laxed their policy of Protection, have been marked by depression of trade and distress, whilst the periods of Protection have been marked by activity of trade and prosperity. Carey, the American economist, pointed out that the periods of Protection, 1813, 1828, 1842, and 1861 gave: "Wages high and money cheappublic and private revenues large-immigration great and increasing; whilst the periods of 'Free-Trade,' 1817, 1834, 1846, and 1857 bequeathed: Labor everywhere seeking to be employed, wages low, money high; public and private revenues small and decreasing; immigration declining, public and private bankruptcy nearly universal."

I am in favor of Tariff Reform because we acquired our commercial and industrial supremacy, as well as our position as the capitalist nation of the world, under a policy of strict Protection, and we are losing these advantages under the policy of so-called "Free-Trade."

Due to Fortuitous Circumstances.

The prosperity which we enjoyed in the "fifties," although unfairly claimed as the work of Free-Trade, was due to other causes, namely, gold discoveries, inventions in science, steam, navigation, railways, etc., which have been shared by foreign nations. Having laid the foundations of our industrial prosperity under Protection, and having thereby secured the command of the world's markets, we were not merely the first, but for many years the only, country able to utilize these new forces that then came into play; and for more than twenty years, fortuitous events, such as the Crimean war in the "fifties," Civil war in the United States and Continental disturbances in Europe in the "sixties," retarded the progress of foreign nations; but as soon as foreign Protectionist nations were able to avail themselves of the new industrial conditions, they successfully competed with us, even in our own markets, and our country is now flooded with the productions of those very nations whom we formerly supplied.

Since that time many of our industries have been ruined, and have practically disappeared: Our agriculture, silk, sugar refining, and other important industries have been seriously injured, and others are struggling hard for existence. Unemployment is becoming almost universal; direct taxation is increasing to an intolerable extent; capital is fast leaving the country. The enormous excess of the value of our imports over that of our exports shows that we are consuming more than we produce, and that we are living to a great extent on the interest of that capital which we gained in former days of prosperity; and this accounts for the fact that we have of late years been parting largely with our foreign securities in payments to Protectionist countries.

Our colonies are becoming more and more Protectionist in their policy, and are prospering under it. Many of our best workmen have emigrated to the United States, where they obtain higher remuneration for their labor.

The capital expended by us in purchasing abroad much that might have been manufactured at home, has armed Protectionist countries with the "sinews of war," in competition with us.

Instead of fostering our own industries, and providing employment for our working classes, we purchase annually from foreign countries between £400,000,000 and £500,000,000 worth of produce, most of which we could well have produced ourselves or in our colonies.

GUILFORD L. MOLESWORTH.

Tariff and Cost of Living.

If the Payne Tariff act is responsible for the advance in cost of living which has taken place in England, Germany, Belgium, France and the other industrial countries of Europe, then the United States must be a larger factor in the world's economy than any of our spreadeagle orators imagine. Except as it has given more employment and better wages to workers the Tariff has not advanced the cost of living in the United States. As the Tariff furnishes more money to the worker than he would otherwise have, it enables him to eat better things, to wear better clothes, and to have more conveniences and comforts for himself and his family. To the extent that the worker is enabled to make more purchases and enjoy more of the desirable things of life, the Tariff has advanced the cost of living. The American worker who is willing to live in the same style and to suffer the same discomforts as his European counterpart will find the cost very little greater here than he does there. But what American, native, naturalized or alien, is willing to live in the squalid fashion of men in his craft in Europe? Let Democrats turn to this aspect of the question and tells us what they think of it.-Capitol Hill (Okla.) News.

"Somebody Stop Us!"

The Tariff tinkerers remind us of the old farmer who wanted to break a bull calf to the yoke. He had no other calf, so he put one end of the yoke on the calf's neck and the other end on his own neck. This way he and the calf moved around quite nicely for a few moments when the calf became "rambunkious" and started down a steep hill from the barnyard, putting the old man to his best to keep up his end of the yoke. Seeing what the finish was likely to be, he yelled for help, saying: "Some one come quick and stop us two durn fools!"-Greenville (O.) Courier.

TINPLATE MISREPRESENTATION.

Miss Tarbell's Hallucination—Facts Ignored to Help Free Trade - A Specimen Yarn.

