know what it is, who refused to accept the results embodied in this bill as the close of the war, who are not blinded to the fact that the livery of Democratic tariff reform has been stolen and worn in the service of Republican protection, and who have marked the places where the deadly blight of treason has blasted the counsels of the brave in the hour of their might. The trusts and combinations-the communism of pelf—whose machinations have prevented us from reaching the success we deserved, should not be forgotten nor forgiven. We shall recover from our astonishment at their exhibition of power, and then if the question is forced upon us whether they shall submit to the free legislative will of the people's representatives or shall dictate the laws which the people must obey, we will accept that issue as one involving the integrity and safety of American institutions."

This animated and caustic letter concluded with an exhortation to Democrats to stand by the principle of free raw material, and censured those who refused to put coal and iron ore on the free list. The letter provoked wide discussion and received the severest criticism of the President's party associates, some of whom denounced it as more fatal to Democratic political prospects than his Wilson letter had proven to be the cause of tariff reform. They refused to see in it an excuse for not signing the tariff bill, and looked upon the entire party situation as far more complicated and serious than if the President had signed the bill without comment.

In its practical workings the Wilson Tariff Act proved faulty in two important respects. First, its income features were declared to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. Second, it failed to raise sufficient revenue to meet the wants of the Treasury. Whether in other respects it is meeting the theories of its

authors and advocates is more a matter of discussion than history. Protectionists have never ceased to attribute the industrial and financial depression, extending from 1893 to 1896, to its presence. They see in it, when coupled with other measures relating to finance, the source of those ills that characterized the entire period of Presi dent Cleveland's second administration. Whether they are correct or not, is again a matter of discussion.

But there are some historic contrasts that cannot be avoided by anyone. Says Mr. Mulhall, the great English statistician, in speaking of this country from 1880 to 1890:

"It would be impossible to find in history a parallel to the progress of the United States in the last ten years. Every day that the sun rises on the American people it sees the addition of $2,500,000 to the accumulation of wealth in the Republic, which is one-third of the daily accumulation of all mankind outside of the United States."

In the first year of the operation of the McKinley Tariff Act the Goverment receipts were $37,239,763 in excess of expenditures. In 1892 the receipts were $9,904,453 greater than expenses, and in 1893, $2,341,674 greater.

In the first year of the operation of the Wilson Tariff Act, the Government receipts ran $42,805,223 behind expenses, and in the second year about $30,000,000 behind.

In 1893, under the McKinley Act, the importation of woolen goods amounted only to $36,000,000 in value, from which the Treasury received $34,000,000 in revenue. Under the new tariff, in 1895, notwithstanding the reduced per capita consumption of such goods, the importa tion aggregated $60,000,000, from which the Government received a revenue of only $27.000,000. From wool and woolens together the Government obtained a revenue of nearly $44,000,000 in 1892 and only $27,000,000 in 1895. Here was a loss of $17,000,000 revenue in these two

articles. At the same time the manufacture of $30,000,000 of woolen goods was transferred to Europe.

For the fiscal year of 1894, the last full year under the McKinley law, the exports of manufactures amounted to $183,718,484 in value. For the calendar year 1895, the first full official year under the Wilson Law, the exports of manufactures were $201,152,771, an increase of $17,434,287. But the.exports of agricultural products in the corresponding periods showed a net decline of $82,648,663.

Hence the country gained in the exports of manufactures $17,434,287, and it lost in the exports of agricultural products $82,648,663, or a net loss of $65,214,356 in the exports of these two classes in a single year. In the total exports there was a net loss of $69,000,000 in the first calendar year of the new tariff as compared with the last fiscal year of the old tariff.

But when the imports are taken also into consideration the difference is still greater. Under the McKinley tariff in the period mentioned, the imports were $654,994,622. Under the Wilson tariff they were $801,663,490, showing a net increase of imports of $146,668,868. Add that amount to the net loss in exports and it shows a change in the trade balance of the United States of $215,000,000 on the wrong side of the balance sheet.

The Wilson Tariff Law had been in force nineteen months up to March 31, 1896. During that period the receipts from customs were $257,069,000, and the receipts from internal revenue were $201,069,000. During the first nineteen months of the operation of the McKinley Law the receipts from customs were $302,884,000, and the receipts from internal revenue were $231,222,000. The revenues under the Wilson Law were, therefore, about $76,000,000 behind those of the McKinley tariff during the first nineteen months of both laws.

DRIFT OF TARIFF LEGISLATION ABROAD.

The nations which occupy the Continent of Europe have, without exception, introduced into their commercial and industrial systems, within a very few years, the principle of protection. This has been marked by economists of every school. Great Britain alone has remained firm to her doctrine of free-trade. On May 23, 1892, Lord Salisbury, the English Premier, delivered a speech at Hastings, in which he discussed the attitude of Great Britain as to her external trade. The speech, coming from so high an authority, created great excitement among English Conservatives, drew a wide range of comment from the newspapers of the world, and seemed to presage a new departure in the applied economics of the realm.

Its points, bearing on external trade, were:—

"After all, this little island lives as a trading island. We could not produce in foodstuffs enough to sustain the popu lation that lives in this island, and it is only by the great industries which exist here, and which find markets in foreign countries, that we are able to maintain the vast population by which this island is inhabited.

"But a danger is growing up. Forty or fifty years ago everybody believed that free-trade had conquered the world, and they prophesied that every nation would follow the example of England and give itself up to absolute free-trade.

"The results are not exactly what they prophesied, but the more adverse the results were, the more the devoted prophets of free-trade declared that all would come aright at

last.

"The worse the tariffs of foreign countries became the more confident were the prophecies of an early victory, but we see now, after many years experience that explain it,

how many foreign nations are raising, one after another, a wall-a brazen wall of protection-around their shores which excludes us from their markets, and, so far as they are concerned, do their best to kill our trade, and this state of things does not get better. On the contrary, it constantly seems to get worse.

"Now, of course, if I utter a word with reference to freetrade, I shall be accused of being a protectionist, of a desire to overthrow free-trade, and all the other crimes which an ingenious imagination can attach to a commercial heterodoxy.

"But, nevertheless, I ask you to set yourselves free from all that merely vituperative doctrine and to consider whether the true doctrine of free-trade carries you as far as some of these gentlemen would wish you to go.

"Every true religion has its counterpart in inventions and legends and traditions, which grow upon that religion. The Old Testament had its Canonical books and had also its Talmud and its Mishna, the inventions of rabbinical commentators.

"There are a Mishna and a Talmud constantly growing up. One of the difficulties we have to contend with is the strange and unreasonable doctrine which these rabbis have imposed upon us.

"If we look abroad into the world we will see it. In the office which I have the honor to hold I am obliged to see a great deal of it.

"We live in an age of a war of tariffs. Every nation is trying how it can, by agreement with its neighbor, get the greatest possible protection for its own industries, and at the same time the greatest possible access to the markets of its neighbors.

"This kind of negotiation is continually going on. It