"If Massachusetts is dissatisfied with the tariff because of the high price of meat, and Iowa and Kansas are dissatisfied with it because you charge too much for your cotton and woolen goods, it might be a good idea to have a peace commission composed of delegates from both sections to consider the terms of compromise, before disturbing the balance of the country by an appeal to Congress for a revision."

"Mr. Speaker, do you believe in the conservation of our natural resources?"

"Yes, and I am not a new convert. I was one of the evangels of conservation in Congress who secured the enactment of a law withdrawing all the arid lands from entry in 1898 and directing the director of the geological survey to select sites on public lands for reservoirs for irrigation. Two years later we had another fight to prevent the repeal of the law.

"The western people rose up against our wholesale conservation, and they had enough influence with Congress to secure the repeal of that part of the law which conserved the arid lands, but we managed to save the sites for reservoirs. Those are

the individual sites on which the government is now constructing the great reservoirs which have already cost more than $50,000,000.

"The only trouble with the conservation twenty years ago was that we went too fast and possibly too far. The people of the West were not ready for it. That may be one of the dangers to the policy now. It is pretty difficult to write into law what the extremists want without creating a condition that brings reaction."

"But how about the conservation of the East-the White mountain reserve?"

"That is another experiment, I suspect; but as one representative I had enough confidence in Representative Weeks to co-operate with him in getting his bill considered in the House two years ago, and the bill passed the House. If the Senate had passed that bill, you would now have the White mountain reserve begun; but whether such a reserve will prevent floods and droughts in the future is one of these questions on which the authorities do not agree.

"Two years ago you had a severe drought in New England, just as we had in the West, but your distinguished Gov. Guild held me responsible and laid it all to Cannon. I confess that I felt pretty bad about the Governor's arraignment until I read the Bradford History of Plymouth Plantation, and discovered that the worst drought ever experienced in Massachusetts was in 1623, the second summer after the landing of the Pilgrims, and before they had cleared away any of the primeval forests.

"If I am not mistaken, Gov. Bradford attributed the drought to the displeasure of the Almighty, and in

his history he says that the Pilgrims appointed a day of fasting and prayer, after which the rain came without any thunder or wind. I commend the Bradford history to Gov. Guild."

VICE PRESIDENT SHERMAN ON THE TARIFF.

A Plea for More Protection where it May be Needed.

From his Speech at St. Louis, April 25.

In an address before the Citizens' Industrial Association at St. Louis, Vice President James S. Sherman, predicting that the tariff is sure to be the principal issue of the coming national campaign, said it was his duty as a protectionist to defend the policy. He predicted that not during the life of any living American would the policy be abandoned. "I am one of those old-fashioned protectionists, who believe in American wages and American standard of living," the Vice President said, "and that the way to maintain these is by doing our own work. Such faith, however, does not preclude the occasional revision of our tariff and the changing of duties, either up or down, to meet changed conditions in our industrial and commercial transactions.

"But my faith does include the judgment that such changes should be made by the friends and not by the enemies of protection. This was our creed and our promise to the people in the last national campaign, and I believe that the pledge was fulfilled and that the tariff was revised, substantially and successfully. No previous tariff law was more carefully prepared or more exhaustively considered than the law which went into effect last August. It was

not satisfactory to all. No tariff law ever was or ever will be; but it was the best law we could get and its basic principle is protection. It has now been in operation over nine months, and we can study the results and determine whether it is a successful and beneficial measure.

"First, from a revenue standpoint, no question of its success exists. During the fiscal year to date our receipts have been over $50,000,000 more than during the corresponding months of last year. A year ago now our deficit, that is, the excess of ordinary expenditures over ordinary receipts, was $70,000,000; now it is only about $15,000,000, and it seems safe to assume that that deficit will be small, if not entirely wiped out, by the end of the fiscal years. In fact, in this particular the framers of the Payne law builded even better than they expected, as no one predicted that the new law would give us a surplus during its first year.

"It is true that expenditures are a little less than last year, but the gain to the Treasury is largely due to the new tariff. I believe it will not be questioned that the return to a full volume of employment has been pronounced. It will not be questioned that all our artisans and mechanics are busy and that, with few exceptions, all our working men are well employed. And not only employed on full time, but at the highest wages in our history. Hardly a day passes that we do not note the increase of wages granted by some railroad or some industrial enterprise. And it is estimated that the advance in wages which will be granted this year will equal the stupendous sum of five hundred million dollars. While this splendid result has come to the wage-earners, and it is a fair assumption that it must have come first to the employing classes, it has also come in equal measure to our farm

ers.

"In fact, one of the reasons for the decrease in exports of foodstuffs is because the farmers can market almost their entire output at home and at the highest prices ever received by them. So it seems that sufficient revenue is derived from the new law; we have full employment for all our people, and the greatest reward for labor, whether on the farm, or in the factory, or on the railroads, ever known in our history, and that means from 50 to 100 per cent. more than the reward of labor in other lands.

