On the 30th day of June, 1885, the excess of revenues over public expenditures after complying with the annual requirement of the sinking-fund act, was $17,859,735.84; during the year ended June 30, 1886, such excess amounted to $49,405,545.20; and during the year ended June 30, 1887, it reached the sum of $55,567,849.54. In considering the question of purchasing bonds as a means of restoring te circulation the surplus money accumulating in the Treasury, it should be borne in mind that premiums must of course be paid upon such purchase, that there may be a large part of these bonds held as investments which cannot be purchased at any price, and that combinations among holders who are willing to sell, may unreasonably enhance the cost of such bonds to the Government was intended as temporary and limited in its applica tion, instead of conferring a continuing discretion and authority. No condition ought to exist which would justify the grant of power to a single official, upon his judgment of its necessity, to withhold from or release to the business of the people, in an unusual manner, money held in the Treasury, and thus affect, at his will, The annual contributions to the sinking fund during the financial situation of the country; and if it is the three years above specified, amounting in the deemed wise to lodge in the Secretary of the Treasury aggregate to $138,058,320.94, and deducted from the the authority in the present juncture to purchase bonds, surplus as stated, were made by calling in for that it should be plainly vested, and provided as far as pos purpose outstanding three per cent bonds of the Gov-sible, with such checks and limitations as will define ernment. During the six months prior to June 30, this official's right and discretion, and at the same time 1887, the surplus revenue had grown so large by relieve him from undue responsibility. repeated accumulations, and it was feared the withdrawal of this great sum of money needed by the people, would so affect the business of the country, that the sum of $79,864,100 of such surplus was applied to the payment of the principal and interest of the three per cent bonds still outstanding, and which were then payable at the option of the Government. The precarious condition of financial affairs among the people still needing relief, immediately after the 30th day of June, 1887, the remainder of the three per cent bonds then outstanding, amounting with principal and inter est to the sum of $18,877,500, were called in and applied to the sinking-fund contribution for the current fiscal year. Notwithstanding these operations of the Treas. ury Department representations of distress in business circles not only continued but increased, and absolute peril seemed at hand. In these circumstances the contribution to the sinking-fund for the current fiscal year was at once completed by the expenditure of $27,684,283.55 in the purchase of Government bonds not yet due, bearing four and four and a-half per cent interest, the premium paid thereon averaging about twentyfour per cent for the former and eight per cent for the latter. In addition to this the interest accruing during the current year upon the outstanding bonded indebt-lationship between the operations of the Government edness of the Government was to some extent anticipated, and banks selected as depositories of public money were permitted to somewhat increase their deposits. It has been suggested that the present bonded debt might be refunded at a less rate of interest and the difference between the old and new security paid in cash, thus finding use for the surplus in the Treasury. The success of this plan, it is apparent, must depend upon the volition of the holders of the present bonds; and it is not entirely certain that the inducement which must be offered them would result in more financial benefit to the Government than the purchase of bonds, while the latter proposition would reduce the principal of the debt by actual payment, instead of extending it. The proposition to deposit the money held by the Government in banks throughout the country, for use by the people, is, it seems to me, exceedingly objectionable in principle, as establishing too close a reTreasury and the business of the country, and too extensive a commingling of their money, thus fostering an unnatural reliance in private business upon public funds. If this scheme should be adopted it should only be done as a temporary expedient to meet_an urgent necessity Legislative and executive effort should generally be in the opposite direction and should have a tendency to divorce, as much and as fast as can safely be done, the Treasury Department from private enterprise Of course it is not expected that unnecessary and extravagant appropriations will be made for the pur pose of avoiding the accumulation of an excess of revenue. Such expenditure, besides the demoraliza. tion of all just conceptions of public duty which it entails, stimulates a habit of reckless improvidence not in the least consistent with the mission of our people or the high and beneficent purposes of our Government. i have deemed it my duty to thus bring to the knowl edge of my countrymen, as well as to the attention of their representatives charged with the responsibility of legislative relief, the gravity of our financial situation. The failure of the Congress heretofore to provide against the dangers which it was quite evident the very nature of the difficulty must necessarily produce, caused a condition of financial distress and apprehension since your last adjournment, which taxed to the utmost all the authority and expedients within executive control; and these appear now to be exhausted If