San Francisco Chronicle.

That wonderful dispenser of misinformation, Ida M. Tarbell, whose scintillations find a place in one of the muckraking magazines, remarked in a recent article: "We are paying nearly twice as much for tin pans and tin plates because their manufacturers have gone into the Steel Trust, and so destroyed all domestic competition."

If the Tarbell were a man we should be tempted to say that the statement is a deliberate lie, but as she is a woman, we shall merely assume that she is laboring under a hallucination.

There is before us a table of quotations of tin plate prices for October 27, 1888, to June 22, 1891, which shows that they ranged from $6.09 per box of 112 pounds to $4.97, the latter low figure being quoted in May and June, 1889, and the average for the three years being considerably above $5.50 per box.

This was during a period of general low prices, and while tin plates were only paying a nominal duty. As soon as a Protective duty was imposed, one that really Protected, the industry expanded with great rapidity, and in a very few years attained such a volume of output that foreign tin plates were no longer imported, excepting for re-export purposes.

No one with any knowledge of the effect of production on prices would suppose that the result we have described could have occurred without bringing about a great reduction. The McKinley bill became operative in July, 1891. The quotations of the three months preceding show that prices ranged from $6 to $5.70 per box. Eight years later they were quoted at $4.06; in 1902 the average was $3.93; it was $3.69 in 1906, and in 1909 it was $3.50 per box.

The average annual price of tin plates of domestic manufacture during the past eleven years has been $3.81 per box, a price never touched during the period when the British tinplate makers controlled the market, and when prices of all staple products were low throughout the world.

These are facts and Miss Tarbell's statements are misrepresentations.

Under the Constitution it is impossible for Congress to delegate its powers to any other body. The regulation of the Tariff, therefore, cannot be left to a commission. Such a board can only suggest, and has not the least assurance that Congress will act favorably upon recommendations. Freeport (Ill.) Journal.

BOARD OF MANAGERS.
Augustus G. Paine, N. M.
A. R. Wilson, New York.
Lyman B. Goff, R. I.
George R. Meyercord, Ill.
Henry B. Joy, Mich.
J. F. Hanson, Georgia.
Charles A. Moore, N. Y.
Theodore Justice, Penna.
William Barbour, N. J.
Francis L. Leland, N. Y.

Charles E. Coffin, Md.
Charles Cheney, Ct.
A. D. Juilliard, N. Y.
Joseph R. Grundy, Penna.
A. H. Heisey, Ohio.
John E. Reyburn, Penna.
William Whitman, Mass.
R. G. Wagner. Wis.
John Hopewell, Mass.
Homer Laughlin, Cal.

NEW YORK, FRIDAY, JAN. 13, 1911

339 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. TELEPHONE, 5690 FRANKLIN.

Annual Meeting Notice.

To Defenders and Contributors:

The annual meeting of the members of The American Protective Tariff League for the election of five managers for the term of four years, and the annual meeting of the Board of Managers for the election of officers, executive and standing committees for the ensuing year, will be held on Thursday, Jan. 26, 1911, at 12 o'clock (noon) at the headquarters of the Tariff League, 339 Broadway, New York. The terms of office of the following named members of the Board of Managers will expire:

Charles A. Moore, of New York. Theodore Justice, of Pennsylvania. William Barbour, of New Jersey. Charles E. Coffin, of Maryland. J. F. Hanson, of Georgia (deceased). In view of the fact that many matters affecting the policy of the Tariff League will come before the meeting which demand the best counsel and advice, we hope to have a large attendance of our members and contributors.

Yours very truly,

W. F. WAKEMAN, WM. BARBOUR, General Secretary. President.

Tariff Legislation.

At the last annual meeting of the American Protective Tariff League the following resolutions were adopted:

Whereas, Free-Traders and Tariff "reformers" seem to have fallen back upon the plan of a permanent non-partisan Tariff commission as a means of keeping the Tariff in a perpetual state of "reform" and agitation,

Resolved, That the American Protective Tariff League is unalterably opposed to the creation of any such body.

First: We are satisfied with the permanent Tariff commission which already exists, namely, the Congress of the United States.

Second: We doubt the wisdom or legality of delegating the powers now resting in the Congress to any appointed body.

