the workmen may? If one class of citizens may stand together for what it thinks the promotion of its interests, why may not the other?

What is the real motive that impels to this proposed assault upon industry and to the clamor for reform? It may be discerned without difficulty. For seventy years there have been Americans who have declared, and no doubt sincerely believed, that the true interests of the country required free trade. Sometimes these people have obtained control of the government, but the people have observed that under such circumstances prosperity always disappeared, whilst it always returned as soon as the free traders were put out and the protectionists came in. And so, for the last forty years, the nation has adhered almost without interruption to the protective system. During that period and because of that adherence, the nation has become the foremost in the world in productive power, in wealth and in industrial greatness. It is obvious that, in such a case, all the ancient arguments which seemed to prove that protection meant destruction and poverty are no longer available. The free trade propaganda, largely impelled from other countries, is still eager, active and aggressive, but it must try new weapons or become impotent and ridiculous. It has found one in the popular dislike for trusts and an other in the theories of reciprocity, and it is using both of them for all and more than they are worth. This

is the real source of the disturbance that is now being made at a time when the nation actually has less to complain of in the operation of its industrial and economical forces than it has had at any time since the Declaration of Independence was signed and uttered.

[F

THE HOME MARKET.
[From the Textile Manufacturers'
Journal.]

F what the brief press advices of the address delivered by Andrew Carnegie at his installation as rector of St. Andrew's, Edinburgh, indicate the address will be of value as a textbook for the advocates of home markets. The address was really a study of the ascendency to supremacy of the United States and of Germany in the industrial worlds. One phase touched upon had reference to the little thought given in the United States to foreign markets, though the position of the United States, one of the largest exporters of goods in the world, was recognized. The salient point was that the United States afforded the manufacturers a market for their products right at their door, and that this market was of far greater value than the foreign markets. No country in the world has a market that is comparable in any way with it, the one country standing next being Germany. Probably Mr. Carnegie astonished his hearers in his statement as to the consumptive requirements of this country, for not even we at home really appreciate in full its enormous consumption of goods. Possibly some conception of this trade may be gained from the statement that while our exports are larger than that of any other country our home market takes 96 per cent of its manufactured articles; and the value of our manufactures is three times greater than that of England. It is this which makes the United States preeminently prosperous as compared with other countries.

Or to put it another way the enormous amount of goods produced in this country for home consumption reflects the improved condition of the masses as compared with those of other countries.

And yet an element is to be found here that would destroy or greatly impair the value of this market for the home producer, that would open the door for the influx of foreign goods which would result in the lowering of the wages paid to American workmen, and which would be a menace to our supremacy. American labor placed in competition with foreign pauper labor means not the building up of that foreign labor to the level of ours, but the pulling down of our labor to that of the foreign. The value of our home market in its wonderful consumption of goods lies in the prosperity which is general, which takes in all classes of people. It is this which makes it possible that while 96 per cent of our product is consumed at home our exports are in excess of those of any other country and are increasing at an astonishing

[From the San Francisco Chronicle.]

All the fuss about free trade has been the work of a few people in seaport cities who are concerned in international commerce, re-enforced by "professors" of so-called political economy, who could see nothing but foreign trade. Of late these have been getting some help from selfish producers, who, having temporarily exceeded the demands of the home market, desire aid to dump out their surpluses so as to avoid competition at home.

The great market is the home market. The American people will never consent to impair the markets absolutely under their control for 96 per cent of their products in order to make special outlets for the remaining 4 per cent. Dr. Carnegiehe has just been made doctor of laws by a parchment which he probably cannot read, although he has well earned the distinction is a protectionist because he knows the value of the home market and the folly of the free-trade doctrine, which would deliver it to aliens.

If the elections throughout the country on November 4 demonstrated any one thing clearly and emphatically, it was that the campaign cry for tariff revision and most of the talk in that direction that has intruded itself on public attention for a year past were prompted chiefly by free trade influences, and that the people of the United States don't want the sort of tariff revision that would come from that quarter.-New York Commercial.

Persons who have been condemned for offences against property, including forgery, embezzling, bribery and conspiracy, cannot engage in commerce.

Business failures are rare, not exceeding ten yearly in the last years.

I am indebted to Mr. Volney W. Foster of Chicago for the figures used in last section of this article.

WALTER J. BALLARD.

Schenectady, N. Y., November 15.

SOCIALISM IN ENGLAND.

[London Correspondence of New York Tribune.]

a

One aspect of the coal conflict in the anthracite belt may have escaped observation in America. That is the use which socialists in England attempted to make of it. At the critical moment when President Roosevelt intervened, with public opinion behind him, and forced capitalists and organized labor to submit their issues to arbitration, the executive council of the Social Democratic Federation of the United Kingdom was scattering far and wide frenzied appeal for concerted action and moral assistance on the part of British miners. The circular was of a most inflammatory nature, opening with denunciation of the "masterful arrogance" of the Pennsylvania mine operators who refused to recognize labor unions and claimed absolute control of the property interests of the country, and continuing with an account of the revolt of the French and Belgian miners against their employers. The conclusion may be quoted literally: "All this unrest in the coal fields of three great commercial countries-the United States, France and Belgium-is but an outward and visible manifestation of the class war-the war of interests between those who live by labor and those who live on labor-which goes on unceasingly and which will become more bitter as the combinations of capitalists oppose the federations of workers. That war can only cease when

declaration, that the means of production, distribution and exchange should be nationalized. Keir Hardie himself interpreted this resolution by explaining that the sole concern of the Independent Labor party is "the reorganization of our industrial system on the basis of an industrial commonwealth, in which the whole of the wealth produced by labor shall belong to the workers, and in which it will not be possible to have overabundance on the one hand and death dealing poverty on the other." Although these resolutions have not been formally repealed, British trades unionism, through the gallant fight made by John Burns at the Cardiff congress, has been delivered from the reproach of socialism and restored to its legitimate functions as a body of representative workingmen. The socialists now have their working centres outside that body, and are making persistent efforts to revive interest in the nationalization of land and industry, as the panacea for poverty and social un

rest.

The most effective method of counteracting this industrial gospel of social democracy, which was itself based on French and German socialism, was that of estimating the cost of carrying it out as a national investment. Sir John Leng, a hard headed Scotchman, did this in a practical way. He demonstrated that land nationalization would involve, on the basis of taxes for owners and occupiers in the United Kingdom, the acquisition of property by the state aggregating $1,300,000,000; that over $700,000,000 would be added for annual rentals, and that for incomes taxable under existing law $3,560,000 would be requisite. When the land owners, mine owners, householders, railway shareholders, professional classes, consol holders and annuitants had been bought out, the manufactures, trade, shipping, commerce and general business of the country would have to be nationalized, for the sake of consistency, and conducted on common stock principles. Sir John Leng illustrated the magnitude of the operation by giving details of a single line of manufactures-the textile industries and estimating what it would cost

a

to obtain national control of a business in which a million operatives were employed, sixty-three million spindles kept in motion, and a surplus of $500,000,000 products exported annually to foreign countries. When the ramifications of production, distribution and exchange for general industry and business were covered, an aggregate was reached which reduced nationalization to chimera. I doubt if any mathematician on this side, with the complete census returns at his disposal, would have the hardihood to attempt to estimate what nationalization of industries and all the means of production, distribution and exchange would cost in the United States; and this would seem the inevitable and equitable sequel to the nationalization of the coal industry, as advocated by the New York Democracy.