growth of trusts has invalidated, to a damaging extent, the traditional argument in defence of protection; and it is not strange that of late the present tariff has been roughly handled even in the house of its friends. "Our infants," as a prominent Republican recently remarked, "have become big enough to rob the old man."

The next ground of complaint is found in the duties that are now imposed upon certain raw materials. The tax on hides has aroused lively opposition among the boot and shoe manufacturers of New England. That upon coal attracted general attention during the anthracite strike, and our people have learned that it was sneaked" into the Dingley bill by the sharp manœuvres of a malodorous Pennsylvania boss. The duties upon wool are exorbitantly high, even from a protectionist point of view; and they are serving to narrow that portion of the woolen market in which the competition of other fabrics is seriously felt.

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A fourth reason for discontent appeals to those who desire freer commercial relations with Canada. From the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Rio Grande to the Great Lakes, Americans may trade with Americans without let or hindrance. But on our northern border a chain of custom-houses draws a dead-line beyond which trade may not be pushed, save upon payment of heavy fines. The protectionists, it is true, have always attached a profound economic significance to the imaginary line which separates American from Canadian soil; but their arguments have never appealed with great force to business men who have desired to prosecute a profitable trade beyond our northern frontier. In recent years our merchants have watched the growth of a movement toward the establishment of an Imperial customs union, by which Great Britain and her leading colonies would accord to one another mutual advantages that would be denied to other countries. Duties that discriminate against American imports have already been laid by Canada, and it is not impossible that Great Britain may yet accord to Canadian wheat preferential rates over American. Thus a renewed interest has been aroused in reciprocity with our northern neighbor.

And so it has come about that the politicians are observing the temper of their constituents, in order to ascertain whether it is safe to refuse to modify the present law. Upon every hand, it is recognized that modification will mean a reduction or a repeal

of existing duties; of an increase, absolutely nothing is heard. Eight years ago, the protected industries had good reason to think that the favors which they had extorted from Congress were safe for a generation to come; to-day, they are upon the defensive, and fight merely to retain what they now have. He would have been deemed a rash prophet who had ventured to make such a prediction in the year 1897.

II.

At a moment when a reduction of protective duties seems to be only a question of time, it may be worth while to invite attention to a simple object-lesson of the benefits that flow from unrestricted commercial intercourse. The writer does not imagine that absolute freedom of trade is to be established; and he would not argue that an immediate repeal of all duties would be desirable, even if that were possible. But it does seem probable that protectionism reached the height of its power in 1897, and that the future belongs to the advocates of a more liberal policy. If, then, we have finally reached the top of the divide, it is time to prospect the country that lies beyond.

A careful survey of the ground, it is believed, will demonstrate that a system of free exchange involves nothing that is essentially different, in its economic nature, from what the people of the United States have practised in their domestic affairs for more than one hundred years. Over a territory nearly as large as the whole of Europe, our Constitution established absolute freedom of trade, and under this policy all sections of the country have grown and prospered. Of this a striking object-lesson may be drawn from that fastest stronghold of protectionism, the State of Pennsylvania; and this, too, from the commonwealth's leading industry, the manufacture of iron and steel.

In 1870, the iron trade of Pennsylvania was located chiefly in the eastern part of the State, near the deposits of iron ore as well as the anthracite coal-fields that supplied the principal form of fuel then used in smelting. During the next twenty years, however, revolutionary changes occurred, and the seat of the industry was transferred to the vicinity of Pittsburg. This revolution was due principally to two causes. In the first place, bituminous coal, mainly in the form of coke, superseded anthracite as the fuel for the blast-furnace; and this favored the growth of iron manufactures near the bituminous mines in the western part

of the State. Then, in the second place, the ores produced in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania were largely displaced by those secured in the region south and west of Lake Superior. This circumstance, also, compelled the migration of Pennsylvania's iron trade to a location nearer the rich mines of Michigan and Minnesota. Connellsville coke and Lake Superior ores have been the decisive factors in determining the supremacy of the Pittsburg district; without them, the progress of recent decades would have been impossible.

Pennsylvania was fortunate in possessing the bituminous coal that has given to Connelleville coke its exceptional availability for the purposes of the ironmaster; but, in respect to the supply of iron ore, her situation was far less favorable. Since 1860 the cost of manufacturing steel has been so greatly cheapened that this material has largely displaced iron, and its production has increased enormously. The greater part of the product has been obtained by the processes invented by Sir Henry Bessemer, although other methods have found increasing employment in recent years. Pennsylvania has large deposits of iron ore; but the output of some mines contains too much sulphur or phosphorus to be of Bessemer grade, while other ores, although freer from these troublesome substances, yield a relatively small proportion of pure iron. In both of these particulars the ore that comes from the Lake region is unexcelled, and improved methods of mining and transportation have enabled it to find its way into remote Eastern markets. Thus it has come about that Pennsylvania ores have played an insignificant part in the recent development of the steel industry of that State.