Resolved, That we have every confidence in the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives and in the Senate Finance Committee.

Resolved, That the Tariff League stands ready to give to those committees and to Congress every support in its power by way of the most complete information as to the needs of American industrials and the needs of American labor.

In another column will be found the latest Washington news regarding the development of the Tariff board and a Tariff commission. In the Tariff Act of 1909, at the end of Section 2 is the authority under which the present Tariff board was organized, as follows:

To secure information to assist the President in the discharge of the duties imposed upon him by this section, and the officers of the Government in the administration of the customs laws, the President is hereby authorized to employ such persons as may be required.

The first year's operation of the Tariff board required an appropriation of $75,000 and last year Congress increased this appropriation to $250,000 and also increased the powers of the board. We opposed the organization of this Tariff board and have opposed a permanent Tariff commission in harmony with the resolutions quoted above.

We always

believed that if even a limited authority were granted to such a board it would gradually grow into a permanent Tariff commission. The opponents of Protection have been prominent in every movement to transfer the Tariff board into a permanent Tariff commission. Very few consistent Protectionists have cooperated.

Without fear of contradiction we assert that members of the Tariff board and its employees while under government salary, presumably to find weaknesses in the Tariff act of 1909, have, with their personal friends, given a great deal of their time to aid in promoting legislation to provide for the future of the present Tariff board or to create a permanent Tariff commission. This is well illustrated by the advance notice of chairman Emery's speech delivered on January 11, which was mailed from Washington on January 7 and received at this office on Monday, Jan. 9. It is surprising that the exact number of delegates could be named last Saturday as present at the Tariff commission convention this week. It is also surprising that the organization of the convention

could be so accurately foretold or prophesied.

This will illustrate the methods followed by the advocates of a permanent Tariff commission. We do not believe that the country or its authorized representatives will approve such methods or pass a law like the proposed Longworth measure, which is also printed in this issue.

However, as stated in the resolutions of the Tariff League a year ago, we have great confidence in the Congress of the United States and whatever it shall do in this line will have our co-operation.

The Reign of Shoddy.

At the Wool Growers' Convention in Portland, Ore., last week, the results of past Tariff legislation were placarded on the walls, one of which related that from 1891 to 1894, under the McKinley law, the importation of woolen rags, shoddy and waste amounted to 908,803 pounds; from 1894 to 1897, under the Wilson law, the total was 86,263,630 pounds; from 1898 to 1909, inclusive, under the Dingley. law, 7,010,693 pounds.

If Schedule K is revised to suit the Democrats there will be a repetition of the deluge of shoddy that flowed into the country under the Wilson law. Judge Lowell told the convention that it had a right to demand that shoddy goods offered for sale should be marked as shoddy. That is correct. If such goods were not sold under false names, and the buyers swindled, there would be less objection to their presence on the market.

Free-Trade England is the great home of shoddy. More of it is used in that country than in all of the rest of the world. Free-Trade, as shown by the Democratic Wilson law, would bring about a similar disgraceful result in the United States.

A Long Way From Wall Street.

The farmer is at least willing that the Tariff should be investigated schedule by schedule. but Lafe Young wants nothing of this kind. This accounts for Mr. Young being so frequently quoted in the AMERICAN ECONOMIST, the rankest trust paper that is published. The AMERICAN ECONOMIST is edited and printed by Wall Street. And when they quote a manyou can depend on it that gentleman is not bucking the trusts to any great extent. Lafe Young is a Lafe Young man, and always will be.-Waukon (Ia.) Standard.

Wall Street, on the subject of Protection, is blind, indifferent, ignorant. It cares little or nothing for the rights of American labor. Its chief concern is to get some other fellow's money. It has not even the sense to see that increased imports and diminished trade balances will in time wreck American finance. Less than a mile away in distance, no newspaper on earth is in sentiment and sympathy farther away from Wall Street than is the AMERICAN ECONOMIST.

A Strange Situation.

