Vol. XXII.

Among his other good services to the public, ex-Gov. Guild of Massachusetts published in the Boston Commercial Bulletin of June II a painstaking and matter of fact article, showing that wholesale prices of most commodities are considerably lower than they were last January. In proof he gives the market quotations of eight principal classes of provisions, seven of produce, four of lumber, five of iron and steel, six of hides and leather, twelve of boots and shoes, five of wool, five of woolen goods, six of cotton and cotton goods, and also of rubber, copper, petroleum and coal, all of which show substantial declines; for example, fresh creamery butter from 34c. to 28c., winter wheat flour from $6 to $5.25, spruce lumber from $24 to $23, pig iron from $19.90 to $16.90, cotton sheetings from 8c. to 7 1/2c. and heavy worsteds from 10 to 20 per cent.

The Bulletin says, however, that everything has not declined in price since January last, but the list above given shows that the general tendency has been downwards and that advances have been exceptional. In short, the advance in the cost of living has been halted. The main exception to this rule is in the cost of

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transportation and the cost of houses.

Governor Guild adds, "It is now quite in order for the exploiters of the tariff bugaboo and the gold production mirage to explain how with the same tariff and the same increased supply of gold that we had in January there has been such a marked reduction in prices. Except in freight rates, express rates, and passenger rates, and in the cost of houses and other matters directly controlled by combinations of labor or by combinations of capital or by both, the course of quotations recently has been not upward but downward."

The more extended quotations in Dun's Review of June II sustain those of the Commercial Bulletin, comparing that week with the corresponding week last year, although they show some increases that are not easily explainable. For example, men's grain shoes advanced from $1.62 1/2 to $1.75, kips from $1.37 1/2 to $1.50, men's split boots from $2.02 1/2 to $2.17 1/2, women's grain boots from $1.52 1/2 to $1.62 1/2 and women's satin from $1.15 to $1.22 1/2. The prices of hides and of leather showed slight declines, and the tariff on shoes was reduced from 25 per cent. to 10 per cent. If it was a tax, why has reduction increased the price?

In Dun's whole list of 300 articles there were 20 increases over last year and 34 declines.

On the 12th of June the Bureau of Statistics of the Department of Commerce and Labor at Washington issued a report, based on 257 commodities, which shows that 1907 was the year of highest prices in the decade 1890-1909. The wholesale prices in March this year were 33.8 per cent. higher than the average of the decade but they were lower than in 1907 and are lower still now.

Of the 257 articles investigated 125 showed an increase in the average price of 1909, as compared with 1908, 31 showed no change and 101 showed a decrease.

The tariff has had little or no effect upon prices during the ten years, because the Dingley law was in force all that time up to last August and the Payne law has been in force since, both being protective and not essentially different except upon a comparatively few articles. There have been low and high prices under both. The activity of business, with general employment and increasing wages, was the chief cause in the advance of prices, in our opinion, and the slackening of business this spring, owing to the uncertainties of legislation and of the prosecutions of corporations, is the chief cause in the decline that has set in. High prices are sometimes an evil, but uncertainty and unemployment are greater evils.

The Nova Scotia Legislature has refused to pass a bill compelling the recognition of labor unions.

THE NEW TARIFF AS AN ISSUE.

Assailed Now Only Because it is Misrepresented and Misunderstood. Winthrop L. Marvin in Bulletin of National Asso

ciation of Wool Manufacturers.

No experienced and informed protectionist will fall into any fright at present tokens of popular hostility to the new Aldrich-Payne tariff. It is the unvarying rule that a new tariff law is always a trouble-maker at first for the political party responsible for its enactment. The tariff of 1883 was followed in 1884 by the election of Mr. Cleveland to the Presidency-a result one cause of which was the resentment of some disappointed "downward revisionists." Again, the McKinley tariff of 1890 cost the Republicans in that year the control of the National House, and in 1892 the Presidency. Even the Dingley law of 1897 might have wrought some mischief to the Republican party in the State and Congressional elections of 1898 if it had not been for the intervening war with Spain.

It is an easy matter for disgruntled hostile interests to assail a new tariff and to predict all manner of calamity of it, but such calamity certainly did not attend the early operation of the Aldrich-Payne law last year. On the contrary, there was an immediate and strong revival of general business, which has now been checked only by the persistent anti-tariff agitation of many newspapers. That the new law is a good revenue producer is being proved by the lessening of the deficit, and that rates as a whole are not excessively high is being demonstrated by the increased imports and by the fact that more than onehalf of our entire imports are now absolutely free of duty.

The bitterest assaults upon the new tariff can be traced back in nearly every case to the foreign manufacturing and importing interests, still a potent force in the United States, and traditionally opposed to the protective policy because it builds up American instead of foreign industry. The attitude of American protectionists, especially of American manufacturers, is often described by the opposition as a selfish one. But it is forgotten that on the other side there are aligned the selfish interests of European manufacturers and merchants, who have always been the real great source of inspiration of the anti-tariff propaganda in America. There is this vital difference between the two contending forces, that the success of the American producing interests means the doing of more work and the earning and distributing of more wages in the United States, while the success of the other side means less work here and more work abroad. If the tariff issue is simply a clash of two conflicting selfish interests, it is easy to determine on which side all real Americans should enlist.

But there is another element this time in the opposition to the new protective tariff. This is the Republican "insurgent" faction in the National Senate, and a part, at least, of the Republican "insurgent" faction in the House of Representatives. These "insurgents" earnestly profess to be protectionists, but their course in Congress unfortunately suggests that many of them are sectional and not national protectionists. Senator LaFollette's legislative program of making sharp reductions in the

woolen duties at the expense of the manufacturers, while leaving the duties on the raw wool just as high on the basis of an ad valorem equivalent as they are now, is a good case in point. Another is the increase of the barley duty for which Senator LaFollette and several of his "insurgent" colleagues voted. These men are the highest kind of high protectionists for the local industries of their State or district. They are tariff "revisionists" only when the industry which it is proposed to sacrifice is located in the distant, helpless, and obnoxious East.

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There can, of course, be no open and acknowledged alliance between the selfish interests of Europe and other foreign countries and the "insurgent" faction in the American Congress, although the parliamentary leader of the "insurgents" in the Senate was accused of making up his anti-tariff speeches out of the "importers' briefs." Nor can working agreement be very well arranged on the tariff question between the "insurgents" of either house and the Democratic membership, for the Democratic leaders and the "insurgents" could never agree as to the articles on which the protective duties were to be reduced. Because the Southern States grow relatively little wool, it was practicable for Mr. Mills, fifteen years ago, to commit his party to the abolition of all protection on this important product of the farm. But Senator LaFollette of Wisconsin and Senator Dolliver of Iowa and their sympathizers in the House would never dare to affront in this way the robust conviction of the Western agriculturists that free wool means ruin to an important Western industry. On the other