disaster results from the continued inaction of Congress, the responsibility must rest where it belongs Though the situation thus far considered is fraught with danger, which should be fully realized, and though it presents features of wrong to the people as well as peril to the country, it is but a result growing out of a perfectly palpable and apparent cause, constantly reproducing the same alarming circumstances - a congested national treasury and a depleted monetary condition in the business of the country. It need hardly be stated that while the present situation demands a remedy, we can only be saved from a like predicament in the future by the removal of it cause. Our scheme of taxation, by means of w'snich this needless surplus is taken from the people andid put into the public treasury, consists of a tariff or Gouty levied upon importations from abroad, and inter, revenue taxes levied upon the consumption of the bacco and spirituous and malt liquors. It must be eittenceded that none of the things subjected to internal-revenue taxa- | tion are, strictly speaking, necessaries; there appears to be no just complaint of this taxation by the consumers of these articles, and there seems to be nothing so well able to bear the burden without hardship to any portion of the people. But our present tariff laws, the vicious, inequitable, and illogical source of unnecessary taxation, ought to be at once revised and amended. These laws, as their primary and plain effect, raise the price to consumers of all articles imported and subject to duty, by precisely the sum paid for such duties. Thus the amount of the duty measures the tax paid by those who purchase for use these imported articles. Many of these things, however, are raised or manufactured in our own country, and the duties now levied upon foreign goods and products are called protection to these home manufactures, because they render it possible for those of our people who are manufacturers, to make these taxed articles and sell them for a price equal to that demanded for the imported goods that have paid customs duty. So it happens that while comparatively a few use the imported articles, millions of our people, who never use and never saw any of the foreign products, purchase and use things of the same kind made in this country, and pay therefor nearly or quite the same enhanced price which the duty adds to the imported articles. Those who buy imports pay the duty charged thereon into the public treasury, but the great majority of our citizens, who buy domestic articles of the same class, pay a sum at least approximately equal to this duty to the home manufacturer. This refer ence to the operation of our tariff laws is not made by way of instruction, but in order that we may be constantly reminded of the manner in which they impose a burden upon those who consume domestic products as well as those who consume imported articles, and thus create a tax upon all our people. It is not proposed to entirely relieve the country of this taxation. It must be extensively continued as the source of the Government's income; and in a readjustment of our tariff the interests of American labor engaged in manufacture should be carefully considered, as well as the preservation of our manufacturers. It may be called protection, or by any other name, but relief from the hardships and dangers of our present tariff laws, should be devised with especial precaution against imperiling the existence of our manufacturing interests. But this existence should not mean a condition which, without regard to the public welfare or a national exigency, must always insure the realiza. tion of immense profits instead of moderately profit3 able returns. As the volume and diversity of our national activities increase, new recruits are added to those who desire a continuation of the advantages which they conceive the present system of tariff taxation directly affords them. So stubbornly have all efforts to reform the present condition been resisted by those of our fellow-citizens thus engaged, that they can hardly complain of the suspicion, entertained to a certain extent, that there exists an organized combination all along the line to maintain their advantage. We are in the midst of centennial celebrations, and with becoming pride we rejoice in American skill and ingenuity, in American energy and enterprise, and in the wonderful natural advantages and resources developed by a century's national growth. Yet when an attempt is made to justify a scheme which permits a tax to be laid upon every consumer in the land for the benefit of our manufacturers, quite beyond a reasonable demand for governmental regard, it suits the purposes of advocacy to call our manufactures infant industries, still needing the highest and greatest degree of favor and fostering care that can be wrung from Federal legislation. It is also said that the increase in the price of domestic manufactures resulting from the present tariff is necessary in order that higher wages may be paid to our workingmen employed in manufactories, than are paid for what is called the pauper labor of Europe. All will acknowledge the force of an argument which involves the welfare and liberal compensation of our laboring people. Our labor is honorable in the eyes of every American citizen; and as it lies at the foundation of our development and progress, it is entitled, without affectation or hypocrisy, to the utmost regard. The standard of our laborers' life should not be measured by that of any other country less favored, and they are entitled to their full share of all our advantages. By the last census it is made to appear that of the 17,392,099 of our population engaged in