Although so much is said about the alleged high duties on wool Consul A. E. Ingram of Bradford, England, reports that more wool was shipped to the United States in the last fiscal year under the new Tariff, than ever before. In 1889 the exports of manufactured goods to the United States were in value $18,779,234, and of raw and half manufactured goods $4,036,360, making a total of $22,815,594. But under a Protective Tariff, notwithstanding the enormous increase in population, the value of the exports last year of manufactures was only $11,775,943, a decline of $7,003,291, while of the raw material there was an increase of over $4,000,000. Under the Tariff, the United States is

doing largely its own manufacturing, as is evident from the export to this country last year of over $1,000,000 worth of tex

tile machinery.

ning firms is considering the advisability of establishing works in the United States. In fact many English silk manufacturers are already producing in this country, and our output of silk has increased enormously while that of Britain has greatly declined-still further evidence of the difference between Protection and FreeTrade.

Illustrating Insurgent Object.

Representative Mann, of Illinois, has introduced fifteen "pop gun" Tariff bills into the House of Representatives, which propose to put on the free list a hundred or more commodities, many of them of every day use. The object of the Illinois Representative is to "show up" one of the reform rules forced upon the House by the Insurgents at the last session of Congress, and at the same time to bring to a vote, if possible, Tariff propositions on the single schedule plan that will illustrate how such legislation will operate. One of the reform rules which was adopted at the last session provides that

The Yorkshire Observer recently said: "Forty years ago Lancashire supplied the world including America with cotton and consumed much the largest share of cotton crop. Now America uses more cotton than Lancashire." That is further testimony to the beneficial effect of the Tariff. But owing to the starvation wages paid in Lancashire, England buys raw cotton from the United States and exports the manufactured goods to other nations, including even those on this continent. When the United States protects its shipping in the foreign trade, and aids more in promoting the export trade, this country will do its fair share of that trade in cotton goods to the further loss of our competitors.

In 1895 Bradford sent $8,561,228 in value of worsted coatings to the United States. But in 1909 she sent only $744,094 and even that was over double the aggregate of the previous year. In 1897 Bradford sent $717,320 of heavy woolen cloths to this country, but in 1909 only $64,202, and there was a decline of $1,500,000 in the same time in the export of cotton linings, all incontestable evidence of the growth of home production in this country under the Tariff. The Observer says that one of the largest local silk spin

nation. But the cry is for more of such legislation as brought about that disastrous result which this country could not long endure without a return of such uafortunate conditions as marked the last rule of the Democratic party in this country. The strange thing now is that socalled insurgent Republicans are aiding in bringing this great misfortune on the country.

Consul E. H. Cheney reports that six cents a day is paid for making hats at Curacao, and that they are sold for $1 a dozen for export to the United States. That is the kind of labor Tariff reformers propose to put the workers of the United States in free competition with.

a motion may be made on certain days to provide for the discharge of a committee from further consideration of any measure before it. This new rule also provides that a bill taken from a committee in that way must be

read in full. Mr. Mann has a bill at the head of the calendar now which will come up whenever a motion is made to discharge a committee and that bill will require three legislative days to read. For that reason no motion has so far been made at this session to discharge a committee from re'porting on any bill before it. That illustrates the folly of the new rule.

The new "pop gun" Tariff bills will put various products in all sections of the country, particularly in the West and South, on the free list. Western and Southern members do not want these articles on the free list and, of course, they will oppose such legislation, and expose their object in revising the rules which was to put products of other sections, particularly of the East, on the free list or to reduce the Tariff on them. But when it comes to their home products they want no such legislation. Therefore Mr. Mann's bills will have a good effect in showing the inconsistency of these Tariff reformers.

Louisiana has elected a Protectionist Senator. He seems to be a Republican in all but name. We can stand a lot of Democrats of this stripe.--Philadelphia Inquirer.

Still Chasing the Reciprocity Rainbow.

The attitude of the farmers of the Canadian Northwest regarding Protection and Free-Trade is not altogether unlike the attitude of certain people in New England. The Canadian farmers are fierce for Free-Trade in farm products. They have a big surplus to dispose of, and if they are allowed to put their stuff over the border without paying any Tariff they are perfectly willing that the industries of Eastern Canada should be sacrificed on the altar of Free-Trade. Also the reciprocity shouters of New England want Free-Trade in Canada's farm products, so they may get their foodstuffs cheaper, and if they can have this privilege they are perfectly willing to sacrifice the American farmers of the food-producing sections of the Middle West on the altar of Free-Trade. But there is a difference. The Canadian farmers are Free-Traders and don't hesitate to say so; while the New England reciprocity shouters claim to be Protectionists. The Canadian farmers are honest and consistent; the New Englanders are not.

