that recommendation, and on the 20th of May, 1888, became a law without the approval of the President. The conference met at Washington in October, 1889, all of the independent American nations being represented except Santo Domingo. No. 306. RECIPROCITY-Act of 1890. In response to recommendations the Fifty-first Congress embodied in the tariff act of 1890, sec. 3, a provision familiarly known as the reciprocity section, which reads as follows: "That with a view to secure reciprocal trade with countries pro. ducing these articles; and for this purpose, on and after the first day of July, 1892, whenever, and so often as the President shall be satisfied that the government of any country producing and exporting sugars, molasses, coffee, tea, hides, raw and uncured, or any of such articles, imposes duties or other exactions upon the agricultural or RECIPROCITY—Act of 1890-Continued. other products of the United States, which, in view of the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, into the United States he may deem to be reciprocally unequal and unjust, he shall have the power, and it shall be his duty to suspend, by proclama. tion to that effect, the provisions of this act relating to the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the production of such country, for such time as he shall deem just, and in suc case and during such suspension duties shall be levied, collected, and paid upon sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the product of, or exported from, such designated country, as follows, namely: "All sugars not above number thirteen Dutch standard in color shall pay duty on their polariscopic test as follows, namely: "All sugars not above number thirteen Dutch standard in color, all tank bottoms, sirups of cane juice or of beet juice, melada, concentrated melada, concrete and concentrated molasses, testing by the polariscope not above seventy-five degrees, seven-tenths of one cent per pound; and for every additional degree or fraction of a degree shown by the polariscope test, two-hundredths of one cent per pound additional. "All sugars above number thirteen Dutch standard in color shall be classified by the Dutch standard of color, and pay duty as follows, namely: All sugar above numper thirteen and not above number sixteen Dutch standard of color, one and three-eighths cents per pound. "All sugar above number sixteen and not above number twenty Dutch standard of color, one and five-eighths cents per pound. "All sugars above number twenty Dutch standard of color, two cents per pound. "Molasses testing above fifty-six degrees, four cents per pound. "Sugar drainings and sugar sweepings shall be subject to duty either as molasses or sugar, as the case may be, according to polariscopic test. "On coffee, three cents per pound. "On tea, ten cents per pound. "Hides, raw or uncured, whether dry, salted, or pickled, Angora goatskins, raw, without the wool, unmanufactured, assès' skins, raw or unmanufactured, and skins, except sheepskins, with the wool on, cne and one-half cents per pound." The foregoing law was repealed by section 71 of the Wilson law, |