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ice, or of service for product, in order that those who are displaced from one kind of work by the application of science and invention may be most ready, able, and competent to take up some other kind of work less arduous, less exhausting, and more conducive to human welfare.

What is the object of exchange? How few people ever ask themselves that question! If each one of us did not save himself by exchange from some part of the necessary work required to sustain life, there would be no exchange; each one of us, and every other man, would live and work for himself alone. All this is elementary. It becomes perfectly clear when considered as between man and man. Does not the same rule govern the commerce of nations? What is the commerce of nations, except the sum of the exchanges between man and man? Unless each nation gains. by the exchange, does not the trade stop? If both gain by the exchange, does it not hurt both to stop it by legislation? By obstructing exchange, we may make work where we might save it; but that nation loses most from such obstructions in which the greatest abundance of product is attained at the least cost of labor and at the highest rates of wages. If there were such a thing in the world as pauper labor, that nation which exchanged the greatest amount of the product of skilled labor for the greatest amount of the product of pauper labor would save itself the most work. Daniel Webster once said, when in his prime, "The people of this country can not afford to do for themselves what they can hire foreign paupers to do as well for them." This is true not only in respect to the price of labor, but to the kind and quality of the work which is to be done.

There are many branches of industry from which science has not yet removed the noxious or bad conditions of the work. Dipping sheets of iron or steel which have been treated with acid into melted tin for conversion into tin plates is one of the arts which it would be most undesirable to introduce into this country until, by way of science and invention, its noxious conditions have been removed: then it will come here itself; the conditions will then be equalized; we can then afford to take up what it would now be injudicious for us to undertake.

When we consider the obstructive and injurious effect of many of our taxes, light although they may be in money, we find that they are a heavier burden than those of almost any other nation except Russia, Turkey, and Spain.

They have not increased the profits in the arts which were intended to be promoted by their imposition, except for short or variable periods; they have reduced wages in the protected branches of industry below those which are attained in occupations which can not be subjected to foreign competition, while

they have kept the prices of most important materials, which are necessary in the processes of domestic industry, far above those of our competitors, promoting their prosperity and retarding our own progress.

Yet our enormous advantages in most of the conditions which are conducive to human welfare are such that we thrive. Our bad methods of taxation are like a pebble in the shoe of a runner, keeping him painfully in the second place, when, if relieved, he could lead the field without an effort.

It is due to these favorable conditions that the paradoxical form of statement represents an absolute truth-viz., that our high rates of wages are due to our very low cost of general production.

This leads us directly to the consideration of the conditions of production, especially in the manufacturing arts, from which our ample profits or high wages are or may be derived, if our moderate taxes are rightly adjusted to our conditions. We possess so great an advantage in our position and in our control of the production of metals, of fibers, and of food products, that there can, of course, be no equalization of wages in this country with those of others, because we could only equalize by reducing our own. The tendency of all the forces in action, when not artificially obstructed, is to raise the rate of wages, to diminish the margin of profits, and to equalize the conditions of working people to their great advantage. If we must wait for the equalization of wages to those of other countries, as is so often urged, before undertaking tariff reform, we may wait forever. It is our very advantage in high rates of wages and low cost of production which might enable us to proceed earnestly, safely, and surely to absolute free trade within less than a generation, and to adopt that policy for the very purpose, not of equalizing, but of maintaining our huge advantage over every other nation.

. One may sometimes feel humiliated when one sees men of skill, capital, and ability trembling before the competition of what they call pauper labor. Every man of affairs, every manufacturer, every employer of labor, avoids low-priced or pauper labor in his own work as much as possible; he knows that it is costly; he knows that, when he can command skilled labor at the highest price which is warranted by the market for the product, he will do his work with that kind of labor at the least cost. When it becomes necessary to run works on short time and to discharge a part of the workmen, who are the ones discharged? Not the high-priced men; they can not be spared; it is the high-priced men whose work is not affected by hard times. Every man makes his own rate of wages by his skill, aptitude, and industry; and those who do the work in the best manner get constant employment. The incapable are sometimes subject to compulsory idle

ness. In the factories I have known cases where all the looms were watched, and every weaver who did not reach a certain standard in her earnings was discharged because the mill could not afford to have poor weavers employed in it.

Yet, although we possess so many advantages within the limits of our own domain, there are some parts of the world which hold an advantage over us, especially in the production of some of the crude materials which are necessary in the processes of domestic industry. There are also many arts from which science has not yet removed the noxious conditions or the excessive labor. These arts we had better not undertake so long as we can buy their product with the excess of our crops of grain and cotton.

Again, there are some sections of this country which could be more adequately supplied with crude materials from Canada than they can be from Pennsylvania; New England, for instance, in respect to iron and coal. Our members of Congress sustain the policy which deprives us of the vast deposits of iron, coal, and even of other materials, which are lying unused in the Maritime Provinces. They tax the wool of Australia and South America; they propose to double the tax on tin plates; and they endeavor to promote the manufacture of burlaps and other coarse fabrics made of jute within our own limits.

The question of crude materials I have treated. The noxious conditions under which tin plates are made, I have referred to. The making of burlaps as it is now conducted in Dundee is one of the least desirable occupations that human beings can be called upon to follow; until it has been improved, we had better buy our burlaps with cotton than try to make them ourselves.