all kinds of industries 7,670,493 are employed in agriculture, 4.074,238 in professional and personal service, (2,934,876 of whom are domestic servants and laborers,) while 1,810,256 are employed in trade and transportation, and 3,837,112 are classed as employed in manufacturing and mining. For present purposes however, the last number given should be considerably reduced. Without attempting to enumerate all, it will be conceded that there should be deducted from those which it includes 375,143 carpenters and joiners, 285,401 milliners, dressmakers, and seamstresses, 172,726 blacksmiths, 133,756 tailors and tailoresses, 102,473 masons, 76,241 butchers, 41,309 bakers, 22,083 plasterers, and 4,891 engaged in manufacturing agricultural implements, amounting in the aggregate to 1,214,023, leaving 2,623,089 persons employed in such manufacturing industries as are claimed to be benefited by a high tariff. To these the appeal is made to save their employ. ment and maintain their wages by resisting a change. There should be no disposition to answer such suggestions by the allegation that they are in a minority among those who labor, and therefore should forego an advantage, in the interest of low prices for the majority; their compensation, as it may be affected by the operation of tariff laws, should at all times be scrupulously kept in view; and yet with slight reflection they will not overlook the fact that they are consumers with the rest; that they, too, have their own wants and those of their families to supply from their earnings, and that the price of the necessaries of life, as well as the amount of their wages, will regulate the measure of their welfare and comfort. But the reduction of taxation demanded should be so measured as not to necessitate or justify either the loss of employment by the working man nor the lessening of his wages; and the profits still remaining to the manufacturer, after a necessary readjustment, should furnish no excuse for the sacrifice of the interests of his employés either in their opportunity to Nor can the worker in manufactures fail to underwork or in the diminution of their compensation. stand that while a high tariff is claimed to be necessary to allow the payment of remunerative wages, it certainly results in a very large increase in the price of nearly all sorts of manufactures, which, in almost countless forms, he needs for the use of himself and his family. He receives at the desk of his employer his wages, and perhaps before he reaches his home is obliged, in a purchase for family use of an article which embraces his own labor, to return in the payment of the increase in price which the tariff permits, the hard-earned compensation of many days of toil. The farmer and the agriculturist who manufacture nothing, but who pay the increased price which the tariff imposes, upon every agricultural implement, upon all he wears and upon all he uses and owns, things as bis husbandry produces from the soil, is except the increase of his flocks and herds and such invited to aid in maintaining the present situation; and he is told that a high duty on imported wool is necessary for the benefit of those who have sheep to shear, in order that the price of their wool may be increased. They of course are not reminded that the farmer who has no sheep is by this scheme obliged, in tribute to his fellow farmer as well as to the manufac his purchases of clothing and woolen goods, to pay a turer and merchant; nor is any mention made of the fact that the sheep-owners themselves and their households, must wear clothing and use other articles manufactured from the wool they sell at tariff prices, and thus as consumers must return their share of this in. creased price to the tradesman. I think it may be fairly assumed that a large proportion of the sheep owned by the farmers throughout the country are found in small flocks numbering from twenty-five to fifty. The duty on the grade of imported wool which these sheep yield, is ten cents each pound if of the value of thirty cents or less, and twelve cents if of the value of more than thirty cents. If the liberal estimate of six pounds be allowed for each fleece, the duty thereon would be sixty or seventy-two cents, and this may be taken as the utmost enhancement of its price to the farmer by interests, or of any lack of appreciation of their value and importance. These interests constitute a leading and most substantial element of our national greatness and furnis the proud proof of our country's progress. But if = the emergency that presses upon us our manufactures are asked to surrender something for the public good and to avert disaster, their patriotism, as well as 1 grateful recognition of advantages already affordel, should lead them to willing co-operation. No demas: is made that they shall forego all the benefits governmental regard; but they cannot fail to be at monished of their duty, as well as their enlightened self-interest and safety, when they are reminded the fact that financial panic and collapse, to which t present condition tends, afford no greater shelter : protection to our manufactures than to our othe important enterprises. Opportunity for safe, carefi and deliberate reform is now offered; and none of u should be unmindful of a time when an abused mi irritated people, heedless of those who have resiste: timely and reasonable relief, may insist upon a radius and sweeping rectification of their wrongs. reason of this duty. Eighteen dollars would thus represent the increased price of the wool from twenty-five sheep and thirty-six dollars that from the wool of fifty sheep; and at present values this addition would amount to about one-third of its price. If upon