"everyday necessary articles of food," as the Greystonian does, and have a substantial sum to put away at the end of every week, or have a "cheap loaf," low wages, and irregular work, and, as one Yorkshire housewife put it, "a scrattin' on."

I know it is most difficult for anyone who has not visited the States to realize how well off the working classes are out there. A family who lived in very straightened circumstances in Bradford went to America, and at Greystone Mills earned £17 9s. 4d. per week. I have never known a workman return to live in England, excepting for family reasons, poor health, homesickness, or through being a wastrel. Even then I doubt if 2 per cent. return. The statements I have made are not based on conclusions drawn from reading either Free-trade or Protectionist literature. They are based on actual daily practical experience.

I say to the electors, think for yourselves, and if you desire to improve your position, receive higher wages, and have more constant employment like hundreds who have emigrated from the Bradford district to the United States of America, then vote for the Tariff Reform candidate. I am, etc.,

Harrison Benn. Beckside Mills, Great Horton, Bradford.

THE CANADIAN TARIFF AGREEMENT.

The tariff agreement with Canada makes concessions on about forty staple commodities, the leading articles being cotton seed oil, mineral waters, drugs and dyes, lime, certain fruits not produced in Canada, man

mum

ufactures of straw and wax, table ware of porcelain and china, watch movements, dressed leather in various forms, and a few other articles, none of which come into competition with Canadian products. It does not appear that Canada gets any equivalent concessions, but only the minitariff rates given by the United States in common to all countries. The concessions made by Canada cover only a small part of our exports to the Dominion; the reductions in duties are only what Canada makes common to the whole world, but she continues to discriminate against some of our products in favor of other nations.

The assurance as to the future wood pulp policy of the Dominion and the use of waterways, etc., are not specifically referred to in the agreement; but the President, through Secretary Knox, has expressed his purpose to take up with the government at such time as may be mutually satisfactory the consideration of these matters and of "a readjustment of trade relations upon broader and more liberal lines," which hints at a reciprocal arrange

ment.

The prospect of a reciprocity treaty with Canada is clouded with many difficulties. It is said that the intention of the Province of Quebec to prohibit the exportation of pulp wood will probably interfere with the negotiation of the proposed trade treaty, as the Dominion government has no power to prevent the provincial governments from imposing such prohibitory restrictions.

It is stated that Senator Root has advised the President of the difficulties in the way of negotiating a reciprocity with Canada. He takes the

view that no reciprocity agreement involving concessions on manufactures is possible. Canada has in operation a protective tariff to build up her industries, and reciprocity in manufactured products would upset the whole tariff scheme between the two countries and involve us in tariff complications with other countries. Mr. Root is said to be more hopeful in regard to a reciprocal arrangement covering natural products. This is a matter of vital importance to every state on our northern border, and we imagine that the farmers in those states will not consent to any considerable sacrifice of their interests.

TAXES ON FOOD.

In an editorial the Boston Herald expressed the opinion that it is a crime to tax food. The Secretary of the Home Market Club wrote the editor that he must have a very poor opinion of the British free trade tariff, for it taxes coffee and chicory 1 1/4d. per head of the population, cocoa 1 1/2 d., tea 3s. 1/4d., sugar 25. Iod., and fruits 2 1/2d. Mr. Chamberlain proposes to take off the duty on tea and raise an equal revenue by a duty on grain, because the United Kingdom raises no tea and therefore should get it as cheaply as possible, while a duty on grain would raise the needed revenue and stimulate home production so as to keep the price down.

There does not seem to me, wrote the Secretary, to be any crime in either method, but more sense in admitting free of duty what must be imported, as we do in the United States, and subjecting to a duty what need not be imported, because it can be raised at home.

Before the present craze and when prices were normal, in 1900, 1901 and 1902, taxed wheat, beef, mutton and pork were cheaper in France than the untaxed were in Great Britain, and probably the same is true now. Although the French duty on pork is nearly a penny a pound, the price in 1902 was 1 1/4d. a pound lower there than in England.

BEVERIDGE.