But neither the Canadian farmers nor the New England near-Free-Traders are likely to get what they want. American farmers are so big an element in American politics that no political party can afford to trade off their rights and interests in a reciprocity dicker which would let in Canada's competing farm products free of duty. Neither the Republican nor the Democratic party would dare to do such a thing. On the other hand, the industrialists of Eastern Canada are SO strong in the large centers of population that no Canadian government will take the risk of trading off their rights and interests in a reciprocity dicker which I would let in American manufactures at low duties or no duties. This situation is so perfectly obvious that President Taft ought to see it clearly. Yet the dream of reciprocity with Canada continues to be dreamed at Washington. In a dispatch to the New York Tribune from Washington, December 22, we read:

In preparation for negotiations on Canadian reciprocity President Taft held an extended conference with Secretary Knox and Chandler Anderson, counselor of the State Department, who was recently appointed to the place made vacant by the death of Henry M. Hoyt.

The prospects for a successful issue of the negotiations are brighter at present than they have been at any other time since the subject was brought up in connection with the Tariff agreement by which Canada obtained the minimum rates under the Payne-Aldrich law. far no serious obstacles have arisen. President Taft's efforts to pave the way for the negotiations have been unusually successful, and there has been much evidence of a responsive feeling in Canada.

So

The negotiations will be taken up directly with the Canadian representatives early in January in Washington. Mr. Anderson has been giving most of his time to the question and carrying on the investigations interrupted by the death of Mr. Hoyt. The conference to-day was for the purpose of gathering up the loose ends and mapping out the field to be covered by the agreement.

A Tariff Lesson.

Consul Henry B. Miller of Belfast, Ireland, reports some significant facts as to wages in that country, which should interest Tariff reformers in the United States. Mr. Milier says that farm laborers receive from $1.70 to $2.20 per week, with board. That is the effect of Free Trade. Ireland used to live almost entirely by agriculture. She had at that Then Freetime 9,000,000 inhabitants. Trade was forced on the country and its population now is 4,800,000 with such wages as Consul Miller quotes. The wheat area of the country has shrunk from The 740,000 acres to less than 40,000. Scottish Council for women's trades made an investigation of the condition of home workers in the north of Ireland and reported that for making embroidery, handkerchiefs, pillows, table linen, etc., wages in no case exceed two cents an hour, and with very steady work the earnings do not exceed $1.68 per week. Workshop hands in the factories earn on an average twice that amount or $3.36 per week. The most highly skilled and expert workers cannot earn more than $4.86 per week in the factories. The report on the homeworkers says:

"In many cases the wages here are below a bare subsistence level, and are supplemented by the earnings of other members of the family and by private and public charity. Children as young as seven years of age were found working from In winter, when the 9:00 A. M. to 9:00 P. M. hours are shorter and the work more intermittent, the earnings are still less."

Mr. J. Ellis Barker, an English author of several well-known books, says that the average earnings of all wage earners for full employment in the cotton trade in England is $4.50 a week; in the woolen trade it is the same; in the worsted trade it is $3.50, and the same in the clothing trade, while in the linen trade it is less

than $3. These are scarcely living wages. For every single woman employed in mill work in America two are so employed in Free-Trade England, notwithstanding the great disparity in population. Free-Trade means not only sweating on the largest scale, but female labor. It drives the women into the factories and the men out of England. England's principal exports are of goods that are made by under-paid labor. These are textiles and the average wage in the British textile trade is less than $4 a week for all workers in full employment. The real wage is much lower because of the great amount of unemployment and of short time.

During the last fifty years the consumption of wool in England has doubled while that of shoddy has grown sixfold. FreeTrade England has the proud distinction of being the largest importer of rags in the world, bringing in an average of fifty thousand tons a year of woolen rags, and curiously enough the bulk of these come from the three greatest Protection countries in the world, the United States, Germany and France. As Mr. Barker says, Cobden prophesied that England would always remain the workshop of the world, but Free-Trade has made her the rag shop of the world, and the rag-pickers of the universe gather from the dust heap rags to send to Free-Trade Britain to be manufactured into cheap clothes. America imports a great quantity of jam and marmalade from Great Britain, because labor is the most expensive article in their production, and British jam is made principally by women and girls who are paid from $1 to $2.50 a week.

