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"As a manufacturer I see clearly that a reasonable tariff is necessary to the life of industrial New England, but being a manufacturer (even a Republican one) does mot prevent my also seeing that our present tariff needs reforming, and moreover, what is more to the point, that reform is bound to come whether we want it or not.

"If during the past four months the Republican leaders in and out of Congress had brought to the question a sincere desire to do that which should be best for the country, there could now be no burning tariff issues. And what is this going on in Congress while I write? The Republican members fighting, as if for the very life of the republic, to maintain the tax on lumber-to protect the men who are killing the immature and insufficient forests and tax the people to pay for it!

"Is there a man of sense in New England who believes that the country as a whole will endorse that sort of 'protection' when the time comes for them to pass upon it? I repeat that tariff reform is bound to come, and if we will not help to fairly settle the question it will be settled without our help. How, then, shall we successfully meet the storm and save that which is good?

"Can it be done merely with a yell against 'free trade' and bearing a protection idol in one hand and free whiskey in the other, or by simply talking of the protection of the American laborer, while we leave the flood gates of Europe open to pour in 'American laborers' upon us, or by blindly following the leadership that is leading us straight into the ditch, through opposing anything and everything not originating with the Republican party? Hardly. If we want any part in this matter we must ourselves become sincere and reasonable tariff reformers."

III.

THE ADVICE GIVEN BY A SENATOR.

THE NOW CELEBRATED LETTER WHICH SENATOR INGALLS WROTE TO HIS

KANSAS FRIEND.

VICE PRESIDENT'S CHAMBER,
WASHINGTON, June 16.

Yours of the 13th at hand. It does not make much difference who is nominated, in my judgment. The candidates will cut but a small figure in the fight. We can elect anybody, or we shall fail. The least conspicuous, and therefore the least complicated, man will be the best-somebody like Hayes in 1876.

Among all the men named there is not one "leader," no one whose personal or historical relations to the people would make a difference of 1,000 votes in the canvass. Sherman, Allison, Harrison, etc., have records that would be awkward on the tariff, the currency, the Chinese question, etc. Depew's connection with railroads and corporations would be a heavy load, especially in the agricultural States. We might as well nominate Gould or Vanderbilt at once.

My impression is that Alger or Gresham come nearer filling the bill than any of the others, with some fellow like Phelps of New Jersey, who could reach the conservative forces of the East and get contributions from the manufacturers and Wall street. But you can judge much better than I what is best after consulting with the delegates.

I have the use of the wires during the convention, by the courtesy of the company, and you can therefore telegraph me fully at all times if anything of interest transpires. Truly yours,

JOHN J. INGALLS.

THE SAME LETTER AS READ AND PUNCTUATED ON THE FLOOR OF THE HOUSE. The Clerk read as follows:

CHICAGO, June 23, 1888.

The following letter from Senator John J. Ingalls was received by a member of the Kansas delegation in the convention:

"VICE PRESIDENT'S CHAMBER, Washington, June 16, 1888.

"Yours of the 13th at hand. It does not make much difference who is nomi- . nated, in my judgment. The candidates will cut but a small figure in the fight.. We can elect anybody or we shall fail.

[Laughter on the Democratic side.]

"The least conspicuous, and therefore the least complicated man will be the best

[Laughter on the Democratic side.] somebody like Hayes

[Renewed laughter, long continued.]

in 1876. Among all the men named there is not one leader-no one whose personal or historical relations to the people would make a difference of 1,000 votes in the canvass. Sherman, Allison, Harrison, etc., have records that would be awkward on the tariff

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"Depew's connection with railroads and corporations would be a heavy load, especially in the agricultural States. We might as well nominate Gould or Vanderbilt at once. My impression is that Alger or Gresham comes nearer filling the bill than any of the others, with some fellow like Phelps, of New Jersey[Laughter on the Democratic side.]

who could reach the conservative forces of the East and get contributions— [Renewed laughter.]

from the manufacturers and Wall street. But you can judge much better than I what is best after consulting with the delegates.

"I have the use of the wires during the convention by the courtesy of the company, and you can therefore telegraph me fully at all times if anything of interest transpires. Truly yours,

JOHN J. INGALLS."

[Shouts of laughter and applause on the Democratic side, long continued.]

IV.

IS NOT AFRAID OF TARIFF REVISION.

