in which signatures for it seem to have been obtained. I am, in the first place, known to be so utterly opposed to a movement toward free trade, and in the second place, so opposed to political pretense, that comment from me would seem unnecessary.

I write because I have heard of comments on this petition, which appear not to have reached the press, from another eminent tariff reform apostle, Mr. Eugene N. Foss. A gentleman present at a recent meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris tells me that at a large meeting of this body a letter from Mr. Foss was read which commended the Governor's petition, and contained the statement, "This means not only reciprocity, but free trade."

If Mr. Foss is not correctly reported by this statement, let him print the part of his letter above mentioned, that refers to Governor Guild's petition. This letter written to a public body, on a public question, and the Massachusetts public will be interested in it.

was

A fair criticism of the recent tariff reform movement in Massachusetts is that it sails under false colors, pretending to favor protection, while really working in the opposite direction. If the above statement is correctly credited to Mr. Foss. it would seem that these gentlemen are coming out into the open. This will be much better. If we still believe in protection, let us stand by it. If we want to try free trade, let us do so with our eyes open.

Sincerely yours,

WILLIAM F. DRAPER.

Rome, March 30, 1907.

No candidate whose record resembles that of Mr. Cleveland will be nominated by the Democratic party in 1908.-Washington Post.

RADICAL LEGISLATION.

The feature of most interest in the legislation of several states at the present time is the attempt to control and regulate nearly all railroad operations by law, and the bills for this purpose are numerous. The mania for state regulation is not, however, confined to railroad corporations, for there are also measures directed against other corporate interests, many of which are ill-advised and unsound in principle. Evidently there are many men in our state legislatures who are proceeding upon the assumption that it is only the general public that is entitled to a "square deal," and that the management of all corporations by individuals must be bad, because it has been proved that some of them have been grossly mismanaged. The wave of anti-railroad and other radical legislation now sweeping over the country is chiefly the outcome of the vigorous and persistent campaign waged for about two years by "muck-rakers," political demagogues and the socialistic press, for their own pecuniary emolument rather than for any purpose to serve the public interest. The prevalent craze will end some time, but perhaps not until considerable injury has resulted therefrom to the business interests of the country.

den itself with bankrupt properties until it would itself have to go into bankruptcy.

There is a bill pending in the New York Legislature which provides that no charge of more than two cents a mile passenger fare shall be made by any railroad in the state, and where the road exceeds four hundred miles in length and is entirely within the state the charge shall not exceed a cent and a half a mile. It also forbids the payment of any dividend by a railroad in excess of eight per cent. The net earnings, over and above what may be necessary to pay dividends and interestbut not to exceed in any case eight per cent. upon the money paid into the treasury of the company and actually expended in the construction of the road shall be paid into the treasury of the state every half year. How is that for a scheme to mulct railroad corporations and confiscate the money of investors in railroad

stocks?

to government ownership of railroads has been signally defeated in the Legislature. Several boards of trade in different parts of the country are protesting against unfair treatment of railroads. A noteworthy example of this sentiment comes from the South, where it was supposed the anti-corporation feeling was strongest. The Chamber of Commerce of Chattanooga has passed a resolution recommending "to all fair-minded citizens that the present unjust warfare on railroads which is being waged in other states

be not abetted in the state of Tennessee." Following the action of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association concerning hostile state legislation against railroads, business men throughout the state of Indiana are receiving letters from manufacturers urging them to stop the anti-railroad campaign that is in progress in that state, as the agitation has already had an injurious effect upon general business.

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Mr. Henry M. Whitney, in speech before the City Club of Boston, spoke of the relative decline of the city as though it were a fact (as it was in 1900) and based upon his assumption a conclusion that what Boston needs is a more liberal tariff. His speech was reported quite fully by the daily press, and thus the local public has been led to believe that Boston is going down hill on account of the Dingley tariff.

medicines, $3,037,678; pianos and organs, $3,670,771; rubber and elastic goods, $2,887,323; soda water apparatus, $1,358,554; and steam fittings and heating apparatus, $3,354,020.

The refining of sugar and molasses and the manufacture of chocolate and cocoa products, two important industries in the state, are almost entirely located in Boston, while the manufacture of cordage and twine and of carpets was of considerable importance in the city. The statistics, however, for these four industries cannot be shown separately for the city without disclosing individual operations.

spoke at the same meeting, and to sustain his optimistic views regarding the future commercial development of Boston, quoted the following extract from the 1905 report of the U. S. Census:

Boston, the capital and largest city in the state, was also the most important industrial centre. In 1905, the value of products for this city was $184,351,163, and constituted 16.4 per cent. of the total for the state; moreover, employment was given to 59,160 wage-earners or 12.1 per cent. of the total for the state. The 2,747 establishments represented 216 different industries, the most important of which in 1905, measured by value of products, was printing and publishing. As shown by Table 20, the combined printing industries reported products valued at $21,023,855. They gave employment to 5,437 wage-earners and paid $3,816,010 in wages. Of men's and women's clothing, 78 per cent. of the value for the state was reported by the 227 establishments located in this city. Unlike many large manufacturing cities in the state, Boston does not owe its importance in this particular to any special industry. This will be apparent from the following list, which shows a few of the chief industries and the value of their products: Boots and shoes, $5,575,927; boot and shoe cut stock, $5,211,445; brooms and brushes, $1,664,105; cigars and cigarettes, $4,592,698; coffee and spice, roasting and grinding, $3,479,213; confectionery, $6,210,023; food and preparations, $1,789,773; foundry and machine shop products, $8,297,966; furniture, $2,136,453; malt liquors, $6,715,215; millinery and lace goods, $2,439,211; patent

lows:

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The census taken in 1900 showed slight decline of the manufacturing industries of Boston during the preceding decade and people commented upon it somewhat according to their predilections

on

the tariff question. But the halfdecade census of 1905 showed the following percentages of gain in Boston manufactures over 1900: Capital employed, 1.1 per cent. gain; average number of wageearners, 11.9 per cent. gain; wages paid, 13 per cent. gain; miscellaneous expenses, 34.1 per cent. gain; materials used, 15 per cent. gain; value of products, 13.3 per cent. gain.

