[New York Commercial.]

It used to be denied that the different prices were made for home and foreign consumers only when such was not the fact. Now that it is the fact no effort is made to conceal it, and excellent reasons are given for it. The foreign market takes off the home manufacturers' hands their surplus product, thus enabling them to run their mills on full time and without reduction of wages; lower prices have to be made in order to compete with the cheap-labor products of foreign countries. Were it not for this outlet for our surplus the incomes of American wage-earners would be materially reduced each year. The practice is no more an "imposition on home buyers" -nor is it unjust or poor economythan it is for a retail merchant to hold a "mark-down" sale. When trade is dull in mid-winter, for instance, he will mark down certain lines, or everything in stock, from 5 to 10 per cent in order to stimulate trade and turn goods into cash. Housewives who paid $2.50 apiece for tablecloths in October see their neighbors buying the same thing in February for $2.25-but do they ever denounce the practice as an "imposition," as an "injustice," or as a piece of poor economy or bad policy? Never, they are bargain-hunters themselves.

And the merchant is only doing what the steel manufacturer does-getting rid of his surplus stock at reduced prices.

If it were possible in either case al

ways to gauge th demand with perfect accuracy, there would never be any surplus to sacrifice; and if the steel manufacturer were to break prices at home in order to let out his surplus, he could easily demoralize his business and thus throw American laborers out of work.

WAGE REDUCTION AND PURCHASING POWER.

[Solon Chase in Boston Sunday Herald.]

Laboring men whose wages are cut down contract the currency by curtailing their purchases in every possible direction, and will go without the things they are accustomed to have in order to put money in the savings bank. When wages are cut the workingman will deny himself of the comforts of life and put money in the savings bank to provide for a more rainy day. The workingman lowers his standard of living to meet the changed conditions of cut-down wages.

There is nothing that restricts the consumption of the products of labor like a general cut in the wages of labor. You cannot restrict the purchase power of labor without disturbing the business of the country. The mainstay of our home market is good wages for labor. The prosperity of the country don't depend how much money workingmen put into the savings banks, but depends on how much they spend to advance their material welfare; to consume those things that make life sweeter and better.

I don't mean for the workingman to spend his money in riotous living, but it is often better for himself and the body politic for the workingman to spend money to uplift his standard of living than to see how cheap he can live in order to put money in the savings bank. When a cut in wages lowers the standard of living in one line of industry it indirectly affects every man and woman who is earning a living by the sweat of their brows. A cut in wages to meet the demands of a falling market always proves a failure, because it curtails consumption by diminishing the demand.

CANADIAN RECIPROCITY.

[Boston Journal.]

HE Canadian market is important to the United States. We wish to live on good terms with our northern neighbors, but, after all, our total trade with Canada is only a fraction of our whole trade. The Dominion holds no such position toward the United States as the United States holds toward the Dominion. On the one side is a country of five million inhabitants; on the other, a nation of seventy-six million. inhabitants. There ought to be no talk of coercion on either side, but it is obvious that the smaller cannot compel the greater.

If genuine reciprocity is ever established between the United States and Canada, as the Journal and all New England think it ought to be, it will not be achieved through such talk as that at Montreal the other evening. When two individuals get together to make a bargain they do not ordinarily begin with threatening each other. The same thing is true, or should be true, of two governments. The people of the Maritime Provinces are generally in favor of reciprocity, but the manufacturers of upper Canada bar the way. Unless reciprocity can include manufactured products, New England cares nothing for it. It would rather have no reciprocity with Canada at all than another "jug-handled" arrangement.

The great obstacle to reciprocity between the United States and Canada lies not on this side but on the

other. A fair, honest reciprocity agreement would be eagerly welcomed by the Republican Party and the Administration in Washington. But the kind of reciprocity we would accept, the only kind that would be fair and profitable for both contracting parties, is not the kind to which the Canadian manufacturers would consent, and the Journal is sorry to say there is very little present prospect that such a reciprocity agreement can ever be negotiated.

[Washington Correspondent of
Chicago Inter-Ocean.]

Great Britain would have to negotiate the treaty for Canada, and with her preferential tariff with Canada has no desire to arrange for reciprocal tariff relations between Canada and the United States to interfere with that British trade.

The Canadians may desire reciprocity with the United States if they can secure such a treaty as that existing from 1855 to 1865, because under that treaty they increased their exports to this country from less than $9,000,000 in 1854 to more than $48,000,000 in 1866, while the United States lost trade, their exports to Canada being valued at $24,157,000 in 1854, and only $23,439,000 in 1866.

That treaty provided for the free admission into each country of the following products of the other: Breadstuffs, provisions, live animals, fruits, fish, poultry, hides, and skins, furs, ores, and metals, lumber and timber, unmanufactured cotton, flax

the same for each country.

There is no prospect for a revival of that treaty, and, in view of the fact that the products of both countries are so much alike, and that Canada desires to get into the United States market with her agricultural products and lumber on equal terms with like products of this country, there is no general desire for reciprocity.

[From the New York Journal of

Commerce (Free Trade).]

