and the burden it imposes upon the citizen. It is a fact which every American should contemplate with pride, that the public debt of the United States per capita is less than that of any other great nation of the world. Let me call the roll: Belgium's public debt, per capita, is $72.18; France, $218.27; Germany, $43.10; Great Britain, $100.09; Italy, $74.25; Peru, $140.06; Portugal, $104.18; Russia, $35.41; Spain, $73.34; United States, $33.92 on a population of 50,000,000; and now, with our increased population, the per capita would be under $25. England increased her rate of taxation between 1870 and 1880 over 24 per cent., while the United States diminished nearly 10 per cent.

We lead all nations in agriculture, we lead all nations in mining, and we lead all nations in manufacturing. These are the trophies which we bring after twenty-nine years of a protective tariff. Can any other system furnish such evidences of prosperity? Yet in the presence of such a showing of progress there are men everywhere found who talk about the restraints we put upon trade and the burdens we put upon the enterprise and energy of our people. There is no country in the world where individual enterprise has such wide and varied range and where the inventive genius of man has such encouragement.

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There is no nation in the world, under any system, where the same reward is given to the labor of men's hands and the work of their brains as in the United States. We have widened the sphere of human endeavor and given to every man a fair chance in the race of life and in the attainment of the highest possibilities of human destiny.

"To reverse this system means to stop the progress of the Republic and reduce the masses to small rewards for their labor, to longer hours and less pay, to the simple question of bread and butter. It means to turn them from ambition, courage, and hope, to dependence, degradation and despair. No sane man will give up what he has got, what he is in possession of, what he can count on for himself and his children, for what is promised by your theories. "Free trade, or, as you are pleased to call it, revenue tariff,' means the opening up of this market, which is admitted to be the best in the world, to the free entry of the products of the world. It means more-it means that the labor of this country is to be remitted to its earlier condition, and that the condition of our people is to be leveled down to the condition of rival countries; because under it every element of cost, every item of production, including wages, must be brought down to the level of the lowest paid labor of the world. No other result can follow, and no other result is anticipated or expected by those who intelligently advocate a revenue tariff. We can not maintain ourselves against unequal conditions without the tariff, and no man of affairs believes we can.

"Under the system of unrestricted trade which you gentlemen recommend, we will have to reduce every element of cost down to or below that of our commercial rivals, or surrender to them our own market. No one will dispute that statement, and to go into the domestic market of our rivals would mean that production here must be so reduced that with transportation . added we could undersell them in their own market, and to meet them in neutral markets and divide the trade with them would mean that we could profitably sell side by side with them at their minimum price.

"First, then, to retain our own market under the Democratic system of raising revenue by removing all protection would require our producers to sell at as low a price and upon as favorable terms as our foreign competitors. How could that be done? In one way only-by producing as cheaply as those who would seek our markets. What would that entail? An entire revolution in the methods and condition and conduct of business here, a leveling down through every channel to the lowest line of our competitors; our habits of living would have to be changed, our wage cut down 50 per cent.,

or upward, our comfortable homes exchanged for hovels, our independence yielded up, our citizenship demoralized.

"These are conditions inseparable to free trade; these would be necessary if we would command our own market among our own people, and if we would invade the world's markets harsher conditions and greater sacrifices I would be demanded of the masses. Talk about depression, we would then have it in its fullness. We would revel in unrestrained trade. Everything would indeed be cheap, but how costly when measured by the degradation which would ensue! When merchandise is the cheapest, men are the poorest, and the most distressing experiences in the history of our country—ay, in all human history-have been when everything was the lowest and cheapest measured by gold, for everything was the highest and the dearest measured by labor. We want no return of cheap times in our own country. We have no wish to adopt the conditions of other nations. Experience has demonstrated that for us and ours and for the present and the future the protective system meets our wants, our conditions, promotes the national design, and will work out our destiny better than any other."

EXTRACTS FROM A SPEECH MADE IN A DEBATE ON THE MILLS BILL, MAY 19, 1888.

"It appears from the last official statement that there was in the Treasury at the close of the last month, including subsidiary and minor coins, the sum of $136,143,357.95 over and above all the current liabilities of the government. This was $56,676,662.65 more than the surplus on hand on the 1st day of December, 1887, and shows that there has been since that date an average monthly increase of $11,335,332.15. The surplus accumulation each month under the existing system of taxation is more than the total cost of the government during the first two years of Washington's administration, while the aggregate sum is considerably in excess of the whole expenditure of the government during the first eighteen years of its existence under the Constitution, including civil and miscellaneous expenses, war, navy, Indians, pensions, and interest on the public debt.