AN OLD REPUBLICÁN MANUFACTURER WHO IS NOT SCARED BY THE FREE TRADE CRY SO FREELY INDULGED IN.

The Republicans of Massachusetts are not having the best success in soliciting funds from manufacturers. The Chairn. an of the Finance Committee of the Holyoke Republican Club recently solicited a contribution from Mr. Arthur T. Lyman, who is the Treasurer of the Hadley Thread Company, of Holyoke, as well as of the Lowell Manufacturing Company, of Lowell. In reply Mr. Lyman wrote the following letter:

BOSTON, July 13.

Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Holyoke Republican Club :

DEAR SIR-I have yours of the 12th, asking for a contribution for the Republican Club. I am of course deeply interested in the tariff as regards the Hadley Company, and also in its bearing on many other cotton and woolen manufactures in which I am interested, but in my opinion the Republican members of Congress from New England and the Home Market Club and the Woolen Manufacturers' Association have practically done more harm to the cause of protection and to the protected (so-called) industries of Massachusetts than the Democratic members of the Ways and Means Committee. I have had occasion to see some of the Democratic members of the Ways and Means Committee, and to hear of the plans and views of others, and I am convinced that but for the action of the Republican members of Congress from New England and of the greater part of the Republican manufac turers of New England, we could have had in the Mills bill satisfactory schedules for woolens and cottons.

As it is, at the request of some manufacturers (Republicans) made through the Democratic members from Massachusetts, the Democrats of the Ways and Means Committee altered and advanced rates on some important items, while we were met, I am informed, by Republican members of the House, saying: "Leave the schedule as it is; it is better for the election." The Republicans now refuse to aid in putting new materials on the free list, and certainly in New England free raw material has been considered as an element in protection almost as essential as the duty on manufactured articles. From my business experience in both importing and manufacturing, I am fully aware of the necessity of protection for the maintenance here of certain manufactures, and I very much regret that the Republican party, with which I have acted from its beginning, has, for political success, taken a position which I consider hostile in its practical effects to the protected industries of Massachusetts.

The Democratic members of the Ways and Means Committee take broad, and on the whole, reasonable, views of the tariff question, and while of course they look at the interest of the United States as a whole, they do not ignore the fact that many great industries have grown up in this country under the high duties made necessary by the war of the rebellion, and that it is only fair and proper that consideration should be paid to their existence and condition. Neither do they ignore the fact that the working people in the protected industries are very largely members of the Democratic party.

Besides the consideration that my manufacturing interests have been put at needless risk by the partisan action of the Republicans, I must also take into consideration the interests of the whole country, in which we are all involved, and I cannot feel it to be right to vote for any one who can honestly stand on the Republican platform. Most of the Republicans with whom I have spoken about it have told me that they have not read it. I can readily believe that it would be disagreeable reading to Republicans, who in the past have in all honesty desired to have raw materials and food products on the free list. But the exigencies of practical politics have forced the party into a false position as regards the tariff, and into many unwise and dangerous relations in regard to the domestic and foreign affairs of the country.

There is practically no party in this country in favor of free trade in any reasonable sense of the term, and it is as unfair to call the Mills Bill a free-trade bill as it is to say that the Republicans are in favor of free drinking of whiskey, because the manufacturers of protected articles have several years insisted that all internal taxes should be taken off in order that it should be impossible to alter the duties on imports. While the Mills Bill is not a bill that wholly commends itself to me, it is correct and for the interest of Massachusetts, in many particulars, notably in the matter of free wool. Every manufacturing country in the world of any consequence except the United States, has wool on the free list. The position which the Republican party has taken, makes it well for the country, as it seems to me, that it should not have the control of the Government for the next four years.

ARTHUR T. LYMAN.

CHAPTER XLIII.

REASONS IN FAVOR OF TAX REVISION.

MEN OF EVERY PROFESSION AND EMPLOYMENT WHO DO NOT

BELIEVE IN BURDENSOME TAXES.

I.

OPINIONS OF OPERATIVES.

TEXTILE-WORKERS WHO SAY THAT THE PRESENT LAWS FAIL TO GIVE THE WORKER HIS SHARE OF THE PROTECTION CLAIMED FOR HIM.