The United States cannot make tariff concessions calculated to correct existing inequalities, even if Canada retains its present low revenue duties, without placing the entire list of natural products of the two countries upon a reciprocally free list, coupled, perhaps, with the provision that Canada shall repeal preferential duties in favor of any other country. In the probable event of negative action being taken by the United States, by abstention from any such course, Canada will feel free to adopt her own line. This might be simply an imitation of a bad example by the adoption of the American scale of duties, effectively applied to all articles imported from the United States which can be produced in Canada. Mr. Charlton indicates that the adoption of such a policy by the Dominion Government would, perhaps, not be made universal in its application, and it is not improbable that a rebate of the heavy duties likely to be imposed would be granted to all countries ad

ada free of duty. This rebate, if provided for, would at once apply to Great Britain, and might, if a heavy scale of duties were adopted, reach the limit of 50 per cent. It is argued that there would be nothing invidious or unfriendly in such a provision, since all nations would be at liberty to avail themselves of the conditions upon which the rebate would be given. On all of which the only comment which seems necessary is, that while the reasonableness of the Canadian demand may be conceded, it is highly probable that the interests of the people of the Dominion would suffer more from any such policy of retaliation than the interests of the people of the United States.

CONNECTICUT'S INDUSTRIES.

The following table shows the manufacturing and mechanical industries of Connecticut, as returned at the censuses of 1890 and 1900, respectively, with the percentages of increase in the decade:

Items No. of establishments Capital

Average No. wage

earners

176,694

.$314,696,736 $227,004,496 38.6

140,514 25.7 Total wages $82,767,725 $66,465,317 24.5 Miscellaneous exp. 23,089,806 15,399,101 49.9 Cost of materials. 185,641,219 123,183,080 50.7 Value of products 352,824,106 248,336,364 42.1

The seventeen leading industries of the State comprise 993 establishments, with an aggregate capital of $201,903,756, having 110,346 employes, and paying total yearly wages of $49,880,799. Manufactures of cotton, woolen, silk, and knit goods, of foundry products, hardware, paper, brass goods, cutlery, and plated and Britannia ware rank highest among the principal industries.

NE of the first and most important acts of legislation to come before the LVIIth Congress will be a Shipping Bill. However much we may differ as to the means, there is a unanimity of opinion as to the need, of rehabilitating our merchant marine. Seventy-five years ago over ninety per cent of our exports and imports was carried in American vessels. Fifty years ago the proportion had fallen to seventy per cent. Twenty-five years ago it had fallen to twenty-six per cent, and during the fiscal year, 1900, only 9.3 per cent of our foreign trade moved under the American flag. Our total documented tonnage on June 30, 1900, was 5,164,839 gross tons-less than that of forty years ago, while our population has multiplied two and one half times, and our foreign commerce has nearly quadrupled.

In 1860 the tonnage of the United States was greater than that of Great Britain, and nearly equal to that of the British Empire. In 1900 British shipping amounted to 14,261,254 tons (Lloyds). But of our 23,333 vessels of 5,164,795 tons, only 816, 795 tons were registered for the foreign trade, as compared with 2,496,894 tons in 1861.

American vessels in 1900 carried

but $195,083,155 of our exports and imports compared with $381,516,788 in 1861, the value of the trade in the meantime having nearly quadrupled and its volume having increased at an even greater rate.

This is the situation to-day, and the situation is costing us nearly $200,000,000 annually in freight charges paid to foreign shipping interests. We are the wealthiest nation on earth; our exports are the largest; our resources the most abundant; why then are we at the mercy of foreign shippers?

They have three advantages whereby we are handicapped-cheapness of construction, cheapness of operation, and government aid. The two former we might overcome; the latter we cannot successfully compete against, except under similar conditions. The situation was never more tersely or more effectively put than in the following words of President Harrison in his message of Dec. 6, 1892:

"No subject, I think, more nearly touches the pride, power and the prosperity of our country than the development of our merchant marine upon the sea. If we could enter into conference with other competitors and all would agree to withhold Government aid, we could, perhaps, take our chances with the

rest, but our great competitors have established their lines by Government subsidies until they now have practically excluded us from participation. In my opinion no choice is left to us but to pursue, moderately at least, the same lines."

Discriminating duties and export bounties have been carefully considered, and discarded as inexpedient and unwise, if indeed not ineffectual under present conditions. There remains then, but one way to resuscitate and maintain an American merchant marine, and that is by adopting the methods of our competitors. We have by protection, built up and maintained every other industry, why not our shipping? Of its worth there can be no question. To replace with American ships the foreign vessels now engaged in our foreign trade would require an expenditure of $500,000,000. Annual rebuilding and repairing would require $50,000,000. Three times as much more would need to be disbursed by Amer ican ship owners for operation and maintenance, and 250,000 American workmen supporting a million more people would find steady employment if we built and operated the ships employed in our foreign

commerce.

or

The greatest opposition to a socalled subsidy bill comes from the agriculturist, and conceding its advantages to manufacturing and mining interests, it is well to inquire if, and to what extent, an American merchant marine would benefit our farmers.

Of our annual exports, now amounting to $1,500,000,000, two

thirds or $1,000,000,000 are products of agriculture. Our farmers are benefited in three ways-good markets, fair prices, and low freight rates. The home market and good prices are assured for nine-tenths of their product as long as we continue to protect our labor and industries, and maintain the high wages of our laborers. But what about the constantly growing surplus of $1,000,000,000 worth which must find a foreign market and nine-tenths of which is now carried in foreign bottoms? A European war, necessitating the withdrawal of a large number of foreign ships, would leave us for years, perhaps, without this outlet for our surplus farm products. Europe would be crying for our food, and we would have no way of transporting it to them at any price. loss in a single year would be greater than the cost of a hundred years of

The

pay it all, while in fact, he is asked to pay none of it. The $200,000,000, now annually paid to foreign ship owners, if kept at home, would add so much to our spendable income, a large portion of which would go to the agriculturist. The building of a merchant marine and its subsequent maintenance and operation would mean a constantly increasing home. market for every agricultural product, and a stiffening of prices for all staple crops. The farmer wants most a good, fair, profitable price for his products that he can depend upon. He does not want dollar wheat one year and fifty cent wheat the