"Every dollar of this enormous sum has been taken by law from the productive industries and commercial pursuits of the people at a time when it was sorely needed for the successful prosecution of their business, and under circumstances which afford no excuse whatever for the exaction. There is not a monarchical government in the world, however absolute its form or however arbitrary its power, that would dare to extort such a tribute from its subjects in excess of the proper requirements of the public service; and the question which Congress is now compelled to determine is whether such a policy can be longer continued here in this country, where the people are supposed to govern in their own right and in their own interest.

"On the 17th day of last month the Secretary of the Treasury, in pursu ance of authority conferred upon him by the law of March, 1881, as inter preted by the two Houses of Congress, issued a circular inviting proposals for the sale of bonds to the government. The first purchase was made under this invitation on the 18th day of April, and between that date and the close of business yesterday, a period of one month, he has purchased on account of the government 4 per cent. bonds to the amount of $13,456,500, upon which interest had accrued at the date of the purchase to the amount of $53,172.07. For these bonds he was compelled to pay the sum of $17,046,136.06, which was $3,536,464 more than the principal and accrued interest, or a premium of 264 per cent. During the same time and under the same authority he purchased 4% per cent. bonds to the amount of $12,404,450, upon which interest had accrued to the amount of $108,086.55. For these bonds he paid the sum of $13,379,188.37, which was $866,652.37 in excess of the principal and interest. The premium paid upon this class of bonds was nearly 7 per cent.

"This is the situation into which the government has been forced by the failure of Congress in past years to make provision for a reduction of taxation. Millions of dollars which ought to have remained in the hands of the people who earned the money by their labor and by their skill in the prosecution of business have been taken away from them by law to be paid out to the bondholders in excess of their legal demands against the government. And, sir, if the present Congress shall adjourn without applying a remedy, this unjust process must go on for an indefinite length of time. In the presence of such a situation we cannot afford to quarrel about trivial details. A reduction of the revenue-not by increasing taxation, as some propose, but by diminishing taxation in such manner as will afford the largest measure of relief to the people and their industries-should be the great and controlling object to which everything else should be subordinated. I do not mean that every interest, however small and insignificant, should not be carefully considered in a friendly spirit, but I do mean that the general interests of the many should not be subordinated to the special interests of the few.

"Although the question now presented is purely a practical one, it necessarily involves, to some extent, a discussion of the conflicting theories of taxation which have divided the people of this country ever since the organization of the government. There is a fundamental and irreconcilable difference of opinion between those who believe that the power of taxation should be used for public purposes only, and that the burdens of taxation should be equally distributed among all the people according to their ability to bear them, and those who believe that it is the right and duty of the government to promote certain private enterprises and increase the profits of those engaged in them by the imposition of higher rates than are necessary to raise revenue for the proper administration of public affairs; and so long as this difference exists, or at least so long as the policy of the government is not permanently settled and acquiesced in, these conflicting opinions will continue to embarrass the representatives of the people in their efforts either to increase or reduce taxation.

"While no man in public life would venture to advocate excessive taxation merely for the purpose of raising excessive revenue, many will advocate it, or at least excuse it, when the rates are so adjusted or the objects of taxation are so selected as to secure advantages, or supposed advantages, to some parts of the country or to some classes of industries over other parts and other classes; and this, Mr. Chairman, is the sole cause of the difficulties we are now encountering in our efforts to relieve the people and reduce the surplus. It is the sole cause of the unfortunate delay that has already occurred in the revision of our revenue laws, and if the pending bill shall be defeated, and disaster in any form shall come upon the country by reason of overtaxation and an accumulation of money in the Treasury, this unjust feature in our present system will be responsible for it.

"Whenever an attempt is made to emancipate labor from the servitude which an unequal system of taxation imposes upon it, whenever it is proposed to secure as far as possible to each individual citizen the full fruits of his own earnings, subject only to the actual necessities of the government, and whenever a measure is presented for the removal of unnecessary restrictions from domestic industries and international commerce, so as to permit freer production and freer exchanges, the alarm is sounded and all the cohorts of monopoly are assembled to hear their heralds proclaim the immediate and irretrievable ruin of the country.

