lished by The American Iron and Steel Association, at No. 265 South bvrth Street , Philadelphia, at which place copies of, phis, trpct -m'ay.be had on .'nniiratinn hii letter. . ■ > 1 ' . THE REVIVAL. lFTER five years of depression the morning DAWNS — OUR EXPORTS ARE INCREASING AND OUR IMPORTS ARE DECREASING— OUR DEBT TO EUROPE IS BEING RAPIDLY PAID— THE HOME MARKET HAS BEEN KEPT BY A PROTECTIVE TARIFF FOR THE HOME PRODUCER— THE COST OF LIVING NEVER SO LOW AS NOW — OUR CROPS NEVER SO ABUNDANT AS THEY ARE THIS YEAR— THE RAILROADS FULLY EMPLOYED— GENERAL BUSINESS SURELY REVIVING— THE GREENBACK AS GOOD AS GOLD— BET- TER DAYS NEAR AT HAND. FREE TRADE A FAILURE IN ITS OWN HOME— ENGLAND LOOKING TO THIS COUNTRY FOR RELIEF FROM THE DEPRESSION FROM WHICH FREE TRADE HAS FAILED TO SAVE HER— SHALL WE NOW SURRENDER OUR PROTEC- TIVE TARIFF, WHICH HAS SAVED OUR INDUSTRIES FROM DESTRUCTION,. THAT ENGLISH MANUFACTURERS MAY AGAIN BECOME PROSPEROUS?— A QUESTION FOR AMERICAN WORKINGMEN TO ANSWER— CANADA JOINS HANDS WITH US IN SUPPORT OF PROTECTION. REASONS FOR THE BELIEF THAT NATIONAL PROS- PERITY IS RETURNING. EXTRACTS FROM THE SPEECH OF PRESIDENT HAYES AT ST. PAUL, SEPTEMBER 5 , 1878 . The most interesting questions in public affairs which now engage the attention of the people of the United States are those which re- late to the financial condition of the country. Since the financial panic and collapse five years ago, capital and labor and business capacity have found it hard to get profitable employment. We have had what is commonly and properly known as hard times. In such times men naturally ask, What can be done ? How long is this stagnation of business to last ? Are there any facts which indicate an early return to better times ? I wish to ask your atten- tion for a few minutes while I present some facts and figures which show a progressive improvement in the financial condition of the THE PUBLIC DEBT REDUCED. • I* * • t # • * t* * * ' general gov6i*nment..*. *It wjll be for you to consider what inferem ;es maylfai^ty b£*(frawn a§ .to their bearing on the question of a revh of business prosperity th/flfighbut the country. al * *' *V • ; PUBLIC DEBT REDUCED. * • ♦ * • • The financial condition of the government of the United Stages is shown by its debt, its receipts and expenditures, the currency, arid the state of trade with foreign countries. Let us consider the pres- ent state of the public debt. The ascertained debt reached its high- est point soon after the close of the war, in August, 1865, an cl amounted to $2,757,689,571.43. In addition to this, it was estima- ted that there were enough unadjusted claims against the govern- ment of unquestioned validity to swell the total debt to $3,000,000,- 000. How to deal with this great burden was one of the gravest questions which pressed for decision as a result of the war. And now I give you the results. The debt has been reduced un- til now it is only $2,035,580,324.85. This is a reduction, as com- pared with the ascertained debt thirteen years ago, of $722,109,- 246.58. More than one-fourth of the debt has been paid off in thirteen years. If we compare the present debt with the actual debt thirteen years ago — placing the actual debt at $3,000,000,- 000 — the reduction amounts to about $1,000,000,000, or one-third of the total debt. Thus it has been demonstrated that the United States can and will pay the national debt. THE ANNUAL INTEREST REDUCED. Encouraging as are these facts, they do not fully show the prog- ress made in relieving the country from the burden of its war debt. All who have to borrow money to carry debts know the im- portance of the question of interest. The total amount of interest- bearing debt at the time it reached its highest point, the 31st of August, 1865, was as follows : — Four per cent, bonds $618,127 98 Five per cent, bonds 269,175,727 65 Six per cent, bonds 1,064,712,279 33 7 3-10 United States notes 830,000,000 00 Compound-interest notes, 6 per cent 217,024,160 00 Total interest-bearing debt $2,381,530,294 96 The total annual interest charge amounted to 150,977,697 84 THE PUBLIC DEBT NOW HELD AT HOME. 3 This was an oppressive burden. For interest alone we were pay- ing more than double the total current expenses of the government in any year of peace prior to the war for the Union. It was 'seen that the successful management of the debt depended on the rates of interest to be paid ; that a reduction of one per cent, on our whole interest-bearing debt would be a yearly saving in in- terest of over $20,000,000 ; that a reduction of two per cent, in the rate of interest would save to the country over $40,000,000, which is the interest at four per cent, on $1,000,000,000. The policy, of reducing the debt and thereby strengthening the public credit having been adopted, let us observe the result in the present condition of the public debt with respect to interest. The total interest-bearing debt, August 1, 1878, was as follows : — Three per cent. Navy Pension Fund $14,000,000 Four per cent, bonds 112,850,000 Four and a half per cents 246,000,000 Five per cents 703,266,650 Six per cents 733,561,250 Total present interest-bearing debt $1,809,677,900 The interest on which amounts to the sum of $95,181,007.50 per annum. It thus appears that in thirteen years the interest-bearing debt has been reduced from $2,381,530,294.96 to $1,809,677,900 ; a gain in the amount of the interest-bearing debt of $571,852,394.96. The reduction of the annual interest charge is $55,796,690.34, or more than fifty per cent, of what we now pay. If the reduction of annual interest were placed in a sinking fund at four per cent, in- terest, it would pay off the whole debt in less than twenty-five years. THE PUBLIC DEBT NOW HELD AT HOME.' There has been another gratifying and important improvement in the state of the public debt. A few years ago our bonds were large- ly owned in foreign countries. It is estimated that in 1871 from $800,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 were held abroad. We then paid from $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 annually to Europe for interest alone. Now the bonds are mainly held in our own country. It is estimated that five-sixths of them are held in the United States, and only one-sixth abroad. Instead of paying to foreigners $50,000,000, we now pay them only about $12,000,000 or $15,000,000 a year, and the interest on the debt is mainly paid to our own citizens. It ap- pears from what has been shown that since the close of the war, since 4 TAXATION AND GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES REDUCED. the panic of five years ago, there has been a great change in the condition of the debt. The change has been one of improvement. 1. The debt has been greatly reduced. 2. The interest to be paid has been largely diminished. 3. And it is to be paid at home instead of abroad. THE BURDEN OF TAXATION LESSENED. The burden of taxation has been reduced since 1866, the first year after the war, as follows : The taxes in 1866 were : Customs $179,046,651 58 Internal revenue 309,226,813 42 $488,273,465 00 The taxes in 1878 were: Customs $130,170,680 20 Internal revenue 110,581,624 74 240,752,304 94 Reduction of taxes since 1866 $247,521,160 06 TAXATION THE YEAR OF THE PANIC. 1873— Customs $188,089,522 70 Internal revenue 113,729,314 14 Total $301,818,836 84 1878 240,752,304 94 Reduction since the panic $61,066,531 90 EXPENDITURES REDUCED. The expenditures have been reduced since the war as follows : 1867 — Expenditures, including pensions and interest $357,542,675 16 1878 236,964,326 80 Reduction of yearly expenses $120,578,348 36 % EXPENDITURES THE YEAR OF THE PANIC. 1873 $290,345,245 33 1878 236,964,326 80 Reduction in five years $53,380,918 53 OUR FOREIGN TRADE IMPROVED BY THE POLICY OF PROTECTING HOME INDUSTRY. Nothing connected with the financial affairs of the government is more interesting and instructive than the state of trade with foreign OUR FOREIGN TRADE GREATLY IMPROVED. 5 countries. The exports from the United States during the year end- ing June 30, 1878, were larger than during any previous year in the history of the country. From the year 1863 to the year 1873 the net imports into the UnitedjStates largely exceeded the exports from the United States — the excess of imports ranging from $39,000,000 to $182,000,000 annually. During the years 1874 and 1875 the exports and imports were about equal. During the years ending June 30, 1876, 1877, 1878, however, the domestic exports from the United States greatly exceeded the net imports, the excess of exports increasing rapidly from year to year. This is shown as follows : Year ending June 30. Excess of exports over net imports. 1876 $79,643,481 1877 •. 151,152,094 1878 257,786,964 Total excess of exports over imports in three years $488,582,539 The total value of exports from the United States increased from $269,389,900 in 1868 to $680,683,798 in 1878 — an increase of $411,293,898, or one hundred and fifty-three per cent. The following table shows the principal commodities the exporta- tion of which has greatly increased during the last ten years : COMMODITIES. Year ending June 30. Increase. 1868. 1878. Agricultural implements $673,381 $2,575,198 $1,901,817 Animals, living 733,395 5, 844, 653 5,111,258 Bread and breadstuffs 68,980,997 181,774,507 112,793,510 Manufactures of iron and steel.... 