its sale the farmer receives this or a less tariff profit, the wool leaves his hands charged with precisely that sum, which in all its changes will adhere to it, until it reaches the consumer. When manufactured into cloth and other goods and material for use, its cost is not only increased to the extent of the farmer's tariff profit, but a further sum has been added for the benefit of the manufacturer under the operation of other tariff laws. In the mean time the day arrives when the farmer finds it necessary to purchase woolen goods and material to clothe himself and family for the winter. When he faces the tradesman for that purpose he discovers that he is obliged not only to return in the way of increased prices, his tariff profit on the wool he sold, and which then perhaps lies before him in manufactured form, but that he must add a considerable sum thereto to meet a further in-, crease in cost caused by a tariff duty on the manufacture. Thus in the end he is aroused to the fact The difficulty attending a wise and fair revision of that he has paid upon a moderate purchase, as a result our tariff laws is not underestimated. It will requre of the tariff scheme, which, when he sold his wool on the part of the Congress great labor and care, and seemed so profitable, an increase in price more than, especially a broad and national contemplation of the sufficient to sweep away all the tariff profit he re-subject, and a patriotic disregard of such local and seceived upon the wool he produced and sold. fish claims as are unreasonable and reckless of the wool-welfare of the entire country. When the number of farmers engaged in raising is compared with all the farmers in the country, and the small proportion they bear to our population is considered; when it is made apparent that, in the case of a large part of those who own sheep, the benefit of the present tariff on wool is illusory; and, above all, when it must be conceded that the increase of the cost of living caused by such tariff, becomes a burden upon those with moderate means and the poor, the employed and unemployed, the sick and well, and the young and old, and that it constitutes a tax which, with relentless grasp, is fastened upon the clothing of every man, woman, and child in the land, reasons are suggested why the removal or reduction of this duty should be included in a revision of our tariff laws. Under our present laws more than four thousand articles are subject to duty. Many of these do not any way compete with our own manufactures, an many are hardly worth attention as subjects of revenge A considerable reduction can be made in the aggregate, by adding them to the free list. The taxation of lurt ries presents no features of hardship; but the neces saries of life used and consumed by all the people, the duty upon which adds to the cost of living in ever home, should be greatly cheapened. The radical reduction of the duties imposed upor raw material used in manufactures, or its free impor tation, is of course an important factor in any effort: reduce the price of these necessaries; it would not on relieve them from the increased cost caused by In speaking of the increased cost to the consumer tariff on such material, but the manufactured prodat of our home manufactures, resulting from a duty laid being thus cheapened, that part of the tariff now is. upon imported articles of the same description, the fact is not overlooked that competition among oururers for the present price of raw material, could be upon such product, as a compensation to our manufac domestic producers sometimes has the effect of keeping accordingly modified. Such reduction, or free impor the price of their products below the highest limitation, would serve beside to largely reduce the reve allowed by such duty. But it is notorious that this competition is too often strangled by combinations quite prevalent at this time, and frequently called trusts, which have for their object the regulation of the supply and price of commodities made and sold by members of the combination. The people can hardly hope for any consideration m the operation of these selfish schemes. If, however, in the absence of such combination, a healthy and free competition reduces the price of any particular dutiable article of home production, below the limit which it might otherwise reach under! our tariff laws, and if, with such reduced price, its manufacture continues to thrive, it is entirely evident that one thing has been discovered which should be carefully scrutinized in an effort to reduce taxation. The necessity of combination to maintain the price of any commodity to the tarif point, furnishes proof that some one is willing to accept lower prices for such commodity, and that such prices are remunera tive; and lower prices produced by competition prove the same thing. Thus where either of these conditions exist, a case would seem to be presented for an easy reduction of taxation. The considerations which have been presented touching our tariff laws are inten led only to enforce an earnest recommendation that the surpins revenues of the Government be prevented by the reduction of our customs duties, and, as the same time, to empha size a suggestion that in accomplishing this purpose, we may discharge a double duty to our people by granting to them a measure of relief from tant taxa tion in quarters where it is most needed and from sources where it can be most fairly and justly accorded. Nor can the presentation made of such considera tions be, with any degree of fairness, regarded as evidence of unfriendliness toward our manufacturing nue. It is not apparent how such a change can bar -saving them from the depression, interruption