In addition to this, it should always be borne in mind that Boston, being the commercial metropolis of Massachusetts, shares the prosperity of the state. The gains of manufactures in Massachusetts in 1905 over 1900 were:

In capital employed .......23.5 per cent. In average number of wage

assumption. This illustrates how the people of Boston have been systematically misled by their newspapers and political leaders. The speech of Mr. Bliss was the up-to-date information of a young, alert and successful business man. We forbear to characterize Mr. Whitney's. The fact is, the Dingley tariff is as good for Boston as it is for the rest of the country and the figures show it.

THE FOREIGN TRADE CON

VENTION.

A Rejected Communication-the Lesson of the Convention.

To the Editor of The Publishers' Weekly:

Sir: As I anticipated, when I wrote you the letter which you printed in your issue of January 12, the Convention for “The Promotion of Foreign Trade" which assembled in Washington, January 14, was a mischief making affair, ready to offer up, as a sacrifice, any and all domestic productive industries for the sake of carrying out their false and pernicious theories and for the benefit of foreigners, even so far as the surrender of control over our fiscal system to other governments, governments of which we are now, with our magnificent development, both the jealous envy and the amazement. An intelligent observer of the personnel of this convention has this to say in regard to it:

"Many of the organizations which were represented in the 'Reciprocal Tariff' convention in Chicago last year sent delegates and it may be said that a large majority of the convention were 'tariff reformers' and

But by their works let them be known to all men:

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A. H. Sanders, president of the American Reciprocal Tariff League, offered resolution (which was adopted by a large vote) favoring a maximum and minimum tariff for five years up to 20 per cent. of the existing duties at the discretion of the president as may be necessary to secure the most favored nation treatment for a like period without general revision of the tariff.

Here is not merely an attempt to bind us, for five years, in helpless servitude, in despite of any possible war, of exhausting domestic taxation, general ruin and bankruptcy and widespread misery, to each and all of the governments of the world that accept our stupid and reckless proposition, but it exposes the false pretenses of the free-traders who have claimed that many of the schedules of the Dingley Tariff needed revision because of the altered industrial conditions of the country. What these people were really aiming at was the destruction of all of the protective features of that great measure, one of the most beneficent and self-vindicating laws ever enacted by the Congress of the United States.

Mr. Sanders' five-year surrender to any and all of the pauperized countries of the world, even to that land of coolie labor, China, with ten cents a day for the laborer, fifteen cents for a mason, ten to twenty for an artisan, forty to fifty cents for a clerk, is simply worthy of the inmates of an idiot asylum. And if it be urged that we need not fear the competition of China, let us not ignore Japan, which is substantially on the same labor basis and is now "ready for business" on a grand scale. Just here, I would remark that the world has got to reckon with Japan, not only as a military and naval power, but as an industrial one and the sooner it recognizes it, the better. Already has she, at the commencement of her new career, driven from the Pacific an American steamship line owned in New England.

Now, as to the object of this convention with its place of assembly, Washington: This was to bulldoze Congress and, in this respect, it was conspicuous for its failure. Congress knew its own business, was the real representative of the people of the United States and utterly ignored the existence of the "tailors of Tooley Street” or their resolves.

Small wonder, then, with its knowledge of the antecedents of the promoters of this convention, The American Iron and Steel Association, representing the producers in 1906, of 25,301,191 long tons of pigiron, the supreme vindicator of the Dingley Tariff, like Congress, knew its business and refused to have anything to do with this free-trade, false pretense assembly.

HENRY CAREY BAIRD.
Philadelphia, February 9, 1907.

an editorial article: "It is to the new world that the Cobden Club is chiefly looking as the most likely sphere for its vigorous foreign policy. It has done what it can in Europe and it is now turning its eyes westward and bracing itself for the struggle which is to come. It can not rest while the United States are unsubdued, so it will go on plying them with arguments and statistics, with books and pamphlets and speeches, until reason has at length done its work and has dislodged protection from the great stronghold in which it has entrenched itself."

And again in the same article it says: "We wish the Cobden Club the best success in the arduous encounter which lies before it. We hope Mr. Augustus Mongredien's excellent volumes and the other publications of the Club will, between them, carry the United States by storm and thrust reason into all minds, whether willing or unwilling to admit it. But we dare not venture to be prophetic. We have heard too many prophecies, and have waited long and vainly for their accomplishment. That free trade will come some day in the United States it is perfectly safe to assert; but how and when, and other minutiae of the kind, must be left to the Cobden Club and to its twelve Cabinet Ministers in their unofficial capacity to decide."

The Times for June 28, 1880, further informs us that on the list of members of the Cobden Club are 200 members of Parliament, and the Secretary, Mr. Potter, stated at the recent banquet that "of the 14 Cabinet Ministers 12 were members of the Club." The action of the Club in interfering with our elections this year is therefore practically the act