6,389,429 12,084,048 5,694,619 Coal 1,516,220 2,359,467 843,247 Copper and brass, and manufac- tures of. 939,250 3,078,349 2,139,099 Manufactures of cotton 4,871,054 11,435,628 6,564,574 Fruit 406,512 1,376,969 970,457 Leather, and manufactures of..... 1,414,372 8,077,659 6,663,287 Oilcake 2,913,448 5,095,163 2,181,715 Coal oil and petroleum 21,810,676 46,574,974 24,764,298 Provisions 30,278,253 123,549,986 93,271,733 Total $140,926,987 $403,826,601 $262,899,614 The total increase in the value of agricultural products exported from the United States in the year 1878 over the exports of the year ending June 30, 1868, amounts to $273,471,282, or 86 per cent. 6 THE BALANCE OF TRADE LARGELY IN OUR FAVOR. This is shown as follows. Domestic exports of agricultural products during the year ending June 30 : 1878 . $592,475,813 1868 319,004,531 Increase $273,471,282 Percentage of increase 86 per cent. THE BALANCE OF TRADE NOW LARGELY IN OUR FAVOR. The balance of trade against the United States in the five years next before the panic was as follows : 1869 $131,388,682 1870 43,186,640 1871 77,403,506 1872 182,417,491 1873' 119,656,288 Total in five years $554,052,607 or an average of over $110,000,000 a year. As we have already seen, the balance of trade in the last three years in favor of the United States is $488,582,539, or an average of more than $160,000,000 a year. The balance of trade the last year, if compared with that of the two years next before the panic, shows a gain in favor of the United States, in one year, of over $400,000,000. It is not necessary that I should dwell upon the importance of this favorable state of the balance of trade. With diminished and still diminishing public burdens of debt, expenditures and interest, with an improved condition of currency and foreign trade, we may well hope that we are on the threshold of better times. Before the crash of 1873 we imported $16,000,000 worth of foreign rails in one year, and in 1877 we imported less than a $1000 worth. In 1872 we imported foreign carpets to the value of $6,- 000,000, and in 1877 the trade had ceased. The question is no longer can Uncle Sam compete, but can Europe compete with him? So much for a steady persistence in the protective policy of our fathers. We now employ our own people in producing what we formerly imported, and the cost of the articles they produce has been greatly reduced to consumers. THE FLOW OF GOLD TO EUROPE HAS CEASED. 7 Why has Gold Ceased to Flow from this Country? — The heavy excess of our exports over our imports has completely stop- ped the flow of gold from this country to Europe, and brought back our bonds in such amounts that less than 20 per cent, of the govern- ment bonded debt is now held abroad. This has caused such a dis- turbance of the European market as to create considerable alarm. A London special dispatch says : “ The advance of the rate of dis- count by the Bank of Germany to 5 per cent, is regarded as another evidence of the grave disturbance in the monetary affairs of Europe which is to be apprehended in consequence of the complete cessation of the supply of gold from the United States, and the strong proba- bility that the latter in the future will draw gold in large quantities from Europe. The Bank of England has sought to check this out- flow of gold by advancing its rate to five. Germany now follows by an advance to five, and a further advance by the Bank of Eng- land is predicted. The supply of gold outside the amount hitherto received from America will not be sufficient to make up the annual wastage of the precious metals by handling and their consumption in the arts, and an era of dear and scarce money is apprehended.” This is better for us than a steady drain of coin to pay a oreign indebt- edness, and nothing could more completely indicate the wisdom of protection to domestic industry which has rendered this change in the course of the nation’s foreign trade possible. — N. Y. Iron Age. Good Results from our Increased Export Trade. — The following item is taken from the Liverpool Post of recent date. There is much comment in commercial circles upon the decrease of the exports from Great Britain to the United States, and the great increase of the American export trade. The figures of the last fiscal year show an increase of $92,500,000 in the exports from the States and a diminution of $74,250,000 in the imports. It is expected that one result of this will be an early and large demand for gold for America, which may materially affect the rate of discount. Last year the requirements of America were met by means of United States five-twenty bonds, but these, it is understood, have nearly all been absorbed, and nothing but our gold will now satisfy Uncle Sam. English Views of American Exports. — We take the follow- ing from the London Mercantile Shipping Register : It is somewhat remarkable that in the outcry that is being raised about the decline of the English trade, and the disastrous effect of protective duties abroad 8 THE COUNTRY NOT SO POOR AFTER ALL. and labor disputes at home, so little has been said about the extremely rapid growth of the American export trade. We hear plenty about the prohibitive du- ties of Russia, and the iron works of Belgium — which latter indeed are formid- able rivals, as is proved by the immense quantity of their manufactures which has lately been used in England, notably at the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, perhaps the largest architectural work on which we are now employed — but comparatively little about the most important of all causes which threaten to curtail our ancient commercial monopoly, the extraordinary devel- opment within the last few years of the American export trade. The intro- duction of all kinds of goods from that country into Great Britain and her colonies has now become a matter of the most vital importance to our manu- facturers. American exports, too, are still in their infancy, and yet we can not say that they have not established a firm footing. They have indeed done so, and already many branches of our commerce are beginning to suffer from the competition. The Country not so Poor after all. — The country is filling up at a wonderful rate, and, whatever the condition of the times, new cities are being built and new States are preparing to take their places in the Union. Kansas, especially, is filling up with wonderful rapidity, and there are in these movements signs of a renewed prosperity which must come and be lasting, for it will be based upon absolute wealth. England increases her capital while the people remain poor ; there can be no spread of wealth there, for there is nothing to change the condition of the working classes. Here, on the contrary, there is no limit to individual exertion and enterprise, and, with all the outcry against capital and jeremiads over starving laborers, there is a more complete distribution of capital than in any other country. Our large cities are not the criterions by which we are to judge. In them everywhere ex- tremes meet and labor acquires fixed habits and is rigid and in- flexible ; but take the average condition of our people throughout the land ; look at their houses, tables, dress ; at their cattle and their farms, their shops and mills, their schools and churches, and no such spectacle of universal comfort can elsewhere be found. — Newark Advertiser. Many of the principal hardware importing houses of New York are quietly reversing the order of their business, and are employing their foreign connections in exporting and distributing American specialties throughout Europe. EUROPE JEALOUS OF OUR PROSPERITY. 9 English newspapers are still hopeful of the success of British manufacturers in inducing Congress to reduce our tariff for their benefit next winter. The London Iron for July 6th closes an elaborate editorial on “ The American Tariff” in the following words : “ The American free trade party have already secured far better earnest of success than their English predecessors possessed before the protectionist citadel was surrendered by Sir Bobert Peel, and may confidently look forward to complete victory in the future .” The Middlesbrough Iron and Coal Trades Review for July 12th also refers at length to the same subject, and pats Mr. Wood on the back as follows : “We can well understand why the majority of the iron trade publications in the States go so strongly in for protection, and indulge in such violent diatribes against all who presume to say anything in defense of free trade. The ‘ protection of native indus- try ’ is a fine-sounding term, which will not stand proof much longer. The Hon. Mr. Wood may well talce heart at the success which he has met with in connection with his bill, and doubtless he will have better luck next time.” Let the reader observe that these exulting predictions are uttered by English newspapers, which represent English manufacturing and commercial interests. — Bulletin of the American Iron and Steel Association. The reports of the commercial agents of the government, con- cerning the condition of industrial affairs in the manufacturing countries of Europe, give additional evidence of the fact that the former prosperity of those countries resulted in a great measure from the extravagant purchases by the American people of their products and manufactures, the greater part of which consisted of articles of luxury. The depression in business here caused a large falling off in the importation of European merchandise, and the distress of those whose profits or living, depended upon the sale of their goods in this country. They are now exceedingly anxious to secure commercial treaties with our government, with the expecta- tion that business will revive here and enable them to do our manu- facturing and keep us at work in producing raw materials and food for their use. To unsophisticated Americans it may seem strange that there can be a hope of success in accomplishing such a design, but it must be kept in mind that European capitalists, merchants, manufacturers, and producers have an immense influence in the management of 10 FOREIGN ASSAULTS UPON OUR PROTECTIVE TARIFF. our commercial and financial affairs, and the unlimited amount of money at their disposal enables them to do many things for their own benefit which is detrimental to us . — Philadelphia Evening Star. The London Iron , at the close of a leading editorial article on “ American Iron,” says: “It is rash to predict that no attempt to revise the tariff will be made during the next session of Congress. It would be rasher still to assume that a revised tariff* does not be- come a law within half a dozen years.” Now what we want to know is this : How did our friends who edit one of the leading or- gans of English manufacturers learn that our tariff is to be revised next winter? How did they become privy to the secret counsels of Mr. Fernando Wood, Mr. Eandolph Tucker, and other free trade members of Congress? The American people ought to know some- thing of the workings of their own government — something of the purposes of their Congressional representatives, and yet here is a measure of legislation involving the welfare of many millions of them of which they are said to know nothing while their industrial rivals know all. Speaking for ourself, we hope we are becomingly and sufficiently thankful for being set right in this matter even at this late day, but we want to know all the facts — we want to know how the editors of Iron found it all out . — Bulletin of the American Iron and Steel Association. A Voice from Missouri. — Missouri wants a full delegation in the next Congress in favor of protection to all home industries. Both the farmer and the manufacturer are benefited by bringing fabrication near to production. Half a million additional miners, machinists, and workmen in our mills and shops would greatly augment our consumption of farm products, and largely enrich the material interests of our own State. In the late session of Congress ten of our thirteen members voted practically for no protection and against the manufacturers’ interests and the mechanics’ interests and the farmers’ interests. Our revenue laws should be framed on the principle of self-interest — for the entire nation. Our people are bound together as one. If the mining and iron interests suffer, it is soon felt by all. The American policy is the true one for the American people — a tariff for revenue, with incidental protection against foreign labor and products. — St. Louis Review. WAGES AND PRICES IN THE UNITED STATES. 11 Figures for the Workingmen. — The following table, being the price list of wholesale grocers and dry goods dealers in 1864, and the prices for the same goods at the present time, shows the difference in the cost of living : 1864. 1878. 1864. 1878. Crushed sugar $0 20 $0 10 Delaines .... $0 40 $0 10 C!ubft sngn.r 21 8 Ginghams 40 6 New Orleans molasses, Checks 18 gal 1 35 40 Best ticking 75 25 “Coffee, lb 46 40 Balmoral skirts .... 5 00 1 50 Cotton, lb 1*00 12 Brown drills 60 12 Pork, bbl 45 00 9 00 Canton flannels 65 8 Gold 2 50 1 00£ Bleached muslins 55 12 Prints 40 6 Brown muslins 8 The footing of the list for 1864 is $61.07, while that for 1878 is but $13.45 for the same articles. In 1864 laborers received at the rate of $2 per day, while now the same class of workmen receive from $1 to $1.25 per day ; but the $1 a day they now earn will purchase nearly two and one-half times as much as the $2 they earned in 1864 . — Milwaukee Sentinel. Wages and Prices in 1860 and 1878. — The following letter was presented, on the 28th of August, to the Congressional Com- mittee of Inquiry on the Labor Question, of which Mr. Hewitt is chairman : I live in Woburn, Mass., a town containing 10,500 inhabitants, the business of which is principally making leather. I ask your attention to the following facts and ideas : Materials and provisions necessary to support a family are as low as at any former period, and more can be bought to-day for an average week’s work than at any former time. I call your attention to a list of prices of various articles of consumption used in all families in the years 1860, 1865, and 1878, obtained from a reliable source : I860. 1865. 1878. I860. 1865. 1878. Flour Corn Butter.. Pork Tea $8 00 1 75 23 12 50 $20 00 2 25 60 30 1 50 $8 00 1 25 23 12 50 Sugar Fish Beans Cotton cloth... $0 11 4 6 14 $0 16 12 12 33 $0 10 6 8 8 12 WAGES AND PRICES IN THE UNITED STATES. The following prices were also paid for labor in the same years, and were taken from one of the leading manufacturers in town : 1860 . 1865 . | 1878 . First-class mechanics $1 50 1 17 1 00 $2 50 $2 17 1 75 | 1 42 1 50 ! 1 25- 1 Second-class mechanics Laborers Thus it will be seen that provisions are as cheap or cheaper to-day than in 1860, and the workingman is getting more pay now than then, while, in 1865, his condition was much more unfavorable than in any of the other years. I think there has been more uneasiness and suffering among the laboring men for lack of employment than from low wages. Truly, John Clough. Iron-moulders in New England earned, in 1860, about $11 a week. Their wages gradually increased during the war and the years that succeeded, until, before the panic in 1873, they were paid $16 a week, the increase being 45 per cent. Now they receive $13 a week. In 1873 prices of commodities were much lower than they had been in 1865 and 1866, and a week’s wages would for the first time purchase about the same quantities of the common neces- saries of life as in 1860, although there had been times when prices had been proportionally much higher than wages. Indeed, that had been true most of the time after prices began to advance. Now, a New England iron-moulder earns 18 per cent, more than in 1860, while a dollar is just as valuable as it was before the war . — New York Tribune. The Ascending Scale. — Of late years all statistical references to the export trade of the republic are in a vein of rejoicing and ex- ultation at the remarkable increase both in the aggregate and in all the leading items. Times and things have changed materially since Mr. I). A. Wells contrasted various current totals of production and shipment with those of 1860, which year stood for some time as a memorable era for political economists of the free-trade school. In the fiscal year 1860 the domestic exports were $316,242,423, and in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1878, they were $680,683,798, an in- crease so great as to surpass the most sanguine expectations of our people . — Philadelphia North American. THE FAILURE OF BRITISH FREE TRADE. 13 THE FAILURE OF BRITISH FREE TRADE. The fact that the progress of the United States in everything which pertains to manufactures is interfering with the great indus- tries of Europe is seen even more clearly by European eyes than by those of our own manufacturers. A committee was appointed last November by the French Senate to inquire into the reasons for the existing dullness of trade in Europe. The committee had M. Pouyer-Quertier as its president, and has recently made its report. After speaking of the fact that the increase of production had ex- ceeded the consumptive demand, and saying that the United States had, “under the cover of protection, reared a most powerful indus- try, which in nearly every article begins to compete with the manu- factures of England and Europe, the world over,” it makes this ref- erence to the establishment of the free-trade policy by England, and its results : England was fully equipped with the necessary machinery for stocking the world with its manufactures. The English were sanguine enough to hope that the world’s raw produce would flow into their country from all quarters, to be returned in the manufactured state from their great workshops. In order to carry out this problem they had the vessels to bring the cotton, the ores, wool, etc., and would return them laden. They had the cheapest coal and iron. England’s spindles, looms, and workshops were countless in number, and they are so still. When Cobden had made free traders out of his countrymen who had been clinging to protection for centuries, he did so animated by some such gigantic project, and England may well erect statues to do him honor. But could Cobden foresee that the day would come when the Americans would resolve upon spinning and weaving their own cotton, instead of ship- ping it to England to be converted into manufactures? Could he have foreseen that the Americans would at some future day close their market, and having iron, coal, cotton, and other raw material, all on the spot, build manu- factories by the thousand ? Had he any conception of the possibility of the Americans one day pos- sessing cotton mills with 400,000 spindles and 3,500 looms in a single factory, as they may be met with at Lowell ; that one machine-shop would turn out 450 locomotives in a single year ; in other words, that this new manufacturing country would become the rival of England, send its cotton goods to Man- chester and watches to Geneva? England, after reaping great advantages from the new politico-economical system inaugurated by her, has now found her rivals in the Americans, in her own subjects in India, and in the metal- lurgical branch in Germany. To-day there is a loud wail throughout all of Great Britain, because of the alarming depression in her leading industries. 