Another result of the increased use of Lake Superior ores has been the rapid growth of the iron and steel trade in Ohio and Illinois. A considerable part of the ore is transported to Chicago, where it is smelted with fuel brought from the mines of Pennsylvania or West Virginia; still more is carried to Toledo, Cleveland, and other points on Lake Erie, where it is claimed by the ironmasters of Ohio. Connellsville or West Virginia coke can be brought to these points at comparatively small expense, and the manufacture of iron and steel has increased with leaps and bounds. In 1880, Illinois produced but 85,000 tons of pig iron, while in 1900 her output was 1,469,000. In the former year, Ohio's product was 489,000 tons, and in the latter it rose to

2,559,000.* Twenty years ago, these two States produced only one third as much pig iron as Pennsylvania; to-day the proportion has increased to nearly two-thirds.

Attention has been called to these facts because they show the important part which the introduction of Lake ores has played in the recent growth of the iron and steel trade of the United States. The industry has naturally gravitated toward the West, Ohio and Illinois have forged their way to the front, and Pennsylvania has maintained her position as the leading producer only by making strenuous efforts to secure the best available ores at the lowest possible cost. If she had failed in this, her sceptre would have passed to other hands; so that her steel industry today is an eloquent witness to the importance of free trade in the raw materials upon which its success depends.

III.

So much for the historical facts and their obvious interpretation. We may now consider what would have been the result if freedom of exchange had not existed. Let us suppose that in 1880 Pennsylvania had been an independent commonwealth, free, therefore, to regulate her external commercial relations in whatever manner she might desire. She had important interests that centered in the production of iron ore; she had also a dominating position in the iron and steel trade of North America. Both of these industries, doubtless, would have claimed the fostering care of the Government, and would have been protected by substantial duties upon the importation of competing products. Free trade with such a foreign community as New Jersey would not have been tolerated for a moment, and the boundary line between the Keystone and the Empire States would have possessed profound economic significance.

Suddenly there arises in this blest land of protection, whose peace is never disturbed by the voice of a free-trader, the spectre of impending ruin to one of its great industries. Upon the southern shores of Lake Superior some wonderful iron mines had been developed, and it was rumored that even greater deposits

Equally interesting are the figures showing the production of steel in all its forms. In 1880, Ohio and Illinois manufactured 628,000 tons of steel products, and Pennsylvania's output was 1,483,000. In 1900, the former States produced 4,222,000 tons, while the latter manufactured 8,503,000.

had been discovered still farther to the west. In 1860, the entire output from this region was hardly more than one hundred thousand tons, and the intervening distance was so great that it seemed impossible that the ore could ever be brought into Eastern markets. Under such circumstances, Pennsylvania had been content to impose upon iron very moderate duties, which had been "scientifically" adjusted by a commission of "experts," so that they precisely covered the difference between the cost of production in the best mines of New York or New Jersey and that which prevailed in the poorest local mines that it seemed worth while to keep in operation. But now the development of the resources of the Lake region and a great improvement of means of transportation had enabled Michigan ores to come into Pennsylvania over the barrier set by the protective duties, while, moreover, the steel manufacturers were showing a decided preference for the imported product. By 1880 the output from the Lake Superior mines almost equalled the amount produced by Pennsylvania, and it seemed that a veritable inundation of Western ores was about to take place.

Immediately the owners of iron mines began to clamor for higher duties. They represented enterprises which, according to a census taken that very year, employed nearly nine thousand men and a capital of $17,621,000. Upon this imperilled industry the livelihood of nearly fifty thousand people depended. Could the land that had produced an economist like Carey and a statesman like Kelley idly watch the destruction of such important interests?

When the question was first raised, the steel manufacturers contended that the duties were already too high, because the welfare of their industry depended upon their ability to secure good Bessemer ores. This action called forth a long letter from "Pigiron Kelley," who justly rebuked the steel men for their selfish attitude. He showed them that protection must be a national policy that applied equally to all industries, and intimated that the representatives from the eastern counties would vote to remove the tariff upon steel if the people from the Pittsburg district refused to deal fairly with the producers of iron ore. When Mr. Carnegie, the spokesman of the steel manufacturers, replied that there was no adequate reason for increasing the existing tariff on ore, Mr. Kelley retorted that, in Pennsylvania, the burden of