surances that will tend to allay the apprehensions existing in the community."

On the 22d of the same month President Cleveland enclosed to congress more correspondence, reports, and a memorial of the Hawaiian Patriotic League, averring :

First-That through Minister Stevens' conspiracy the Hawaiian people have been deprived of their political rights.

Second-That the inhabitants of Hawaii are now living under an arbitrary rule.

Third-That the people have lost all confidence in the administration of justice, as the supreme court is now filled with adventurers. Fourth-That the public funds have been squandered for the maintenance of an unnecessarily large army composed entirely of aliens.

Fifth-That all the native and foreign Royalists have been dis

armed.

Sixth-That foreign clubs and leagues, composed mostly of Germans, Portuguese, and Scandinavians, have been called into existence for the support of the revolutionary government.

Seventh-That these clubs have threatened murder, violence, and deportation against those not in sympathy with them.

The memorialists (only nineteen signing the document) affirm that, though the principle of monarchical government may be distasteful to the radical democracy of America," it is the preferred and chosen form of government for the Hawaiian people; and therefore,

"We now pray the God of a common faith that, right, justice, and honor prevailing, Hawaii, our home and country, be again allowed to enjoy the blessings of an independent autonomy and constitutional régime, which was so infamously subverted on the 17th day of January, 1893."

Again, on the 2d and 12th of February, the president forwarded to congress, with brief messages, dispatches received from Minister Willis; and on the 19th of the month, in response to a resolution of the senate, he returned to that body more recent dispatches, with various exhibits, principally newspaper reports of the celebration of Abrogation Day at Honolulu on the 17th of January.

Near the close of the quarter orders were issued from the navy department to Commodore Kirkland to proceed to Honolulu and assume command of the naval forces on the Pacific station; but these orders were presently countermanded, and Rear-Admiral Walker was appointed to this duty, as of an important and delicate nature, calling for peculiar ability, discretion, and experience. If an interview with Secretary Gresham is correctly reported, the admiral has been attached to this service in consequence of dispatches received from Minister Willis, which it was not

considered expedient to send to congress, indicating that an outbreak might occur in Honolulu at any time, which would require the presence of a shrewd, determined, and experienced man to look after the interests of the United States. At Washington it was rumored in unofficial circles that a plot was indicated to restore the queen with the aid of England and the establishment of a British protectorate. The admiral was expected to sail from San Francisco early in April.

THE TARIFF QUESTION.

A PROFOUND uncertainty still overhangs the tariff issue in the United States. The Wilson bill occupied the attention of the house of representatives throughout the month of January, finally passing that body on February 1. Though sent immediately to the senate, it was March 20 before the bill was finally reported from the committee on finance, April 2 being set as the date on which it should be called up for consideration in the deliberative branch of congress.

It would serve no purpose to trace in full detail the changes of front to which the measure has been subjected at the hands of its nominal friends. During its passage through the house, the free trade tendency disclosed an unexpected strength; and the changes from the provisions which had commended themselves to the ways and means committee were in the direction of more radical rather than less radical reform. Not only were free wool, free coal, free lumber, free iron ore, and free raw sugar allowed to remain as the important features of the bill, but to them were added a repeal of all duties on sugar whether raw or refined, and an abolition of the bounty paid to sugar growers in the United States. Indeed, in the history of the government, it may be doubted whether any previous attempt at tariff reform had been as radical as that embodied in the Wilson bill when it emerged from the house of representatives on February 1. Under the tariff of 1833, it is true, there was a reduction in the average of duties on all imports from about 40 per cent to 18 per cent in 1842; but the reduction was spread over a period of ten years so that

its effects were but gradually perceptible. Under the Walker revenue tariff of 1846, there was a "horizontal" or general reduction on all imports, but it amounted to less than 5 per cent; and the further reduction under the tariff of 1857, just preceding the panic of that year, was but 5 per cent. Within the short space of one year, however, the Wilson bill, in the form in which it passed the house, would abolish about 38 per cent of the duties now paid, and, while adding important articles to the free list, would reduce the duties on large classes of manufactures and farm products from 50 to 60 per cent.