14 HOW ENGLAND BUILT UP HER MANUFACTURES. How England Built up her Manufacturing Supremacy. — “A Working Man/’ under date of August 1st, writes a long com- munication to the London Capital and Labour of August 21st, con- trasting the present condition of the English laboring classes with their condition a generation ago, when England made such gigantic strides in supplying the world with her manufactures. We quote a few paragraphs, as follows : Those of us who began factory life from forty to fifty years ago, and at the tender age of six or seven years (then quite common), working from twelve ta sixteen hours a day, as the pressure of business might require — missing all schooling, and often brutally treated — may surely be pardoned if we reproach the well-protected, easier worked, and better paid operatives of to-day for their lack of appreciation of the many advantages they now enjoy. What factory labor was before Parliament interfered, or rather before law humanized it, may be learnt (by such as do not know) from the several Par- liamentary Reports, which contain some horrid, yet “ o’er true tales” of hard- ship and suffering. These, if more widely known, might make some of the discontented better satisfied with their lot, by leading them to a juster appre- ciation of their present privileges. When, as mere children, we had to work at times from fourteen to sixteen hours a day, we actually did go to sleep on our feet while yet about our work, and often were so weary that, on quitting work at nine or ten P. M., we would hide away in some corner of the factory and sleep till morning. In the Parliamentary Reports there is ample evi- dence, medical and other, to show that our fate was then worse than that of slave children in the West Indies , and such was undoubtedly the fact. In view of the real labor troubles we then endured, how insignificant are those now com- plained of! We were driven to the factory three or four years younger than, children are now permitted to go; we were compelled to work more than, double the number of hours now worked by children ; and, worst of all, we were denied all opportunity for schooling, the days being too full of labor, and we too weary to derive much benefit from the Sunday-school. Tens of thou- sands who, like the present writer, were born too soon to share the benefits of the educational clauses of the Factory Acts, never got any schooling ; and while some of us did in after-life accomplish something in the way of self- education, many thousands, not so fortunate, lived and died without ever ac- quiring the ability to read. At that time many of the wealthier class believed that the laboring class would actually be better fitted for a proper discharge of their duties without education, and the overworked operatives were, to a great extent, insensible to its advantages. In 1832 the operative, young or old, had no legal protection, except in cot- ton factories ; he had no time for education, if indeed he had any desire, and his right thereto was practically denied ; nor had he any better safe deposit than the pawnbroker’s shop ; nor hardly any opportunity to breathe the pure air. Almost without secure self-helpful association, his labor burdened and fettered by a one-sided fiscal system, the enforcement of his legal claims made practically impossible by the stamp duties ; even his light, cleanliness, provi BRITISH PHILANTHROPY — FREE TRADE TRIUMPHS. 15 dence, and all means and instruments of knowledge were taxed, while he was also exposed to the degrading influence of the then pauperizing poor laws. Characteristic British Philanthropy. — In, a notice of the exports of British pig iron in- the. month of Jiily Iasi’, The Iron and Coal Trades Review, of Middlesbrough, complacently remarks as follows: “Germany continues to be b$ far, oUl* best customer, and, notwithstanding the poor state of the 1 manufactured iron trade over there, the shipments increase rather than decline. It may safely be calculated that over 40,000 tons of British pig iron per month are now sent to Germany, which quantity is considerably more than would be taken if the protectionists had their way . It is interesting to us, therefore, to note that the recent elections have gone decidedly against the protectionists.” But we doubt that they have. Wait a little. The Review further airs its free trade philanthropy as fol- lows: “Belgium receives regularly something like 9,500 tons per month, but, should the British Iron Trade Association be successful in obtaining the repeal of the duty now levied on the imports of British pig iron, we may look for a substantial increase .” Of course you may. From all which we may infer what the fate of this country would be if our British rivals could have their own way with the American tariff. — Bulletin of American Iron and Steel Association. Free Trade Triumphs. — The places where free trade points for its triumphs human life is to be seen in its most degraded con- ditions. The clatter of the wooden-shoed Manchester factory hands in the dark of a winter’s morning, the tread of the collier boys long before daybreak, and the coarse laugh of the bank girls on their way to the pits, the stare of half-naked boys and girls in the brick fields, the semi-savage habits of women and girls in the nail districts, the million of public-fed paupers, and millions of paupers starving in their honest pride, preferring any suffering to the workhouse, the sweating system of tailors, the mere animal life of the peasants of agricultural countries, are among the glorious sounds and sights of free trade, the great principle of which is that neither humanity nor religion has any right to stand between the buyer of labor and the seller in any effort the former may make to monopolize trade by cheap goods. — Toronto ( Canada ) Mail. 16 THE VASSALAGE OF FREE TRADE. THE VASSALAGE OF FREE TRADE. (From the Chicago Evening Journal, June 26, 1878.) The practice of frec-t^ade. doctrines is antagonistic to the spirit of self-reliance and independence.. It tends more and more to dimin- ish the number, and , variety of domestic manufactures ; to narrow the circle of .employments ; to transform the artisan into a tiller of the soil; to limit the occupations of the people mainly to agricul- ture; to compel the ‘producer to seek a distant market; to deplete the productivity of land by ‘exporting its fertilizing constituents in the shape of raw materials; to permit the mineral wealth of the coun- try to remain dead capital, buried under ground ; to cause sluggish- ness in the circulation of ideas and commodities ; to create a helpless dependence upon other nations for the finished wares of reproduc- tive industry, and to end in general impoverishment and national decay. England’s policy of unrestricted competition is intended to reduce other countries to this vassalage toward herself. What she thinks in the sincerity of her heart of the theory of free trade is manifest from the following extract from a speech of a member of the British Parliament, delivered at a time when the United States had adopted the system of protection, and quoted by Henry Clay, in 1832, in the Senate of the United States : It was idle for us to endeavor to persuade other nations to join with us in adopting the principles of what was called “free trade.” Other nations know as well as the noble lord opposite, and those who acted with him, what we meant by “free trade” was nothing more nor less than, by means of the great advantages we enjoyed, to get a monopoly of all their markets for our manu- factures, and to prevent them, one and all, from ever becoming manufacturing nations. When the system of reciprocity and free trade had been proposed to a French ambassador, his remark was that the plan was excellent in theory, but to make it fair in practice it would be necessary to defer the attempt to put it in execution for half a century, until France should be on the same footing with Great Britain, in marine, in manufactures, in capital, and the many other peculiar advantages which it now enjoyed. The policy France acted on was that of encouraging its native manufactures, and it was a wise policy ; because, if it were freely to admit our manufactures, it would speedily be reduced to the rank of an agricultural nation , and, therefore, a poor nation , as all must be that depend exclusively upon agriculture. America acted, too, upon the same principle with France. America legislated for futurity — legis- lated for an increasing population. America, too, was prospering under this system. When nearly the whole body of the people are engaged in agri- culture, a home market for any considerable surplus of the crops is THE VASSALAGE OF FREE TRADE. 17 a simple impossibility. The grower of cotton, or tobacco, or rice, or wheat, or corn, has neither need nor desire to purchase a like prod- uct; he is always and everywhere a seller, not a buyer, of the commodity. If his excess over his own wants can not find con- sumption in his own neighborhood, it must be sent to a distant one for that purpose ; and if customers or consumers can not be found nearer than Liverpool, his products must cross the ocean in search of a market. His pay, after deducting the cost of a long transpor- tation and the profits of many middlemen, comes back in the shape of cloth, clothing, hats, boots, shoes, utensils, implements, furniture, and the whole round of articles required to meet the demands of household and plantation or farm life. Many tons of raw material are exchanged for a single ton of finished products. A piece of dress silk or a bolt of broadcloth represents a number of bales of cotton, or hogsheads of tobacco, or tierces of rice, or bushels of wheat or of corn, packed in small compass. The tax of transportation on the outgoing freight is large and onerous, because of the great bulk of the commodity ; that on the incoming freight is small and easily borne, because of the diminutive bulk. These several taxes come out of the pockets of the several producers ; for he who is dependent upon a distant market for his products must either himself pay the cost of their transportation to that market, or else sell to some trader who will, the net price received being minus the sum required to remove the purchase to such market. In this transaction each several agriculturist is a considerable loser, on account of the large size and weight of his raw material ; while the manufacturer suffers only a trifling loss, his finished product being compact and usually light. Such is the system of exchanges which long prevailed at the South, during the existence of slavery, as a necessary outgrowth of the divorce of diversified industry from agriculture