Washington Cor. New York Tribune. The sentiment of Senators who have been watching the proceedings in the Indiana Republican State Convention from afar is divided between amusement and wonder. All the insurgent Senators received telegraphic dispatches from Senator Beveridge, of which the following is a sample: "Everything coming my way. Have picked the stomach off the tariff bill, and convention solid for a tariff commission." Mr. Beveridge's speech, as telegraphed from the seat of war, is also provocative of amusement to the regulars, who recall the fact that the Indiana Senator dodged the vote on petroleum, the one raw material which was placed on the free list, leaving the chamber just before the roll call which would have enabled him to vote against a duty on that product. "I stood against this schedule when the bill was passed, and I stand against it now," said the Hoosier orator recently, apropos of several schedules, but the regular Senators recall the fact that just before the tariff bill passed Mr. Beveridge was going among his insurgent colleagues saying that if they would vote for the bill he would. The Senators are wondering if it will prove

to have been good politics to avoid an indorsement of the tariff bill, which, it is believed, will estrange a considerable number of stanch Republicans. It is suggested that when Samson pulled down the pillars of the Temple he did not survive, and the question is asked: Can Mr. Beveridge engineer a refusal to indorse the course of his party, and then rise victorious from the ruins? "Like President Taft, I wanted on the free list many raw materials, etc.," Mr. Beveridge is quoted as saying, but the regular Republicans call attention to the fact that the President did not advocate "free raw materials," which was the Democratic contention, but insisted that where the duty was taken off the raw material the same percentage of reduction must be continued right up through the schedules of manufactures therefrom.

THE FARMERS WARNED.

From the Hampshire Gazette, Northampton.

Mr. Foss, the reciprocity man from Massachusetts, was inaugurated to his seat in Congress recently, with the display of much enthusiasm by the Western corn growers. It's all very funny now, when the corn growers are banging away at Uncle Joe, and having lots of sport with Taft and his policies, but just wait till they get onto what Foss' scheme really is. Foss looks up in Canada and sees potatoes selling for 30 cents a bushel below our price, and oats, butter, eggs, cheese, everything from the soil, cheaper than it is on this side the line. Then, Foss says, Let's buy our products up there! Why do we pay the West so much more for our food than we can get it for of our neighbors over the line? This is exactly what Foss means by reciprocity, and what everybody else who talks about it means. But wait till our agricultural friends of the West have thought this business over awhile, and

STAND-PAT ON PROTECTION.

F. C. Wainwright in Boston Herald. To the unprejudiced observer of the trend of events in tariff matters it would seem that at the present time every variety of magazine muckraker was thoroughly in harness and earning their full salary, if said salary is based on the number and profusion of a varied assortment of testimony concerning the present tariff bill's imperfections.

I am a "stand-patter," if the term may be used in a sense of the letting our Payne bill have a fair chance to work out its salvation in the actual testing of results before consigning it to the scrap pile.

The workingmen of our New England cities who will remember the troublous times of 1893 cannot afford to do anything but give their most emphatic approval and indorsement to the sincere and earnest efforts of Senator Aldrich and others who are thoroughly in touch with the needs of our New England industries.

We of New England want honest American made goods and we want them produced right here in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, where today the worker is accorded the most generous treatment and paid the highest wage known in the history of the manufacturing world.

can

administration.

What could the Democrats do if they should capture the House? They could not enact any laws. They could not enforce any policies. They could embarrass the opposition, but in the end they would be compelled to vote for appropriations to carry on a RepubliThey would be thwarted in any effort to initiate reforms. The phantom honors of the House might start all kinds of intestinal struggles among the Democrats. The losers would be sore, and the winners would discover that they had traded off friends for empty honors.-Washington Post.

The Protectionist

Published monthly at

Certain editors in New York and elsewhere who are trying to reconcile the President's views on the

by the Home Market Club.

To subscribers in the United States, British North
America, Cuba and Porto Rico $1.00 a year, postpaid
To other Countries.
......$1.50, postpaid

Single numbers, 10 cents each.
Advertising rates furnished on application.
Time of issue, the last week in each month for next
month.

Entered at Boston (Mass.) Post Office as second class mail matter, May 25, 1899.

MAY, 1910.