In the senate, however, the immediate prospects of radical reform consistent with the declarations of the national Democratic platform of 1892 have in large measure disappeared. The senate inclines much more strongly than the house toward a protectionist policy. The amendments which have already been admitted to the Wilson bill by the Democratic members of the senate committee on finance, have been of the nature of concessions to those senators whose constituents have thought their peculiar local interests to be threatened by the prospective partial or total abolition of protection. It is important to note that in order to influence legislation in congress in the direction of tariff reform or entire free trade, the London (Eng.) Cobden Club and the committee recently formed in Paris (France) to work for the repeal of the McKinley law in the United States, have had an agent busily engaged in Washington. We have, however, no means of judging of the strength of their influence.

That a tariff bill be passed by the present congress is of the utmost importance to the Democratic party on account of its platform pledges and the disastrous industrial effects which are universally acknowledged to be caused at least in part by the protracted uncertainty. However, the Democratic majority in the senate. is very small. Two or three desertions from the party ranks might suffice to defeat the measure. Hence the necessity of the concessions even at the risk of inconsistency. With the scales so delicately adjusted, the ultimate outcome of the debate in the senate is at the end of the quarter wholly uncertain.

House Amendments to the Wilson Bill.-It being admitted that the Wilson bill as reported to the house would greatly decrease the revenue of the country, the amount of the decrease being estimated at nearly $75,000,000 on the basis of the importations of 1893, it

immediately became a problem for the ways and means committee, as to how this deficiency was to be met. On January 2 it was announced that an internal revenue bill had been decided on, involving a two per cent tax on personal incomes above $4,000, and on the incomes of corporations (but not on inheritances), an increase of the tax on whiskey to $1.10 a gallon, and a tax of two cents a pack on playing cards.

The Income Tax.-Of the above provisions, that for an income tax is the most important. Wide difference of opinion exists within both parties as to the expediency of such a tax. It is extremely distasteful to Eastern Democrats as a whole, and is believed to find little favor in the president's eyes, while influential Democratic members in both houses have made no concealment of their opposition to it, some of them denouncing it as unfair, unDemocratic, and probably unconstitutional. Even within the committee the tax was opposed by Chairman Wilson and Representatives Cockran of New York, Stevens of Massachusetts, Montgomery of Kentucky, and Breckinridge of Arkansas; and Mr. Cockran vainly endeavored to induce the committee to authorize instead a public loan to meet whatever deficiency might occur in the public revenues until the importations at the reduced rates should be sufficient to provide for the needs of the treasury.

Impartially collected on all incomes, an income tax would be admittedly just. But it is pointed out by those who oppose such a tax, that the exact determination of incomes, save where confined to regular salary or wages, is possible, if at all, only through an inquisitorial process which is not only vexatious, but which may result in injury to the business of the individual, and which places before him strong inducements toward misrepresentation and fraud. Besides, it is argued, such a tax is of the nature of class legislation. It creates a favored class whose incomes, falling below the fixed limit (in the present case, $4,000), are exempt, thus putting a tax on the thrift and enterprise of those whose incomes have been built above the limit. Besides, it is argued, in the form proposed, it may be in some cases that an income will have to pay a double tax. Thus it may happen that a shareholder in a corporation will pay his proportion of the corporation tax, and also another tax as an individual on the same income. On the other hand it is represented that the tax will yield a revenue of something

like $30,000,000; that exempting incomes under $4,000 limits the tax to a clas, amply able to afford it; and that a direct tax of the kind is imperatively demanded by the exigencies of the situation caused by the great tariff reduction.

The house committee, knowing well the division of opinion regarding an income tax, and anxious to secure for the Wilson bill

the full strength of the advocates of tariff reform, decided to report the income tax and other internal revenue provisions in a separate measure and not as a part of the tariff bill. However, on January 25, in spite of the wishes of the committee, and in spite of the protests of Mr. Wilson, who declared that to fasten the income tax provision upon the pending bill would be to "invoke its defeat," the Democratic caucus of the house, by a vote of 89 to 71, decided to make the internal revenue bill, including the

income tax, a part of the Wilson bill. As a part of the bill it still stands (March 31). In committee of the whole, the income tax amendment was adopted by a vote of 175 to 56, the Republicans refusing to vote; it finally passed the house on February 1, by a vote of 182 to 50; and the revision of the senate committee on finance has not affected it.

The substance of the income tax provision is found in the following extracts:

SEC. 54. That from and after the first day of January, 1895, there shall be levied, collected, and paid annually upon the gains, profits, and income of every person residing in the United States, or any citizen of the United States residing abroad, derived in each