business, and loss caused by a glutted domestic m ket, and affording their employes more certain a steady labor, with its resulting quiet and contentment The question thus imperatively presented for se tion should be approached in a spirit higher than pa tisanship and considered in the light of that regard f patriotic duty which should characterize the setion. those intrusted with the weal of a confiding peop↑ But the obligation to declared party policy and prize ple is not wanting to urge prompt and effective action Both of the great political parties now represented the Government have, by repeated and authoritar declarations, condemned the condition of our which permit the collection from the people of un cessary revenue, and have, in the most solemn manne promised its correction; and neither as citizens or pi tisans are our countrymen in a mood to condone → deliberate violation of these pledges. Our progress toward a wise e nclusion will not b improved by dwelling upon the theories of protect and free trade. This savors too much of bandy?! epithets. It is a condition which confronts us-2 a theory. Relief from this condition may involve ! slight reduction of the advantages which we award home productions, but the entire withdrawal of s advantages should not be contemplated. The quest of free trade is absolutely irrelevant; and the persiste claim made in certain quarters, that all efforts to rede", the people from unjust and unnecessary axation schemes of so-called free-traders, is mischievous 27 far removed from any consideration for the public | Outrageous and ruinous to the interests of good. The simple and plain duty which we owe the people is to reduce taxation to the necessary expenses of an economical operation of the Government, and to restore to the business of the country the money which we hold in the Treasury through the perversion of governmental powers. These things can and should be done with safety to all our industries, without danger to the opportunity for remunerative labor which our workingmen need, and with benefit to them and all our people, by cheapening their means of subsistence and increasing the measure of their comforts. The Constitution provides that the President" shall, from time to time, give to the Congress information of the state of the Union." It has been the custom of the Executive, in compliance with this provision, to annually exhibit to the Congress, at the opening of its session, the general condition of the country, and to detail, with some particularity, the operations of the different Executive Departments. It would be especially agreeable to follow this course at the present time, and to call attention to the valuable accomplishments of these Departments during the last fiscal year. But I am so much impressed with the paramount importance of the subject to which this communication has thus far been devoted, that I shall forego the addition of any other topic, and only urge upon your immediate consideration the "state of the Union" as shown in the present condition of our treasury and our general fiscal situation, upon which every element of our safety and prosperity depends. The reports of the heads of Departments, which will be submitted, contain full and explicit information touching the transaction of the business intrusted to them, and such recommendations relating to legislation in the public interest as they deem advisable. I ask for these reports and recommendations the deliberate examination and action of the Legislative branch of the Government. There are other subjects not embraced in the departmental reports demanding legislative consideration and which I should be glad to submit. Some of them, however, have been earnestly presented in previous messages, and as to them, I beg leave to repeat prior recommendations. As the law makes no provision for any report from the Department of State, a brief history of the transactions of that important Department, together with other matters which it may hereafter be deemed essential to commend to the attention of the Congress, may furnish the occasion for a future communication. GROVER CLEVELAND. WASHINGTON, December 6, 1887. PART XXIV. The Mills Anti-Protective Bill reported to the House in response to Cleveland's Free - Trade Message - FreeTrade Extracts from the Democratic majority report-Text of the Republican minority report against the Mills Bill. On April 2, 1888, Mr. Mills, Chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means, reported to the House of Representatives a "Bill [H. R. 9051] to reduce taxation and to simplify the laws in relation to the collection of the revenue. Accompanying it was the report of the Democratic majority, and the adverse views of the Republican minority of that Committee. In the opening paragraph of their report, the Democratic majority of the committee, referring to the Free-Trade message of President Cleveland, acknowledge that the anti-Protection Bill reported by them is "in response to his recommendations." the country as the bill was, the only regret experienced by its Democratic Free-Trade authors seemed to be that "the existing system" of Republican Protection to American labor offered some check to the present full accomplishment of their wholesale FreeTrade designs.. In their report they say, — "The bill herewith reported to the House is not offered as a perfect bill. Many articles are left subject to duty which might well be transferred to the free list. Many articles are left subject to rates of duty which might well be lessened. In both respects the bill could be improved; but in its preparation the committee have not undertaken or felt authorized to construct a new and consistent system of