With Protection to its labor, the United States can produce anything now imported from the United Kingdom. Under Protection a large number of English silk manufacturers have come to the United States and the American silk industry is now by far the largest in the world. It consumes fifteen times more of raw silk than does the industry in Great Britain.

Another illustration of the effect of the Tariff is found in iron and steel. In 1867 the United States put a Tariff on steel rails which before that time had not been made in this country. Under Protection the United States has built up the largest iron and steel industry in the world, and whereas sixty years ago England produced three times as much of those commodities as did the United States, to-day the output of the latter is three times that of Great Britain. That is the result of the Protective Tariff. Tinplate is another illustration. Before the McKinley law became effective none of it was produced here. Now this country produces all of its own tinplate, and imports none except for use in exporting certain goods, and on that plate there is a drawback of the duty paid. The price of tinplate in this country is much lower, and the consumption of the product has increased enor

mously. Over 200,000 English workers emigrate every year on the average and a large proportion of them come into the United States. American workmen have four billion dollars in savings banks, while British workingmen have only one billion.

But notwithstanding these facts the Democratic Party wants to impose the British Free-Trade system on the United States, and is assisted in that endeavor by a considerable number of so called Insurgent Republicans. They will not succeed but they may in their efforts do enormous injury to the country as they did under President Cleveland, by taking formidable steps in the direction of FreeTrade.

A Tariff Commission.

The methods that have been followed by H. E. Miles, of Madison, Wis., and other enemies of a Protective Tariff, to work up a feeling in favor of a permanent Tariff commission, are well known by those who have been watching their proceedings. They could have accomplished nothing had not President Taft spoken so often in favor of a commission.

Many Republicans who have studied the subject for years, and who have opposed the commission proposition, believing that it would keep the Tariff agitation constantly active to the great injury of business, without accomplishing any good result, have become quiescent in view of the course of the President. This has enabled Mr. Miles and his followers to carry on their work, and to raise plenty of money for that purpose, hence the "convention" and banquet this week in Washington to promote legislation.

Even if any measure should be passed by Congress there is every probability that it would soon become fruitless, as the next House of Representatives, with its Democratic majority, will not appropriate money to continue what the Democrats assert is useless work. Already hundreds of thousands of dollars have been appropriated for the Tariff board without accomplishing anything of value. With the varying cost of production in this country, as well as in every other nation, the avowed object of the Tariff board is impossible of attainment.

A good illustration of the hypocrisy of the movement is furnished in the copy sent out last week from the Tariff board to the newspapers, in advance of the assembling of the delegates this week in Washington, telling of what "was done." The following is a copy of the first part of that manuscript, with a condensation made by THE ECONOMIST of Mr. Emery's speech:

Speech of Professor Henry C. Emery, Chairman of the Tariff board, at the opening session of the National Tariff Association Convention, Washington, Jan. 11, 1911.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11.-The annual convention of the National Tariff Commission Association opened this morning at the Columbia Theatre with over 700 delegates from all parts of the United States in attendance. It was an unusual gathering of business men that was called to order at 10:30 by John C. Cobb, of Boston, the president of the association. There were present representatives of practically every important commercial organization of the country, in addition to those chosen by the governors of many States and the mayors of the larger cities. Many Senators and Representatives were also present; some as the appointed delegates of their States, and others as the invited guests of the National Tariff Commission Association. Following the invocation by the chaplain of the Senate, the Rev. Ulysses G. B. Pierce, the principal speaker of the session, Henry C. Emery, chairman of the Tariff board, was introduced. Professor Emery said:

"My connection with this question has been limited to one year of experience along lines which are at least a beginning in this direction. The Tariff board and its work up to date are purely the creation of the President. The appointments were in no sense of a political nature. 1 know, for instance, that my own appointment was settled before it was known whether I was a Republican or a Democrat, a Protectionist or a Free-Trader. I understand that you are here to urge that what he has done under his authority as President shall be made continuous by act of Congress. I take it that what you want from me today is simply the benefit of our practical experience in this new line of work. Frankly, I think I may say that many of you have been, and still are, somewhat at sea as to the detailed working of your own program. I am sure that it has taken the members of the present board a long time to make definite their own ideas on this subject. If I may make a personal reference, let me say that before undertaking this work I had for many years studied the methods of Tariff-making, and the effects of the Tariff, in this and other countries; that Mr. Sanders had for years been an earnest and disinterested advocate of the idea of a Tariff commission; and that Mr. Reynolds had long been in charge of the practical administration of our customs laws. And yet we recognize frankly today that our ideas regarding the work of a Tariff commission are not only more definite, but are in some ways radically different from what they were when we first met a year ago. It is impossible at this time to go into details on these points. I can assure you, from our experience, that we confident that thorough and accurate information can be obtained. There are many difficulties, and different lines of inquiry must be adopted in different cases. On your main contention, however, that the government can secure adequate and unbiased information for such purposes, you are unquestionably correct.

are

It

"Your next point, as I see it, is that such action to be worth while should not be in the nature of a report as to the conditions at any one moment of time, but should be kept permanently up to date by a permanent investigating body. This body, if I understand your purpose. shall watch and study, from year to year and month to month, changing conditions of business with reference to sources of material, new processes of production and the varying conditions of market competition at home and abroad. is to be an investigating body purely. It shall be no part of its business to have any theories regarding the Tariff, or to make any recommendations as to whether or not Protection is needed, or how much Protection is needed. We are convinced that a temporary body making a report on some particular Tariff act cannot perform service which will warrant either the time or money expended, but that a continuous body ready with information at any time will be of genuine and permanent service to the country. There has been much discussion as to the particular character of such a commission as you urge, and still more as to how its duties and powers should be determined in detail. I do not consider these questions of vital importance. As an association you ought to realize the futility of constantly harping upon the antagonism between producer and consumer, or manufacturer and merchant. Many of you manufacture goods. You all consume goods, and you all buy and sell goods."

Mr. Emery does not help himself by stating that he was appointed without the President knowing as to whether or not he was "a Republican or a Democrat,

a Protectionist or a Free-Trader." Mr. Emery was a professor of political economy, in Yale, of which university the President is a governor, and as such professor Mr. Emery had written a good deal antagonistic to the Protective Tariff. To say that his views were unknown to the President is trifling with the public. Mr. Emery admits that the members of the Tariff Board have radically different ideas on the subject now from those they held a year ago. What course they will take a year hence is a matter of conjecture. The statement that they can secure "thorough and adequate information" as to the cost of producing articles the subject of Tariff legislation is in direct conflict with the views of men the most qualified to speak on that subject, as well as with the opinion expressed by the President of the United States. But if Mr. Emery can get a large salary as a permanent Tariff commissioner he will accomplish his purpose.

Senator Young's Wise Utterance.

Senator Lafayette Young, of Iowa, is receiving a great deal of commendation from the farmers of his State for his recent speech in the United States Senate on the Tariff question. Senator Young not only understands this question, but he has the courage of his convictions. Mr. Young proclaimed the doctrine that Protection must be for all or for none, that if one section must face Free-Trade as to its products, all sections must have FreeTrade as to their products. It is a sound doctrine, and if the Tariff reformers are brought face to face with this question their numbers will diminish rapidly. Mr. Young warned the West that when it lost Protection for its agricultural products, the East would lose Protection for its manufactured products. That is the true state of affairs, and Iowa has no safer representative in Congress than Mr. Young, and it will be fortunate for that State if he should be returned to the Senate.

Consul Lowrie of Carlsbad reports that wages in the Breux-Teplitz-Komotan districts of Austria, where 35,000 miners are employed, are 80 cents to $1 a day for the miners, and from 60 to 80 cents for the men employed about the shafts, etc. The "Tariff reformers" in the United States think such wages sufficient to support an American family. But American workmen do not agree with that Free-Trade conclusion.

Consul C. R. Slocum of Fiume, Austria, reports that the wages of a manual laborer there average from 61 to 81 cents a day, and that his food is usually cornmeal and fish, while meat is a luxury. Free-Traders in the United States think that American workmen should be made to compete with such poorly paid labor.