"Mr. Chairman, it has been stubbornly contended all through this debate that high rates of duty upon imported goods are beneficial to the great body of consumers, because such duties, instead of increasing the price of the domestic articles of the same kind, actually reduce the prices. If this be true, all the other arguments in support of the existing system are not only superfluous, but manifestly unsound. The proposition that a high tariff enables the producer to pay higher wages for his labor, and the proposition that it also reduces the prices of the articles he has to sell, which are the products of that labor, are utterly inconsistent with each other, and no ingenuity of the casuist can possibly reconcile them. Labor is paid out of its own product, and unless that product can be sold for a price which will enable the employer to realize a reasonable profit and pay the established rates of wages, the business must cease or the rates of wages must be reduced. When the price of the finished product is reduced by reason of the increased efficiency of labor, or by reason of the reduced cost of the raw material, the employer may continue to pay the same or even a higher rate of wages and still make his usual profits. But the tariff neither increases the efficiency of labor nor reduces the cost of the raw material.

"I do not deny that prices have greatly fallen during the last fifty years, not only in this country, but all over the civilized world—in free-trade countries as well as in protectionist countries. Nor do I deny that during the

same time the general tendency has been toward an increase in the rates of wages; and this is true also of all civilized countries, free-trade and protection alike. It is not possible for me now to enumerate, much less discuss, all the causes that have contributed to these results. One of the most efficient causes, in fact the most efficient cause, is the combination of skilled labor with machinery in the production of commodities. The introduction and use of improved machinery has wrought a complete revolution in nearly all our manufacturing industries, and in many cases has enabled one man to do the work which it required one hundred men to do before. Here is a statement furnished by the United States Commissioner of Labor to the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, showing the value of the product of a week's labor in spinning cotton yarn by hand and the value of the product of a week's labor combined with machinery in the same industry: In 1813, one man working sixty hours by hand could turn out three pounds of cotton yarn, worth $2.25, or seventy-five cents per pound; now the same man, if he were living, could turn out in sixty hours with the use of machinery 3,000 pounds of cotton yarn of the same character, worth $450, or fifteen cents per pound. The cotton-spinner now receives as wages for his week's work more than three times as much as the total value of the product of a week's work, including the value of the material, in 1813; and yet labor is far cheaper to the employer now than it was then. Although the employer now receives only one-fifth as much per pound for his cotton yarn as he did in 1813, he realizes from the sale of the products of a week's labor just two hundred times as much as he did then.

"I have also a statement prepared by the same official, showing the relative production and value of product of a weaver using hand and power machinery, from which it appears that a weaver by hand turned out, in seventytwo hours in 1813, 45 yards of cotton goods (shirting), worth $17.91, while a weaver now, using machinery, turns out in sixty hours 1,440 yards, worth $108. Substantially the same exhibit could be made in regard to a very large number of our manufacturing industries.

"Is it strange, Mr. Chairman, in view of these facts, that the prices of manufactured goods have fallen or that the wages of the laborers who produce them have risen? Is it not, on the contrary, remarkable that there has not been a greater fall in prices and a greater increase in wages? Undoubtedly there would have been a greater reduction in prices and a greater increase in wages if there had been a wider market for the products and a lower cost for the material.

"The tremendous productive forces at work all over the world in these modern times, and the small cost of maual labor in comparison with the value of the products of these combined forces, can not be realized from any general statement upon the subject. In order to form some idea of the magnitude of these natural and mechanical forces, and the efficiency of manual labor and skill when connected with them, let us look at the situation in six of our own manufacturing industries. In the manufacture of cotton goods, woolen goods, iron and steel, sawed lumber, paper, and in our flouring and grist mills, there were employed, according to the latest statistics, 517,299 persons, not all men, but many of them women and children. This labor was supplemented by steam and water power equal to 2,496,299 horse-power. This is equal to the power of 14,977,794 men; and thus we find that a little over 517,000 persons of all ages and sexes are performing, in connection with steam and water power, the work of 15,495,093 adult and healthy men.

"The railroad, the steam-vessel, the telegraph, the improved facilities for the conduct of financial transactions, and many other conveniences introduced into our modern systems of production and distribution and exchange have all contributed their share toward the reduction of prices, and it would be interesting to inquire what their influence has been, but I can not pursue this particular subject further without occupying too much time."