tion to reap good from the changed conditions; so that the year has been profitable even in this branch. The cotton industry, as a whole, has had a successful year; the production has been large, mill construction has been extensive, both North and South, labor has been well employed and well paid, and mill dividends have been equal to the normal. The year closes with a market promising in every feature.

The knit goods industry has done well. There are always lame ducks in every large flock, and there has been some congestion in some parts of the industry. It would be bordering on the miraculous were any year to find every manufacturer with sufficient elbow room, with machines running continuously and profitably. Prices for fleece goods have been disjointed at times, but hardly to the extent they were in the previous year, and even in this branch of the industry the year has been productive. Knit goods as a whole stand in a stronger position to-day than they did at the entrance of the year.

In the carpet industry there has been a notable change, for stocks have been cleaned up, and the enormous production of the mills, far larger than ever before, has gone into consumption without any jars or shocks to trade through reductions in prices or forced sales. Prices have advanced to a point which covers the increased cost of manufacture and which permits of a remunerative return to the capital employed.

The manufacturer of woolen goods usually harks back to 1892 as his idea of prosperous manufacturing; it is probable that in the future he may link 1902 with that year, and possibly he may take it as the high-water mark. There is no year comparable with 1902 for quantity of production; profits may not have been as large, but they were on a liberal scale, and the manufacturer who kept his looms employed should have no cause for complaint regarding returns. Demand has been of healthy volume and has been general in character, calling for a wide variety of goods, and mills have been well employed, the exceptions being few. Prices have been commensurate with the advanced cost of manufacturing. Labor has been favored with steady employment as a rule, and its wage scale has been higher than ever. The outlook is for a continuance of the favorable condition.

Mr. Jenkins speaks of government ownership by exercise of the right of eminent domain as one of the "prompt" ways of obtaining coal. It would be interesting to have Mr. Jenkins favor us with his definition of "prompt." Even if Congress were of one mind as to government ownership, the process of carrying the idea into execution must be most elaborate and time-consuming in legislative craftsmanship, to say nothing of the constitutional objections and obstacles such as "State rights," for instance. Nor is taking a thing by eminent domain the same thing as confiscating it. Taking by right of eminent domain comes high, financially. The public have never yet been compelled to pay as high for coal as they would be called upon pay under Mr. Jenkins's programme, the objections to which are economic and political. The political objections are not peculiar to our form of government, but they ought to be deemed insurmountable.

to

In justice to Mr. Jenkins it may be said that he disclaims any socialistic purpose, but merely desires to have the question definitely determined as to whether the right of eminent domain could be made to cover the coal fields, if in case of future trouble the functions of the government should be interrupted by the failure of private enterprise to mine coal. He believes, however, that the government does have this power in such an emergency.

LONDON, January 17, 1903. E shall probably witness

W practic

a very

demonstration in Britain of the benefit arising from fostering native industries.

Your readers are of course aware that unless something very unusual happens the bounty paid on foreign grown sugar will be abolished very shortly and with that abolition a new British industry will arise in this country, viz., that of growing sugar in the United Kingdom.

It has been proved that this can be done at a profit and there is nothing now but the protection of foreign bounties to prevent England from establishing (or rather re-establishing) her sugar industry by cultivating sugar beet. Foreign protection and home indifference are responsible for its decay in our midst, the number of British sugar refineries having decreased from one thousand to eleven during the last forty years. We have hitherto been buying the great bulk of our sugar from the Continentfrom the very people who are our severest competitors in manufactures -viz., Germany, which sent us 11,870,000 cwt. of refined sugar last year; France, 4,340,000 cwt.; and a little less from Holland and Belgium; while from France and Germany alone we purchased over 7,000,000 cwt. of unrefined sugar.

We consume upwards of two millions of tons in the United Kingdom and when the bounties are removed it will be possible to grow it in this country. Many practical agriculturists are only waiting for that abolition to become sugar planters on an extensive scale. Such experienced and shrewd business men as Lord Rothschild, among private capitalists; and the Liverpool Corporation, and various County Councils among public bodies (to quote only a few examples) have for years past been experimenting and have satisfied themselves that there is money in the business and can grow quite as good sugar and quite as much per acre as is done in Germany and other sugar producing countries, if indeed we have not beaten the average of the Continental growers.

Now what does this abolition of sugar bounties mean? It means that we can utilize land now unprofitable; it will enormously benefit the working classes by providing employment, especially in the rural districts; agriculture will receive a healthy stimulus; and we shall be, to some extent at least, independent of foreigngrown beet sugar. Even if we grow only a quarter of our total consumption it will create a great and continuous demand for labor.

It is estimated by sugar experts that if we produce £15,000,000 sterling worth of sugar we should require to build at least 400 factories for dealing with the beet. These factories would cost on an average about £50,000 each-or a total of £20,000,000 distributed among the building, engineering, brickmaking, and other trades. Further, the farms to keep the factories supplied with beet would find work for quite 200,000 men, and another 40,000 laborers would be wanted for the allied industries. Fully 160,000 men would be given work in factory erection and employment arising therefrom-or a grand total of 400,000 men, distributed among the agricultural and manufacturing industries. They and their families would total up to 1,200,000 persons. And lastly, they would draw in wages per annum a sum of £16,000,000.

This is a very practical way of bringing the people back to the land, about which we hear so much in England, because it would bring them remunerative employment and social advantages, as the factories would have to be adjacent to the farms.

The leading experts state that the cost of rent, culture, harvesting and delivery to the factory of the sugar beet averages for the country $10 an acre, and that the value of the crop (estimated at the low figure of fifteen tons an acre and adding its by-products) would be £16 10s. (say $82.50) an acre at present prices. The consensus of opinion is that the industry

would become of national importance and should be started on a large scale.

The great point I wish to make is the increasing tendency in England to foster home industries. Years ago the abolition of sugar bounties would have been scouted, but to-day it is received with applause. If that is successful there is no reason why other industries should not come in for practical support.

TWO OBSERVATIONS ON PROTECTION.

be turned down and out, and the Democratic party, which does not believe in protection, ought to be

G

Times.] EN. WILLIAM F. DRAPER, speaking recently for the manufacturers of the East, uttered some wise and timely truths about protection as a national policy. He held that protection must be general, a national policy, not a sectional advantage. He intimated that it came with ill grace from Boston manufacturers of boots and shoes, for instance, to insist on free hides and protected shoes at the same time. If the farmers of the West are not to be protected as to hides the manufacturers of the East should not be protected as to the products of the hides. He cited wool especially. The woolen manufacturers could not ask for free wool and retain the duty on woolens manufactured at the same time. Protection for all or protection for none he thought was a good policy.

General Draper's views are correct. They are national and not sectional, and protection is worthless if it be less than a national policy. General Draper made another observation in his address with which one likes to agree, and that is, that if there is to be another experiment with free trade, it ought to be made through the Democratic party, not through the Republican party. If protection has ceased to be the correct policy for our national industries, the Republican party ought to

make over the Republican party by catering to the free trade tendencies of their opponents would result in miserable failures.

But there is nothing of the kind to be feared. The Republican party was never stronger in the nation than it is to-day. Volatile statesmen in various sections have recently come forward to take advantage of what they believed would be a sentiment against protection, because of the growth of trusts, and some have even sought to fan such sentiments into a flame of discontent within their own party-but all in vain. The sound, conservative Republicanism of the nation is still stronger within the party than the reformer's contentions.