tariff taxation. They have dealt with the existing system." ... By gradual approaches, in three successive steps as it were, the Democratic Free-Trade committee declares the "end in view," which is "no duty on any materials entering into manufactures;" for they say, "If we could obtain free of duty such raw materials as we do not produce and can only be procured in foreign countries, and mix with our home product in the various branches of manufacture, we could soon increase our exports several hundred millions. With untaxed raw materials we could keep our mills running on full time, our operatives in constant employment, and have an active demand for our raw materials in our own factories. If there should be no duty on any materials entering into manufactures many articles now made abroad would be made at home, which, while it would give more employment to our own labor, would give a better market to many articles which we produce, and which enter into manufactures, such as cotton, wool, hemp, flax, and others. ... "With this end in view, we have gone as far as we could, and done what we could in the present condition of things. In starting on this policy we have transferred many articles from the dutiable to the free list. The revenues now received on these articles amount to $22,189,595.48. Three-fourths of this amount is collected on articles that enter into manufactures, of which, wool and tin-plates are the most important. The revenues derived from wool during the last fiscal year amounted to $5,899,816.63, and the revenues from tin-plates to $5,706,433.89. "The repeal of all duties on wool enables us to reduce the duties on the manufactures of wool $12,332,211.65. The largest reduction we have made is in the woolen schedule, and this reduction was only made possible by placing wool on the free list. There is no greater reason for a duty on wool than there is for a duty on any other raw material." But the critical review of the Mills Bill by the Republican minority of the Ways and Means Committee completely covers whole matter. Its text is as follows: Views of the Minority. the Mr. McKinley presents the views of the minor. ity as follows: The extraordinary manner in which this bill came to the committee and the total lack of consideration investigation demand notice and comment. It was given to so grave a measure by those charged with its fashioned outside of the committee and reached it not by the reference of the House, which is the usual of a subject. It was presented ready-made by the channel through which committees obtain jurisdiction chairman of the committee, was framed, completed, and printed without the knowledge of the minority and without consideration or discussion in the full committee. If any consultations were held the minority were excluded. Thus originating, after three months of the session had gone it was submitted to the committee. Since there has been no consideration of it. Every the majority the facts and information upon which effort upon the part of the minority to obtain from they constructed the bill proved unavailing; a resolu tion to refer the bill to the Secretary of the Treasury | 75 cents per hundred pounds. This is a case of an for a statement of its probable effects upon the revenue, together with a statistical abstract, which would facilitate its consideration by the committee and the House, was voted down by a strict party vote. The industries of the country, located in every sec tion of the Union, representing vast interests closely related to the prosperity of the country, touching practically every home and fireside in the land, and which were to be affected by the bill, were denied a hearing, and the majority shut the doors of the committee against all examinations of producers, consumers, and experts, whose testimony might have enlightened the committee. The farmers, whose investments and products were to be disastrously dealt with, were denied an opportunity to address the com mittee. The workingmen of the country, whose wages were at stake, were denied audience. The Representatives on the floor of the House were not permitted to voice the wants of their constituents. Proposing a grave measure which would affect all of the people in their employments, their labor, and their incomes, the ma. jority persistently refused the people the right of hearing and discussion; denied them the simple privilege of presenting reasons and arguments against their proposed action. But as the bill is avowedly a political one, believed to represent, so far as it goes, the views of the President and his party associates, a bill which, with the President's free trade message, is to constitute the issue and be the platform of the party, these may ac count for, but will not justify, this extraordinary course of procedure. The minority protested without avail in the committee, and now announcing it to the House as they feel constrained to do, accept the issue tendered by the bill, accompanied with some of their reasons for opposing it, and make their appeal from the people's servants to the people themselves. The bill is a radical reversal of the tariff policy of the country which for the most part has prevailed since the foundation of the Government, and under which we have made industrial and agricultural progress without a parallel in the world's history. If enacted into law it will disturb every branch of business, retard manufacturing and agricultural prosperity, and seriously impair our industrial independence. It undertakes to revise our entire revenue system; substantially all of the tariff schedules are affected; both classification and rates are changed. Specific duties are in many cases changed to ad