have been representing themselves both as peculiarly solicitous for the interests of the Philippine people and as special champions of the lowering of tariff duties. There is a distinctly humorous side to the fact that the reduction of duties which would benefit Cuba and the Philippines as well as ourselves, was antagonized chiefly by those who in theory have been fond of proclaiming themselves the advanced guardians of the oppressed nationalities in the islands affected and the ardent advocates of the reductions of duties generally, but who instantly took violent ground against the practical steps to accomplish either purpose.

Moreover, a law was enacted putting anthracite on the free list and completely removing the duties on all other kinds of coal for one year.

We are now in a condition of prosperity unparalleled not merely in our own history but in the history of any other nation. This prosperity is deep rooted and stands on a firm basis because it is due to the fact that the average American

has in him the stuff out of which victors are made in the great industrial contests of the present day, just as in the great military contests of the past; and because he is now able to use and develop his qualities to best advantage under our well-established economic system. We are winning headship among the nations of the world because our people are able to keep their high average of individual citizenship and to show their mastery in the hard, complex, pushing life of the age. There will be fluctuations from time to time in our prosperity, but it will continue to grow just so long as we keep up this high average of individual citizenship and permit it to work out its own salvation under proper economic legislation.

The present phenomenal prosperity has been won under a tariff which was made in accordance with certain fixed and definite principles, the most important of which is an avowed determination to protect the interests of the American producer, business man, wage-worker, and

farmer alike. The general tariff policy, to which without regard to changes in detail, I believe this country is irrevocably committed, is fundamentally based upon ample recognition of the difference between the cost of production —that is, the cost of labor-here and abroad, and of the need to see to it that our laws shall in no event afford advantage in our own market to foreign industries over American industries, to foreign capital over American capital, to foreign labor over our own labor. This country has and this country needs better-paid, bettereducated, better-fed, and better-clothed workingmen, of a higher type, than are to be found in any foreign country. It has and it needs a higher, more vigorous, and more prosperous type of tillers of the soil than is possessed by any other country. The business men, the merchants and manufacturers, and the managers of the transportation interests show the same superiority when compared with men of their type abroad. The events of the last few years have

shown how skillfully the leaders of American industry use in international business competition the mighty industrial weapons forged for them by the resources of our country, the wisdom of our laws, and the skill, the inventive genius, and the administrative capacity of our people.

It is, of course, a mere truism to say that we want to use everything in our power to foster the welfare of our entire body politic. In other words, we need to treat the tariff as a business proposition, from the standpoint of the interests of the country as a whole, and not with reference to the temporary needs of any political party. It is almost as necessary that our policy should be stable as that it should be wise. A nation like ours could not long stand the ruinous policy of readjusting its business to radical changes in the tariff at short intervals, especially when, as now, owing to the immense extent and variety of our products, the tariff schedules carry rates of duty on thousands of different

articles. Sweeping and violent changes in such a tariff, touching so vitally the interests of all of us, embracing agriculture, labor, manufactures, and commerce, would be disastrous in any event, and they would be fatal to our present well-being if approached on the theory that the principle of the protective tariff was to be abandoned. The business world, that is, the entire American world, can not afford, if it has any regard for its own welfare, even to consider the advisability of abandoning the present sys

tem.

Yet, on the other hand, where the industrial conditions so frequently change, as with us must of necessity be the case, it is a matter of prime importance that we should be able from time to time to adapt our economic policy to the changed conditions. Our aim should be to preserve the policy of a protective tariff, in which the Nation as a whole has acquiesced, and yet wherever and whenever necessary to change the duties in particular paragraphs or schedules as