WAGES-Continued.

"It is the dollar left on Saturday evening, after all the bills are paid, that means education, independence, self-respect, manhood. It increases the value of every acre near by, fills the town with dwellings, opens public libraries and crowds them, dots the continent with cities and cobwebs it with railways. The one remaining dollar insures progress and guarantees millions to its owner."

No. 388.

WAGES-Their Purchasing Power.

In a speech on the silver question, Senator Mills (Democratic freetrader), of Texas, gave these facts:

"Mr. President, the wages of labor in this country and all over the world for a hundred years have been tending upward. They are higher to-day than they have been at any time in the past, and the wage-earner, in whatever occupation employed, is deeply interested in the preservation of the standard of values as fixed and immovable as it is possible to make it. A few years ago our friends on the other side of the chamber directed the Committee on Finance to make an investigation and report to this body the movement of wages and prices for a number of years. They took the year 1860 as a basis and compared it and other years with 1890. "Taking 1860 as the basis and calling it 100, the rate of wages increased to 1864 to 125.6 or 25.6 per cent., and to 1890 to 160.7 or 60.7 per cent. In 1860 and 1890 there was a gold standard, and in 1864 a depreciated paper standard. Wages went up in four years 25.6 per cent., but the money the laborer earned was only the instrument which enabled him to procure the necessaries of life, and while it went up the ladder a few rounds, the necessaries of life, that his wages had to buy to sustain himself, his wife, and children, had ascended the rounds of the ladder till they were lost in the clouds.

"The annual average wages of laborers in manufactories in 1860 was $288.95. The average monthly wages was $24.08, in gold. In 1864 it was 26.6 higher, or $30.24 in paper, and in 1890 it was 60.7 per cent. higher than in 1860, and was $38.69, in gold. Now, taking the official prices given by the Bureau of Statistics and the Finance Committee, the result is shown by the following table:

WAGES-Purchasing Power-Continued.

Purchasing power of wages of labor.

Notice that the annual average of wages for 1890 is $464.28, as against $288.95 in 1860, and $362.88 in 1864.

WEALTH FROM WASTE.

No. 389.

One aspect of the value of protection in ouilding up home manufactures, rather than buying them in foreign countries at a cheaper rate, is seldom sufficiently considered. A removal of the duties on coal, iron ore, and wool is advocated in order to supply manufac turers with cheaper "raw material." But is it considered what enters into the production of this raw material? The consumption of air, water, grass, and herbage, which enters into the production of a sheep and its wool, could not be exported or otherwise utilized, and converting this otherwise waste into wealth is no small con. sideration.

And so, a country which packs its meat before shipment abroad not only saves the loss of life, which would take place on the way, and the cost of transportation to the bulky and more perishable material, but converts into use salt, sawdust, wood, ice, etc., which would otherwise not be utilized; and also the hair, bones, blood, etc., which are converted into other forms of wealth. Paper making gives value to rags, straw, wood, cornstalks, water, etc. And so

WEALTH FROM WASTE-Continued.

different manufactures employ bark, sumack berries, clay, sand, and scores of other things which were otherwise waste. So, also, barren land, rocky hills, and other waste spaces are utilized. Be. sides the consumption of fuel, ores, and forests, which might be exported at a loss, the use of what is otherwise incapable of removal and utility is the point here kept in view. It is safe to say that more waste is thus converted into wealth in the United States than the value of all our imported goods. Shall we utilize this waste or not is the serious question for the free-trader.

No. 390.

WEALTH-New England no Longer Leads.

The increase of wealth from 1880 to 1890 in the States has caused much comment. Free traders and calamity howlers have held up the eastern manufacturing States as awful examples of greed and robbery, while the poverty of the West has been cited in such piteous and heartrending stories of wrong and oppression that common justice demands that the people shall be informed at once of the fraud these deceivers of the people are trying to have them believe. The following table from the Census Bulletin on Wealth, No. 379. issued March 19, 1894, is made the basis of calculation.

The increased wealth of the nation is $21,395,091,197, or $1,039 per capita. Twenty-eight out of the fifty States and Territories exceed the average increase per capita. Of these only five are Eastern States, namely, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island; these five having only an average gain of $1,287 per capita, while the five Western States of California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada have an average of $3,542 per capita.

The only States which have lost in the past ten years are Eastern States-Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

Kansas, which the Populists have pauperized on every possible occasion, saved and accumulated more wealth in the ten years preceding 1890 than did. Massachusetts. Nebraska exceeded Pennsylvania in her accumulations, while Minnesota, Michigan, and Wis consin, all and each passed New Jersey in the race for wealth.

Where do you find the "robber baron," the "giant robber," the "fortress of greed and gain"? No longer in manufacturing New England. Pennsylvania gives place to Texas in the total sum of her

WEALTH-New England, etc.—Continued,

savings, and New York, with twenty-two thousand millions of increased wealth, has not as much to divide to each person as those in the District of Columbia.

WEALTH-Or True Valuation of all Real and Personal Property in U. S.

No. 392.

WHEAT AND SILVER.

It is a favorite sophistry with many to say that "wheat is cheaper now than in 1873." "Silver was destroyed, struck down, and demonetized in 1873," "therefore the fall of silver caused the fall of wheat."

The trouble with that is that the fall in price of wheat has all, or nearly all, taken place since 1891.

The average farm price of wheat was 83 cents in 1891, and the same in 1890, and 92 cents in 1888, in gold, while in 1874 it was 91 cents in paper currency, equal to 84 cents in gold.

When was the wheat farmer most prosperous? He got the biggest average price per bushel in 1881, and the biggest pile of gold per acre in 1891.

In proof of the foregoing statement the following table, found on page 6 of the Monthly Crop Report for December, 1895, U. S. Department of Agriculture, shows:

Production, value, price, and exports of wheat since 1880.

Notice the tremendous drop in December, 1884, and in December, 1892, immediately following each of Mr. Cleveland's elections. Notice the dead level of low prices during the first "four years" and present three years "of Grover."

Notice the prompt response of the wheat market to the election of Mr. Harrison in 1888. The wheat market promptly discounted the