valorem, which all experience has shown is productive of frauds and undervaluations. It does not correct the irregu larities of the present tariff, it only aggravates them. It introduces uncertainties in interpretation, which will embarrass its administration, promote contention and litigation, and give to the customs officers a lati. tude of construction, which will produce endless controversy and confusion. It is marked with a sectionalism which every patriotic citizen must deplore. Its construction takes no account of the element of labor which enters into production, and, in a number of instances, makes the finished or advanced product free, or dutiable at a less rate than the materials from which it is made. "The poor man's blanket," which the majority has made a burning issue for so many years, is made to bear the same rate of duty as the rich man's. More than one-third of the free list is made up from the products of the farm, the forest, and the mine; from products which are now dutiable at the minimum rates, ranging from 7 to 25 per cent.; and even this slight protection, so essential, is to be taken from the farmers, the lumbermen, and the quarrymen. True, there are some exceptions; cleaned rice, now paying a duty of 112 per cent. ad valorem, is carefully kept from the free list, and uncleaned rice is given increased duty and protection. This is done by introducing a new definition of uncleaned rice. It changes the long accepted commercial definition, and excludes any rice which has the outer skin or cuticle loosened, and makes all such dutiable as cleaned rice. By this simple definition clause all this class of rice, which heretofore has been admitted at a less rate of duty, is carried to the cleaned rice, which bears a higher rate. The duty on cleaned rice proposed by the bill is 2 cents a pound, and un cleaned 14 cents. The bill increases the duty upon what has heretofore been admitted as uncleaned rice agricultural product upon which duties have not been diminished, but advanced. There were 4,000,000 pounds of it imported in the year ending June 30, 1887, and from June 30, 1887, to Dec. 31, 1887, 6,723,475 pounds, all of which becomes dutiable at the advanced rate of 2 cents per pound, and if the importations are maintained revenue from this source will be materially increased. The following are among the agricultural products put on the free list by the bill: -All wools, Linseed, Garden-seed, Rape and other oil seed, Bulbs and roots, Plums and prunes, Currants, Zante, stances. The American farmer will appreciate the vicious character of the bill as applied to him, when he is ap prised of the fact that, while the products of his land and labor are shut out from Canada by a protective tariff imposed by the Canadian government, the Canadian farmer can send many of his products here with. out the payment of duty under the proposed bill. Canada now collects duties upon a number of American products, which by our tariff laws admit Canadian products of like kind free of duty. This she has been doing for many years, although by her tariff of 1878, chap. 33, sect. 9, it is provided: "That any or all of the following things, that is to say, animals of all kinds, green fruit, hay, bran, seeds of all kinds, vegetables, including potatoes or other roots, plants, trees and shrubs, coal and coke, salt, hops, wheat, pease and beans, barley, rye, oats, Indian corn, buck-wheat and all other grain, flour of wheat and flour of rye, Indian meal and oatmeal and flour, or smoked; lard, tallow, meats either salted or smoked, meal of any other kind, butter, cheese, fish, salt or and lumber, may be imported into Canada free of duty, or at a less rate of duty than is provided by this Act by proclamation of the governor-general in council, which may issue whenever it appears to his satisfaction that similar articles from Canada may be imported into the United States free of duty, or at a rate of duty not exceeding that payable on the same under such proclamation when imported into Canada." Some of the articles above named are already on our free list, and yet they are dutiable under Canadian laws, and no proclamation of reciprocity has yet been made by the governor-general; and it is proposed under this bill to increase the free list with farm products, upon which a high tariff is now levied by the Canadian law. How long will the rate of agricultural wages be continued in the United States under such legislation? What sort of reciprocity is this? This will be a direct benefit to the Canadian farmer and a most serious blow to the American. The whole bill has that tendency, and seems to be subject to the criticism that it was framed to benefit other countries rather than our own. Wool. Nowhere in the bill is the ultimate purpose of its authors more manifest than its treatment of wool. It places this product upon the free list, and exposes our flocks and fleeces to merciless competition from abroad. In this respect the bill is but the echo of the President's message, and gives emphasis to the settled purpose of the majority to break down one of the most valuable industries of the country. It is public proclamation that the American policy of protection, so long adhered to, and under which has been secured unprecedented prosperity in every department of human effort, is to be abandoned. Why have the majority put wool on the free list? Let them make their own answer. We quote from the report: "We say to the manufacturer we have put wool on the free list to enable him to obtain foreign wools cheaper, make his goods cheaper, and send them into foreign markets, and successfully compete with the foreign manufacturer." First, the purpose is to bring down the price of |