and trade, that section having refused to accept manufacturing development because believed to be inimical to the economic theory of capital owning its labor. The North, particularly the eastern portion, which adopted tariff protection as a regenerative and elevating force, became the middleman who purchased the surplus of her plantations, and paid for it in wares and merchandise. Her producers were always in debt for supplies, and evermore discounting the growing crops. Indeed, for a quarter of a century previous to the rebellion, there were few days when she was not indebted to the protective North to the value of one season’s growth of cotton. Her dependence upon 18 THE VASSALAGE OF FREE TRADE. distant markets for almost every necessary, comfort, convenience, and luxury of life not extracted from the soil in the shape of a raw material was complete, universal, helpless, and disgraceful. Her merchants could not stir in their business ; her planters could not enter upon the routine of agricultural work; her laborers could scarcely put food in their mouths; her women could not even arrange their hair, without testifying to this humiliating depend- ence. Its extremity, as exemplified in the life of a Southern gentle- man, has been portrayed with such graphic force and fidelity by Mr. Helper, in his once-famous book, “ The Impending Crisis,” that we reproduce the outline with the indorsement of all our own per- sonal observation and remembrance : See him rise in the morning from a Northern bed, and clothe himself in Northern apparel ; see him walk across the room on a Northern carpet, and see him perform his ablutions out of a Northern basin and ewer. See him un- cover a box of Northern powder, and cleanse his teeth with a Northern brush ; see him reflect his physiognomy in a Northern mirror, and arrange his hair with a Northern comb. See him dosing himself with the medicaments of Northern quacks, and perfuming his handkerchief with Northern cologne. See him referring to the time in a Northern watch, and glancing at the news in a Northern gazette. See him and his family sitting in Northern chairs, and singing and praying out of Northern books. See him at the breakfast table, saying grace over a Northern plate, eating Avith Northern cutlery, and drink- ing from Northern utensils. See him charmed with the melody of a Northern piano, or musing over the pages of a Northern novel. See him riding to his neighbor’s in a Northern carriage, or furrowing his lands with a Northern plow. See him lighting his cigar with a Northern match. See him with Northern pen and ink, writing letters on Northern paper, and sending them away in Northern envelopes, sealed with Northern wax, and im- pressed with a Northern seal. Such were and are the legitimate and unavoidable fruits of free trade — such the helpless and abject dependence which it inflicts upon its dupes and victims. Substitute for “ Northern ” the words British and foreign, then we shall have an accurate picture of the degrading and subservient condition to which the whole country would be reduced by a long practice of free-trade doctrines. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure; which a just pride ought to discard . — Samuel Harris . OUR EXPORTS OF FOOD PRODUCTS. 10 OUR EXPORTS OF FOOD PRODUCTS. (From the Chicago Evening Journal , June 20, 1878.) The country is being flooded with the speech on the tariff ques- tion by the Hon. John Randolph Tucker, of Virginia. This, with other literature of like character, is intended to manufacture public opinion in favor of continuing the agitation for a revision of our customs laws, Mr. Wood, since the defeat of his bill, having given written notice that he intends to introduce another measure on the first day of the next session of Congress. As Mr. Tucker’s speech has been largely sent to the West, it may be well to point out the fallacy of his arguments. Here is a sample : * Now let us look at this matter in the light of statistics. We exported in 1877, in round numbers, $115,000,000 of breadstuff’s, $171,000,000 of cotton, $110,000,000 of provisions, $28,000,000 of tobacco, and so on. The aggregate of our exports is six hundred and some odd million dollars. The agricultural exports amount to nearly $500,000,000 ; that is to say, that nearly five-sixths of the exports of the country are produced by the tillers of the soil. Now this enormous production is not dependent for its price, and therefore its value, on the home demand, but on the foreign demand. I ask, gentlemen, where is the justice of limiting by excessive duties the imports of the country, which are the means the foreigner brings to pay us a good price for our exports ? In return, we may ask, what is the sense or use of exporting breadstuff’s and provisions, in order to buy them bach, after adding the cost of a double transportation and the profits of many middle- men? Yet this is exactly what happens regarding much of the food and other raw materials which we send to foreign countries. Among the elements which make up the cost of every bale of cloth and of every ton of iron is the subsistence of the laborers employed in pro- ducing these articles. When they are imported we pay back to the foreign manufacturer, as an essential and unavoidable part of his price, the wages paid by him to his work-people, and by that act indirectly, yet not less surely, pay for the breadstuff’s and provisions consumed by those persons while rendering the services embodied in the imported commodities. In this way every finished product brought into this country from abroad represents a certain quantity of food; consequently, by importing, in the fiscal year 1877, wholly manufactured articles to the value of $256,790,875, we bought bach, at greatly enhanced prices, what was equivalent to a very consider- able portion of the $225,000,000 of breadstuff’s and provisions which we exported in the same year. Is that mode of conducting foreign 20 OUR EXPORTS OF FOOD PRODUCTS. trade likely to enrich a nation, or is it worthy to he promoted by low duties on imports? As regards raw cotton, the case is still more unreasonable. Why should we send the fleecy staple, with food added, more than 3,000 miles to the loom and the spindle, in pref- erence to bringing the spindle and the loom, once for all, to the place where the fleecy staple is grown ? Can any one honestly com- mend, on the score of wise economy, the varied movement of raw materials from the farm across an ocean to the factory, and their return from thence, in manufactured form, over the same long dis- tance to this country for consumption, loaded with the cost of freight and insurance both ways, besides profits and other charges, when our own labor and machinery are fully equal to the task of convert- ing those raw materials into finished products ? All these varied and frequent movements to and fro constitute only a spurious sort of commerce, for a genuine commerce can not properly fulfill its functions by interposing vast distances between production and re- production — between manufacturer and consumer — involving the grinding tax of transportation and the expense of a swarm of mid- dlemen. Adam Smith, who first formulated the propositions of political economy, says, in the third chapter of the third book of his cele- brated work on “ The Wealth of Nations,” what follows : The manufacturers first supply the neighborhood, and afterward, as their work improves and refines, more distant markets. For though neither the rude produce, nor even the coarse manufacture, could, without the greatest difficulty, support the expense of a considerable land carriage, the refined and improved manufacture easily may. In a small bulk it frequently contains the price of a great quantity of the raw produce. A piece of fine cloth, for example, which weighs only eighty pounds, contains in it the price , not only of eighty pounds of wool , but sometimes of several thousand weight of corn , the maintenance of the different working people, and of their immediate employers. The corn which could with difficulty have been carried abroad in its own shape is in this manner virtually exported in that of the complete manufacture, and may easily be sent to the remotest corners of the world. He further says, in the ninth chapter of the fourth book : A small quantity of manufactured produce purchases a great quantity of rude produce. A trading and manufacturing country, therefore, naturally purchases with a small part of its manufactured produce a great part of the rude produce of other countries ; while, on the contrary, a country without trade and manufactures is generally obliged to purchase, at the expense of a great part of its rude produce, a very small part of the manufactured produce of other countries. OUR EXPORTS OF FOOD PRODUCTS. 