A Western paper notes that the much-abused tariff has not closed a single factory or mortgaged a farm.

The London Post contends that in the tariff agreement the United States has bluffed Canada into giving something for nothing.

After the Associated Press had reported Eugene Foss's Rochester speech nearly in full, it said, "Charles S. Hamlin of Boston also spoke." Shades of the Great Back Bay!

Just as the Democrats are preparing to make the high cost of living a leading issue in the campaign, all food prices begin to decline. How unfortunate for the Democrats.

If James H. Stark had been content to eulogize the British loyalists and not attack the American patriots, he would have compiled a book that would have been interesting and not unpopular.

Potatoes are cheap. Why? Because they are plentiful. Their quality is excellent. Why? Because of cold storage. If potatoes cannot open their eyes, they ought to open the eyes of the people.

the speech of Senator Beveridge have undertaken a hopeless task.

The tributes paid in Congress, April 2, to the late Francis W. Cushman of the State of Washington show how dearly he was beloved. Not for many years have they been equaled in interest and sincerity.

It is amusing to see the mugwump papers so much concerned about the fulfilment of platform pledges, after contending for many years that platform declarations were of small account and had no binding force.

Butler Ames, Curtis Guild, Jr., Samuel W. McCall and Eugene N. Foss are all mentioned for driving Senator Lodge out of his position and Senator Lodge will stay. This is no reflection on them but a tribute to him.

The United States cannot equitably accord trade favors to Canada that it is not prepared to give to other foreign countries. People who are advocating virtual free trade with Canada should pay some heed to this fact.

The Republicans of the House of Representatives virtually repassed the Payne tariff bill, when, by a strict party vote, they defeated the motion of Representative Fitzgerald, Democrat, of New York, to repeal the entire act.

In a speech at Chicago AttorneyGeneral Wickersham smote the insurgents hard, for which he is receiving much abuse from the free trade press. On the same evening President Taft in an address at Washington made a plea for party harmony.

A report comes from Iowa that the speeches of Congressman E. N. Foss, in which he has advocated the removal of duties on farm products, will be given a wide circulation among the farmer constituents of Senators Cummins and Dolliver to arouse the protection sentiment of the State.

The New York Journal of Commerce (free trade) which was sure that the Protection cause in Great Britain had suffered an irreparable reverse in 1906, and was badly crippled in the last election, now predicts that in the event of another election it will be "one of the foremost issues in British politics."

At Hopedale on Memorial Day a special tribute will be paid to the late General Draper. Hon. John W. Weeks, who is his present successor in Congress, will deliver the address. He can truly say that General Draper never flinched as a soldier, never wobbled as a politician and never made trouble in Rome.

The free traders are getting very aggressive in their denunciation of the Payne tariff. Senator Owen, of Oklahoma, says "the tariff is plain stealing." A correspondent of the

New York Journal of Commerce calls it "the outrageous tariff," "a foolish and criminal tariff," etc. But denunciation is not argument.

Senator Lodge has presented to the Senate a mass of data supplied by consular officers in Europe, which tends to show that wages in Euro

pean countries have not kept pace with the increase in the United States, while rents and food have advanced out of proportion to incomes, especially as applied to the laboring classes.

The New York Evening Post, free trade, formerly expressed very uncomplimentary opinions of Senator Beveridge, but since the latter's speech in the Indiana convention denouncing the tariff it has raised him to the stature of a statesman; wishes him all possible success in his insurgency; and rejoices in the prospect that the insurgents will dominate the Republican party.

A Washington correspondent reports John Dalzell, a prominent Minnesota Republican, as declaring that the Payne tariff is daily becoming more popular in his State, for the reason that the farmers are prospering under it; and that those members who voted against the bill will experience more difficulty in the campaign for renomination than Representative Tawney who voted for the bill.

The Boston Post says the American people will never live as economically as the people of other lands until they cast off the tariff burdens. Well, when they have retried this experiment and wages and purchasing power are reduced to the

extent they were in the Wilson tariff period, we have no doubt that millions of our people will live more economically because they cannot escape the necessity. The fact is that the American people do not want to live as economically as the people of other lands, and they will not will