Even the finest fabrics which are suitable for taxation for revenue, such as Brussels laces and the like, are made by hand at the lowest wages and under the most abject conditions of life. The finest silks must be woven by hand, because the silk-worm does not spin his thread so evenly as to make it possible to weave it on the positive power-loom. In fact, in respect to many of these finer articles, which are perfectly suitable subjects for a tariff for revenue rather than for protection, there are elements to which no attention has been given; they specialize themselves even according to heredity or to peculiar conditions. The finest cotton yarns are spun in England, sent to France to be woven, sometimes transferred to Germany to be dyed; and brought back to England to be sold. Some of the finest linens are made by growing the flax in one place, spinning it in another, and weaving it in another, all far apart. We can not force the manufacture of flax in this country until we have a great surplus of population which shall be compelled to do the work which the Irish, the Belgians, and the French are now forced to do for us even at the lowest VOL. XXXVII.-33

wages. The preparation of the fine flax by rotting is noxious, and can only be worked at the lowest possible rates of wages paid for mere manual labor. We can better afford to raise flax for the seed and burn the stalks rather than to force American labor into un-American lines of work, in the preparation of the fiber by the existing noxious methods.

All these matters must be considered, and when considered they prove how futile, how impossible it is for a Congress composed of men who have little or no knowledge of the practical affairs of life, to attempt to regulate prices and wages, directly or indirectly, by the enactment of revenue acts.

I have named several articles which are necessary in the processes of our domestic industry, in which some other countries possess an advantage over us, such as tin plates, burlaps, and the treatment of flax. These advantages exist especially in respect to crude materials to which machinery has not yet been applied to any great extent; and of manufacturing processes in which the greater part of the work is done by hand. In hand-work the rate of wages may be, and often is, a fair standard of the cost of production. Hand-work here and elsewhere is that which earns least and can not be protected by any system of taxation of any kind.

We annually import, free of duty, $120,000,000 worth of articles of food, and $140,000,000 worth of crude or partly manufactured articles which are made use of in our domestic manufactures, because we can not yet afford to do the work which would be required in the production of these articles, since our own workmen can do so much better than to undertake the kind of work required.

But we also annually import, aside from sugar and molasses, $40,000,000 worth of the most necessary articles of food; and $130,000,000 worth of articles in a crude or partly manufactured condition which are absolutely necessary in the processes of our domestic industry, on which we impose duties or taxes amounting to about $50,000,000 a year. To that extent our workmen are placed at a disadvantage as compared with the workmen of other manufacturing countries in which most of these articles are admitted free.

The saving of this tax of about $50,000,000 a year would be but a very small matter were it not for the effect of this tax on foreign imports on the prices of many domestic products. Out of the $50,000,000 a year which has been collected on crude materials, about $4,000,000 has been gained to the Government from duties on iron ore and pig iron. An addition of twenty-five cents on each barrel of beer now produced would yield the same amount of revenue. If it were assessed upon the beer, the entire tax that the people pay would be secured by the Government, and the exact cost would be $4,000,000 revenue, with three per cent for the cost of collection by means of stamps.

Now, what has been the effect of the tax of $4,000,000 on the price of iron and steel in this country? Various computations have been made, the latest by Mr. A. B. Farquhar, of York, Pa., the largest exporter of agricultural machinery in this country, and perhaps one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural machinery in the world. He computes the actual difference in cost of iron and steel to the consumers in this country during the last ten years at about $700,000,000 or $70,000,000 a year. David A. Wells, making very large corrections for contingencies, estimates the difference in the cost of these metals to the consumers of this country, as compared to the consumers of Great Britain, at $560,000,000 for ten years, giving a little different period of time. My own computations, which have been made with the utmost care and which are based wholly upon the figures given by the Iron and Steel Association of this country, and of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, make the excess of price paid for iron and steel in this country as compared to others, in the years 1880 to 1889 inclusive, not less than $500,000,000 and probably $800,000,000. I may add that the effect of the tariff upon iron and steel has been much greater than in respect to other articles. This country now consumes thirty-five to forty per cent of the entire product of iron made in the civilized world. Our consumption at the present time is greater than the largest product of Great Britain in any year. No other country could possibly supply us. No other country could have supplied us for many years. But by the partial obstruction to our demand upon Great Britain and Germany, due to our own tariff, the price of iron and steel in Europe has been very greatly depressed. The tendency throughout the world has been to a rapid reduction both in cost and in the price of these metals, due to the application of revolutionary inventions. But the reduction in price in gold has been much greater in Great Britain than it has been in this country: consequently, by our own act we have protected the ship-builders, the machinists, and the tool-makers of other countries, while preventing the extension of these arts in our own country; even failing to retain our home market.

We import a considerable proportion of the products of iron and steel that we consume, sometimes in the form of railway-bars, yet more in the form of hardware, tools, and machinery. A firstclass textile factory can not be equipped in this country without resort to the machine-shops of Great Britain for a very considerable part of the most necessary machinery.

Again, the burden of a tax upon crude materials is to be gauged, not by its ratio to the value of the product into which it might enter and does enter as a component material, but in ratio both to wages and profits in the arts in which it is needed. If we

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