21 We submit that it is bad policy for the United States to export immense quantities of breadstuffs, provisions, and other raw mate- rials that will be bought back , at largely enhanced prices, in the shape of fabrics — that it is bad policy to export bulky articles and import condensed or finished products, thus constantly discriminat- ing against ourselves in the matter of freight charges — that it is bad policy to carry on a foreign trade which involves the giving of much rude produce for little manufactured produce. Why, then, should we expand and perpetuate this bad policy by acts of legislation ? If what Mr. Tucker styles “excessive duties” will restrain or bar this bad policy, we have a very strong reason why such duties should be imposed. Neither individual nor national economy would be pro- moted by a system of customs laws which would require the farmer to declare, “ In the coat on my back is contained some of the wheat which was exported last year from my farm to England.” Protec- tion finally enables the farmer to say, on the contrary, “ The cloth in this coat was made at the factory you see over yonder. I raised the wool and sold it to the manufacturer, besides which I supplied to him and his workmen all the breadstuffs and provisions which they consumed.” Not the former result, but the latter, meets the views of wise statesmanship, and requires the fostering aid of Con- gress. The Good Old Times. — There is a great deal of nonsense talked about the good old times. Every city, town, or village in the land has its croakers, who see nothing but disaster in the future, hard times in the present, and good times in the past. The Adrian Times tells of one of these complaining individuals who was growling about the present low price of wheat. A well-known Michigan citizen gave a little of his experience of the good old times of forty years ago. He lived where Burr Oak now stands, and, wanting to get* some barrels of salt, he put thirty bushels of wheat in his wagon and started for Adrian, eighty miles away. As he could not get cash there, he went on to Palmyra mills and sold his wheat for fifty cents a bushel. Going back to Adrian, he paid $3 for two barrels of salt, and got back to Burr Oaks after being five days gone, being delayed by the execrable roads. This is a fair sample of the good old times, and it must be admitted that they do not flatter them- selves by comparison with the times we have at present. 22 BERKSHIRE PIGS FOR IRON PIGS. BERKSHIRE PIGS FOR IRON PIGS. (From the Chicago Inter-Ocean , August 15, 1878.) Were logic a person, lie would be liable to fall into a furious passion on reading the speech by Hon. John Randolph Tucker on the tariff ; for logic teaches that experience should be considered in conducting an argument, while Mr. Tucker, whenever it suits his purposes, wholly ignores the experimental data of the past. Such was his mood when he said what follows : Why should we make pig iron when with Berkshire pigs raised upon our farms we can buy more iron pigs from England than we can get by trying to make them ourselves? We can get more iron pigs from England for Berk- shire pigs than we can from the Pennsylvania manufacturers. Why, then, should I not be permitted to send there for them ? Why should the Penn- sylvania manufacturer trouble himself to go into a business which is not profitable, and is a losing one, merely for the sake of selling iron pigs at a loss? The Hon. James A. Garfield made a brief answer to part of the above questions, as quoted below : For a single season, perhaps, his plan might be profitable to the consumers of iron ; but if his policy were adopted as a permanent one it would reduce us to a merely agricultural people, whose chief business would be to produce the simplest raw materials by the least skill and culture, and let the men of brains of other countries do our thinking for us, and provide for us all prod- ucts requiring the cunning hand of the artisan, while we would be compelled to do the drudgery for ourselves and for them. History fully corroborates the foregoing statements. Every coun- try which has adopted the policy of exchanging Berkshire pigs for iron pigs — or, in other words, the policy of exporting raw material and importing finished products — has begun to decline in wealth, in prosperity, and in national power. We have a forcible illustration *of this at home. The South refused to cultivate and develop manu- facturing industry, because she believed it to be inimical to the safety of slavery. As a consequence of this dependence upon ex- ternal sources of supply for almost every article of manufacture, that section, on the breaking out of the rebellion, could not make railroad bars to build iron tracks needed for military operations; could not replenish the worn-out implements of agriculture; could not convert into cloth the teeming abundance of cotton grown in her fields ; could not even produce a friction match that would light BERKSHIRE PIGS FOR IRON PIGS. 23 one in twenty — in brief, could not utilize her natural resources. During the war the South possessed an almost limitless quantity of iron — in the ore, where the practice of free-trade principles had left it — but, without furnaces, without forges, without foundries, without machine-shops, without rolling-mills, without skilled laborers, that mineral opulence remained a buried treasure throughout the entire struggle, from the utter impotency of any general effort to utilize it. Then the few manufacturing establishments which had come into existence against all obstacles became focal points of Confederate solitude and sheltering care. Axes and spades, locomotives, plows and hoes, steam-engines and machinery became scarcer and scarcer. With a rich soil, and with four million slaves to till it, even food declined in quantity, notwithstanding that the area devoted to cotton was restricted by law to an insignificant number of acres. Salt itself rose to the dignity of a luxury, and was consumed with sparing frugality by all, and with pinching economy by many. What a broad contrast this condition presents to that in the N-orth, where plenty ran riot, and where the people had struggled success- fully against the policy of exchanging Berkshire pigs, raised in the United States, for iron pigs produced in England! The South was rendered weak in all respects, and helpless in some, because of her resolute opposition to manufacturing industry, and her fixed hostility to protective tariffs. This single lamp of experience should be suffi- cient to guide our feet in the future. The experimental teachings of exporting Berkshire pigs to pay for imported iron pigs are all averse to that mode of conducting international exchanges. Mr. Tucker, as a revenue reformer, is unfortunately a professor of theoretics in that supremely theoretical school which believes in keeping experience at arm’s-length, through fear of the contamina- tion of too much familiarity. He asks, with a triumphant tone, “ Why should the Pennsylvania manufacturer trouble himself to go into a business which is not profitable, and is a losing one, merely for the sake of selling iron pigs at a loss ? ” He does not go into the business merely for that sake. Formerly he made a profit. Now he often sells at a loss, just as the maker of pig iron in England does; and continues to make and sell at a loss for very much the same reasons that in- fluence the Englishman to do the same — the hope of returning pros- perity, and the greater loss which a full stoppage would inflict. With equal force we might apply the question to the English iron- master, and ask Mr. Tucker to answer. The inquiry fits the con- 24 BERKSHIRE PIGS FOR IRON PIGS. dition of the Englishman quite as fully as it does that of the Ameri- can. If it possesses logical cogency against the latter, the same does it possess against the former. Hard times have victimized them both. And here we can not refrain from entering our solemn and em- phatic protest against the whole spirit which animates that policy of legislation so magniloquently, yet so mistakenly, vaunted as tariff reform — that presumptuous spirit, we mean, which would reduce civilization to a paltry question of dollars and cents, and which practically insists that virtue, vice, morality, education, misery, happiness, freedom, patriotism must be expressed in mathematical formulas. This Gradgrind school of political economists, hedged in by the rules of arithmetic, and weighing everything in the scales of an avoirdupois logic, appears to see in the existence of the human race, from birth to death, nothing more important than a bargain across a counter, it having been clearly ascertained by those utili- tarian philosophers, at least to their own satisfaction, that the whole duty of man — not a part of man’s duty, but the whole — is com- prised in buying cheap foreign manufactures, despite the cost in down-trodden and degraded humanity in the countries of produc- tion ; despite the misery and hunger-pinched wretchedness wreaked upon the foreign laborer by the process of securing low money price; despite the ignorance and brutality which become the attend- ants upon such cheapness. The bargain-price which involves hu- man degeneracy and human suffering is always exorbitantly dear in the end. Labor in the North of England. — Puddlers who earned seven years ago above £2 a week on an average, and the basis of whose wages rose largely in the two following years, could not average in 1876 more than £1 10s. Last year it was contended that the earnings did not average £1 weekly; and, though this was probably under the mark, yet there has been a reduction in the basis since, which with short work will certainly make the average little in excess of half of what it was in 1871, while there is still a very great overplus of labor. How a subsistence has been earned with the help of stone breaking for the unions, field labor for the farmers, and other similar methods, need not be told . — Pall Mall Gazette. A PUZZLED EDITOR ANSWERED. 25 A PUZZLED EDITOR ANSWERED. To the Editors of the Rock Island Union : An item in your columns of the 16th inst., speaking of our caucus last Saturday night, says that “ it would puzzle the author ” of the tariff resolution “ to instance a single Moline industry that is benefit- ed by a high protective tariff.” I think I can throw some light on the puzzle which has seemed so formidable to you, and present here- with a few figures which show the effect of a protective tariff on the industries of the country, and, therein, of Moline. The table given below is a comparative exhibit of the population, manufactures, and wealth of the country during the two periods running from 1850 to 1860, and from 1860 to 1870 : 1850. I860. 