The following petition from workers in the textile industries of Philadelphia was presented to the House on June 29, by Mr. Breckenridge of Kentucky:

To the Honorable the House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.:

When the forty thousand textile workers of Philadelphia, in April, 1886, made the appeal to you, through the Committee on Ways and Means, for relief from the outrageous inequalities, discriminations and oppressions of the present tariff laws, it was hoped by them that their demands, reasonable as they were, would be heeded, and that partisan, sectional, or class considerations would not be allowed to stand in the way of the doing of a simple act of justice and the righting of the most glaring wrongs. It was the first time that the workingmen spoke on the subject, uninfluenced by any outside pressure or coercion, but the answer has been the failure to perfect a measure of relief.

Hence, it becomes necessary to renew the appeal, and in doing so we beg leave to submit the reasons and causes that inspire us to this act.

The condition of the textile industries, especially the woolen trade, has been growing worse, the working time in the mills is being shortened, and the wages are being pared down just in proportion as the strain upon the physical exertions of the toiler increases, and we are forced to compete with labor in other parts of our own country that is paid no more than is the much-talked-of "pauper labor" of Europe, and as all this has taken place under a system that is declared to be for the "protection of American labor," are we not justified in making inquiries, with the aid of our experience, as to whether it is so or not?

If there is any virtue in the theory that in order to protect American labor against ruinous foreign competition it is necessary to place a tax upon goods that are brought in from countries where labor is cheaper, it follows that these taxes should in all cases correspond with the amount and cost of labor required upon such goods in their successive stages of manufacture, but this obviously plain and honest rule has never been observed in any tariff law which its framers claimed to be for the protection of labor. That the reverse has been the case naturally excites the suspicion that the design was to crush rather than help labor. In the woolen industry, as in many others, the tax on the raw materials neutralizes the tax on the finished fabrics, and taking quality into account, the tax always graduates down

ward against quality instead of upwards with it, and in every case exceeds by three to four times the entire labor cost in the product. To call such laws "protective to labor" is a fraud and deception, and labor has a right to protest against the perpetrators of these wrongs being allowed to any longer influence legislation on this subject.

According to Bowes & Co., an accepted authority, 100 pounds of greasy wool will make 21.45 pounds of finished cloth, and on this basis it will require 530 pounds of greasy wool to make 100 yards of cloth with backing, weighing 18 ounces to the yard. Suppose this cloth is made of four different kinds of wool, the cost to the English manufacturer would be

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With precisely the same grades of wool the cost to the American manufacturer would be

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The total cost for labor in making this cloth is not over 27 cents per yard, or $27 for the whole, showing that the tariff enhanced cost of the material is nearly three times the entire expense for labor.

The importations of woolen and worsted yarns for the years 1886-'87 were 7,039,448 pounds, valued at $4,030,738, on which duties were paid amounting to $2,777,582. The amount of wool required to make this yarn is 28,157,792 pounds. The duty on the wool would be $2,815,779, and adding the charges for carrying the duty we have a total tax burden on the wool of $3,097,356, or $319,776 in excess of the duty on the yarn. The total cost for labor in making this yarn is not over $700,000, showing that the tax on the wool is nearly four and a half times the total labor cost in the yarn. This, on the theory advanced by the modern protection school, can be called by no other name than protection to foreign manufacturers and labor.

The per cent. of duty on the yarn is 69.11, and on the cloth 70.40, a difference of but 1.29 per cent.; but as there is a loss by waste and shrinkage in weaving, dyeing, and finishing of 3 to 5 per cent., we find that this difference between the yarn duty and that on the cloth is more than neutralized, and thus the "protective duty is again in favor of the foreign cloth manufacturers, who could not have done better for themselves if they had been permitted to make our tariff laws for us.

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Under the present law the percentage of duty on the finer and more costly fabrics is always lower than on the coarser and cheaper grades, thus depriving us of the chance to work upon the better class of goods, upon which our work would be lightest and our earnings largest.

The importation of woolen and worsted cloths for the year ended June 30, 1887, was, of the value not exceeding 80 cents per pound, 1,117,564 pounds, valued at $713,315, on which duties were paid amounting to $640,808. Per cent. of duty, 89.84. Value above 80 cents per pound, 7,689,699 pounds, valued at $9,309,054, on which duties were paid to the amount of $6,415,016. Per cent. of duty, 68.91.

HOW DISCRIMINATIONS INJURE THE MANUFACTURER.

This shows how we are crippled, both in our earning powers and in the exercise of our skill by the infamous discriminations of the tariff, which at the same time make the burdens upon the rich comparatively lighter than upon the poor.

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