1870. Population 23,200,000 800,000 900,000 $1,200,000,000 $8,000,000,000 31,450,000 820,000 1,200,000 $1,885,000,000 $14,000,000,000 38,500,000 1.900.000 2.500.000 $4,306,000,000 $30,000,000,000 Tron production, tons Iron consumption, tons Manufactures Wealth of country (slaves ex- cluded) During the first period we had no protective tariff, or practically none. During the second we had the Morrill tariff of 1861. Dur- ing the first period our population increased 35 per cent., and our wealth increased 66 per cent. During the second period, although our population increased only 23 i per cent., our wealth increased 114 per cent. During the first period the increase of our manufac- tures, in which we are more directly interested, barely kept pace with our increase of population. During the second period our manu- factures tripled in value. During the first period the iron industry (the most important industry in Moline) increased in product 20,000 tons, or 2? per cent. During the second it increased in product 1,080,000 tons, or nearly 133 per cent. Remarkable as this latter decade was for the destruction of wealth and paralyzation of industry in a great part of our country during the war, the resistant or pro- tective policy made it even more remarkable for the increase of wealth and industrial interests and the development of resources. The one period illustrates the free-trade, the other the protective policy. I have selected only a few out of the great list of industries to illustrate the difference, and have chosen those which are most representative of Moline. 26 A PUZZLED EDITOR ANSWERED, How do these figures concern the industries of Moline ? The in- dustries of Moline are a part of the grand total here represented, but the ratio which the figures of the one period for Moline bear to those of the other is a still more striking example of the benefits of pro- tection. We have no need to consult government reports to see the difference in Moline. During the second decade our industries have grown from local to national importance. It was the high tariff of 1861 that made the marvelous development of our implement busi- ness possible. The direct operation of the tariff has been to keep British implements and commodities out of our market, and leave the home markets free for our goods ; and the existing tariff has sus- tained our industries and assisted their growth since the panic of 1873. Without the protection of the tariff the Moline iron works and plow factories, so far as we had any iron works and plow facto- ries, would have been working British iron and steel. Just here I may remark that the three greatest financial and industrial panics that have happened in our history are those of 1817, 1837, and 1857 ; that they were each, respectively, preceded by a low tariff or free trade, and the means which restored prosperity in -each case was a protective tariff. No branch of American industry shows the effect of the protective tariff more forcibly than that of paper-making. In 1862 the rav- ages of the war in the cotton States diminished the production of cotton, then the principal paper stock, to such an extent that paper- makers could hardly obtain raw material for their trade, and paper rapidly advanced from nine and ten cents per pound to eighteen and twenty and twenty -six cents per pound. These figures are not taken from any merely local price-list, but from the prices current of the country. At that time there was a duty of 20 per cent, on imported paper. Great efforts were made to have this duty repealed, and let in the foreign paper, but the Republican party in Congress stood firm, and the duty was retained. The result was that the demand for paper caused new mills to spring up all over the country ; in- creased the business of the old ones ; led to the introduction of new materials in the making of paper, which cheapened the cost of pro- duction ; and, finally, gave us a home industry in the production of paper, which can compete with the paper-makers of the world. These facts are well known to the men who handled paper during the war, and to students of political economy generally who have in- vestigated the paper trade. Merritt Starr. Moltne, Illinois, June 18. HOW PROTECTION BENEFITS AGRICULTURE. 27 There is a great deal of talk of the projected “ commercial alli- ance” between France and the United States, of which M. Leon Chotteau, lately in this country, is the representative spokesman. The “commercial alliance,” as well as we can make it out, means a more liberal purchase of French goods on the part of the people of the United States, although it is put in the reverse form by its polite French champions. They desire, so they say, that their countrymen shall buy more American goods. Why they do not carry their desire into effect it is not easy to see. Certainly it is not because the Americans do not make very liberal purchases from France . — Boston Commercial Bulletin. HOW PROTECTION BENEFITS AGRICULTURE. (From the Chicago Inter-Ocean , July 9, 1878.) Benefit accrues through a series of advancing and cumulative influences, as follows : 1. By multiplying the mechanic arts, so that the people employed therein become regular and liberal consumers of food, without com- peting in its production, thus enlarging the farmer’s home market. 2. By reducing the distance between producer and consumer, with the effect of diminishing the cost of transportation between the two ; dispensing with' a portion of the former middlemen, and in- creasing the number of exchanges. 3. By diversifying agriculture and providing for a rotation of crops, since the farmer who depends on exportation is limited con- stantly to the few growths for which there is a foreign demand, whereas the domestic requirement is both steadier and more varied. 4. By relieving the perplexities and evils of a slavish reliance upon the foreign market ; for the quantities taken abroad, from year to year, are so uncertain and changeable as to frustrate every at- tempt made, at the date of sowing the crop, to estimate and to an- ticipate the amount that will be wanted, so that there is quite as great liability to produce too much as too little ; but the home con- sumption can be reasonably estimated. 5. By establishing a multitude of manufacturing centres, from which goes forth for miles around a profitable demand for those minor crops, such as pumpkins, turnips, melons, and the like, which the earth produces by the ton, while it yields the cereals -by the bushel, yet which will not bear the expense of a long transporta- tion. 28 HOW PROTECTION BENEFITS AGRICULTURE. 6. By retaining in the country and near the field an increasing proportion of the waste of agricultural consumption, thereby ena- bling the farmer to return to the soil, in the shape of manure, the fertilizing constituents withdrawn by the processes of vegetation, and preventing the exhaustion of the land. 7. By more and more promoting the division of agriculture into distinct branches, as sheep husbandry, the raising of flax for fibre and seed, fruit orchards, vegetable gardens, dairies, cheese factories, bee culture, and the like, with the result of reducing agricultural competition. 8. By improving and multiplying roads, bridges, and ferries, and by cheapening all the facilities of transportation, in consequence of the rapid growth and larger needs of internal commerce. 9. By augmenting the value of land and the prices of agricul- tural produce, through the greatly increased demand for both. 10. By expanding the supply, improving the quality, and dimin- ishing the prices of manufactured articles, through the multiplica- tion of manufacturers and the growing competition among them for the sale of their products in the same markets. 11. By stimulating the inventive genius of our countrymen to de- vise many labor-saving machines and better implements, whereby much of the former drudgery of farm labor is transferred to mus- cles of wood and metal, the power of tilling the land is vastly enhanced, and the cost of agricultural production is wonderfully decreased. 12. By ultimately bringing the manufacturer to the side of the farmer and the planter everywhere, thus destroying the onerous tax of transportation, and abolishing the intervention of supernumerary and expensive middlemen, as the effects of direct exchanges — an increasing tendency towards which result is now seen in the growth of manufacturing establishments in the rural districts of the West, and in the progressive erection of cotton-mills in the immediate neighborhood of the cotton-fields of the South. And, 13. By finally transforming the cultivation of the soil from an ignorant waste of the fertilizing elements into a scientific agricul- ture, whereupon it enters upon a boundless and permanent career of prosperity. The more frequently that tariff protection is weakened, the oftener will these effects be interrupted; the more completely that tariff protection is withdrawn, the more widely will these effects be ar- rested, turned back, and destroyed; the more thoroughly and VAST INCREASE IN OUR INTERNAL COMMERCE. 29 steadily that tariff protection is bestowed, the more actively and fruitfully will these effects come into existence, and the more per- manent will they be. VAST INCREASE IN OUR INTERNAL COMMERCE. The following is extracted from a letter addressed to the Secre- tary of the Treasury on the 14th of September, by Hon. Joseph Nimmo, Jr., the Chief of the Bureau of Statistics, in reply to a letter from the Secretary, requesting, among other matters, informa- tion concerning the condition of our internal commerce during the last five years and at the present time, and the relative value of our internal and foreign commerce. The Pennsylvania Railroad, with its western extension, the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway, and the New York Central Railroad, with its principal western connection, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Rail- way, constitute the two most important avenues of internal commerce in this country. The traffic over them may, therefore, be regarded as a fair index of the general condition of our internal trade. The statistics of this traffic are presented as follows : YEAR. Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. New York Central Railroad. Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway. Pennsylvania Railroad. Tons carried. Tons carried. Tons carried. Tons carried. 1873.. . 1874.. . 1875.. . 1876.. . 1877.. . 5,176,661 5,221,267 5,022,490 5,635,167 5,513,398 6,114,678 6,001,954 6,803,680 6,351,356 2,316,568 2,299,120 2,496,148 2,629,607 2,690,735 9,998,794 9,118,419 9,787,176 10,600,547 10,438,394 The traffic on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway increased 6J per cent, from 1873 to 1877 ; the traffic on the New York Central Railroad increased nearly 4 per cent, from 1874 to 1877 ; (this comparison could not be made from 1873, for the reason that after that year the tonnage movement on another important road was added ;) the traffic of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway showed an increase of 16 per cent. ; and the traffic on the Pennsylvania Railroad showed an increase of 4J per cent. It appears that the total traffic on the four roads showed an increase of 10 per cent, from 1874 to 1878. I have no statistical information in regard to the traffic of these railroads during the current year. The following statements made by Mr. Vanderbilt, president of the New York Central Railroad Company, and by Mr. Thomas A. Scott, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, on the 26th of VAST INCREASE IN OUR INTERNAL COMMERCE. 30 August, after the adjournment of the recent railroad conference at Saratoga, are, however, of interest in this connection. Mr. Vanderbilt is reported to have said: — “In my opinion there will be •sufficient business during the next six months for all the railroads and the Erie Canal. The lines cannot now supply cars enough for the demands upon them. This week I have contracted for eight hundred new cars. The Erie, I am informed, has ordered 2,000, and many other lines are finding it neces- sary to increase their rolling stock.” Mr. Scott is reported to have said : — “The railroads are now very actively employed, and the number of cars is not ■great enough to move the freight offered as promptly as is desired. I believe there will be a steady improvement in nearly all branches of trade and industry. The prospects of the leading railroad lines of the country are now good.” The traffic movements over other important trunk lines also serve to indicate the general condition of the internal commerce of the country. The Balti- more and Ohio Railroad Company state only the number of through tons of merchandise from Baltimore to the Ohio river, and from the Ohio river to Baltimore. Although not comparable with the tonnage statistics of the other roads, they serve to illustrate the condition of our internal commerce. The tonnage was as follows: 1873, 640,265 tons; 1874, 752,256 tons; 1875, 872,101 tons; 1876, 1,093,393 tons; 1877, 1,047,645 tons. Comparing 1873 with 1877, we find an increase of 63^ per cent. The secretary of the Baltimore Board of Trade, in a letter dated September 9th, 1878, states that “he would estimate the increased tonnage of the Balti- more and Ohio Railroad, for the year 1878, over the year ending September 30th, 1877, as much as 20 to 25 per cent., in grain and flour.” The freight traffic over the Union Pacific Railroad each year from 1873 to 1877 was as follows: 1873, 487,484 tons; 1874, 482,806 tons; 1875, 501,410 .tons; 1876, 629,947 tons ; 1877, 716,112 tons. There appears to have been an increase in the traffic of the Union Pacific Railroad of 47 per cent, since the year 1873. The freight traffic of the great Chicago and Northwestern Railway, embra- cing 2,037 miles of road, was, during the last four years, ending May 31st, as follows: 1875, 3,153,315 tons; 1876, 3,471,927 tons; 1877, 3,413,398 tons; 1878, 3,911,261 tons. From 1875 to 1878 the traffic over the lines of this company increased 24 per cent. The average freight rates on this road fell from 2 t 1 7 cents per ton per mile in 1875 to ljjfo cents per ton per mile in 1878 — a decrease of 18 per cent. The Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Company operates 1,003 miles of road. The traffic over the lines of this company during the last five years appears to have been as follows: 1873, 1,286,966 tons; 1874, 1,399,384 tons; 1875, 1,117,727 tons; 1876, 1,640,000 tons; 1877, 1,651,408 tons. The tonnage carried on the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad showed an increase of 28 per cent, from 1873 to 1877. To the foregoing I would add the recent and valuable statistics of the total grain receipts at seaports, just published by the New York Produce Exchange : Year ending August 31st, 1875, 170,823,767 bushels; 1876, 208,752,462 bush- els; 1877,181,791,038 bushels; 1878, 286,633,261 bushels. The receipts at VAST INCREASE IN OUR INTERNAL COMMERCE. 31 seaports during the year ending August 31st, 1878, were seventy per cent, greater than those of 1875, and the largest in the history of the country. The ports above referred to are Montreal, Portland, Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Orleans. Your second inquiry relates to the relative value of the internal and the foreign commerce of the United States. No statistical return is made regu- larly by any railroad in this country as to the value of commodities trans- ported. I am able to present information of this character with respect to but one railroad, and that only for a single year. An officer of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company made such a computation for this Bureau a few months ago, and as the result of great care and labor ascertained that the total value of the freight traffic over that road, during the year 1876, amounted to $560,- 942,158 — a sum exceeding the value of the imports into the United States from foreign countries during any year since 1874. The above valuation does not include the express business, amounting on the Pennsylvania Railroad to about thirty tons daily, and composed largely of merchandise. A ton of ex- press goods many times exceeds in value the average value of a ton of ordinary freights. I believe it is safe to assume that the commerce over the Pennsylvania Railroad and its western extension, the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railway, and over the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad and its western connection, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, without counting any commodity more than once, considerably ex- ceeds in value the entire foreign commerce of the United States, imports and exports combined. It was stated a year ago, in the first annual report on internal commerce, as the result of a careful estimate, that the value of the commerce of the United States on railroads is about sixteen times the value of our foreign commerce. Importations of foreign raw copper into the United States ap- pear to have ceased, as our country produces immense quantities of copper from the native mines. We are also exporters of the metal, and the shipments promise to become quite extensive. Yet it is sometimes a source of lamentation by free traders that we do not stimulate the importation of foreign copper. Why should we ? Production and distribution are the agencies by which human wants are supplied, and a nation increases in wealth in the ratio that the sum of its productions exceeds that of its consumption. The paramount object to be kept in view in shaping our commercial policy should be to develop in the nation its maximum power of production. — Samuel Harris. 32 PROTECTION WINS IN CANADA. Canada for Protection. — The result of the general election in the Dominion of Canada, on the 17th of September, is thus commented on by the New York Tribune : The defeat of the Canadian government is complete. After a vigorous campaign, in which free trade and protection were the leading issues, it is placed in a hopeless minority of 70, with three of its ministers unseated. Since it came into power in 1873 it has commanded substantial majorities, and resisted energetically the efforts of Sir John A. Macdonald to alter the tariff in the interests of domestic industry. But hard times have made the Cana- dians reflective, and led them to declare for measures designed to encourage manufactures and provide a home market for the products of the field. They have not been swayed by large manufacturers, sometimes called “ bloated monopolists,” for there are few such in Canada, but have been guided by the broad, liberal purpose to promote the public good by stimulating new indus- tries, and encouraging those which already exist. They have given free trade a fair trial, and although they have been flooded with quotations from Bastiat, and stories of American poverty, they have resolved to have no more of it. Mr. Mackenzie will, of course, retire promptly from the premiership and be succeeded by the Conservative leader, Sir John A. Macdonald, who was de- feated at Kingston, but may readily secure a seat elsewhere. Sir John is the experienced statesman who promoted Confederation, acted as premier from 1867 to 1873, and represented Canada in the negotiations which resulted in the Treaty of Washington. He enjoys the confidence of Gold win Smith, who gave him an independent support during the recent campaign. He is a strong protectionist, and placing Canada first, is, of course, disposed to defend her industries from American as well as British competition. But in his desire to expand and diversify Canadian industries he is on the road which leads to a customs union, if not to actual annexation. Meanwhile, Canada, rendered prosperous by protection, will be a better customer of ours than she ever could be under free trade.