"The universal desire is that such conditions will continue. Surely, then, we ought to give such a tariff law a fair trial.

"While, however, we may be content to await further developments of the law, it is proper and consistent to note what effect it is having and may continue to have on our industries. Today all seems well, but we must have thought of the morrow, and should note carefully the results from day to day that we may be prepared to act wisely and well when the time comes again, as it will come, for another revision. Some duties may still be too high; some may need no change and some, it may be thought, should be increased, if we are to continue to do our own work, and maintain our present volume of employment and high standard of wages and living. Our imports during the first eight months of the present fiscal year exceeded those of the corresponding months of the last year by cver $200,000,000, or at the rate of

over $300,000,000 a year. The increase in the imports of foodstuffs is immaterial, almost the whole increase being in manufactures and material for use in manufacturing, nine-tenths of which could undoubtedly have been made in this country.

"To that extent then American production has been displaced and at least $250,000,000 of American wages paid to foreign laborers. There are two significant features of this present state of our foreign commerce. In the first place, it is necessary that our exports should exceed our imports by some $350,000 annually in order to make good our foreign obligations and prevent the export of gold.

"And the second and to me the more important feature of this great increase in our imports in manufactured and partly manufactured goods is the displacement of American production.

"I will not assert that up to the present time it has injured any American industry. With the increased volume of employment that has come with the new tariff law and the great increase in wages and consequent purchasing power has come an ability to absorb these imports in addition to the absorption of domestic production. So long as this condition of affairs continues and bethis increased importation gives the necessary revenue to meet the expenses of the Government we may sound no cry of alarm. But I do call attention to this fact for the one purpose of asking if it would not be well to examine closely into the matter of increased importation and to consider whether when we again revise the tariff it will not be necessary to check a sentiment for further downward revision and perhaps instead resort to a revision upward in some schedules.

"No danger need be apprehended of enacting a tariff law which will be prohibitive. As long as we provide a large volume of employment and prevalent high wages for our people, so long will the accruing prosperity enable us to buy abroad such a quan. tity of luxuries, and to some extent the necessities, that will continue to net a revenue to meet our expenditures. Because I believe we should make at home nearly everything we can, instead of buying it abroad, I again emphasize the fact, that, while I do not advocate an immediate revision of the tariff and do not advocate necessarily, when that revision is made, that it shall again be upward in every essential; yet I do wish to put myself on record here as insisting that it is the duty of the business men of this country to scan closely the increasing imports and see, if they continue, whether it would not be wise to protect a little better our own labor and industries. instead of sending abroad our gold to pay cheap labor in foreign countries. If we do not anticipate and prepare, if we open the custom gates too far, then we shall invite and have an avalanche of foreign goods that will close our mills and drive our laborers to idleness. Then will wages and prices fall and, compared to the consequent calamity and disaster that will follow, the depression of 1893-96 will be as a summer shower compared with an equinoctial storm."

It is figured that 26 per cent. of the increase in our imports under the new tariff is on finished manufac

RAILROADS AND TARIFF.

From the San Francisco Chronicle.

The Independent has been diligently engaged in a fruitless effort to solve the "cost of living" problem by inviting men with fads to air their views of the subject in its columns. One of these, Byron W. Holt, chairman of the tariff reform committee of the Tariff Reform Club, has contributed a paper in which he says that protection is responsible for the greater part of the trouble, if not the whole of it. He admits that the increased gold output may have contributed something to the result, but in this country the chief blame, he says, must be put upon protection.

It is not necessary to review the figures which Mr. Holt supplies to support his argument; they are too absurd to merit attention. A man who deliberately asserts that 17,000,ooo families in the United States have their expenses increased $94.48 per annum by the tariff cannot be taken seriously. An eight-year-old boy ought to be able to bring more intelligence to the subject than such a statement exhibits. But there is one assertion that deserves attention, not merely because it is a misrepresentation by suppression, but because a review of the facts disposes of much of the nonsense indulged in by critics of the protective tariff. Mr. Holt, after describing what he thinks would happen under free trade, says:

Our railroads might then be expected to conduct their business peaceably for several years yet. They could then purchase rails for $22 a ton, instead of $28, as now, and their locomotives, cars, stations and bridges would cost less than they now cost. Besides the railroads would then have more freight to carry. Our railroads would today start an agitation for free trade if they knew their

own interests. Fully 95 per cent. of the 90,000,000 consumers in this country would do likewise.

The utter absurdity of this statement is exposed by consulting the Iron and Coal Trades Review's price lists for the years 1906, 1907 and 1908, which show that the price of steel rails in England during those years never fell below the equivalent of $28.28, and that at times, notably from January to July, 1907, it rose to $32.84 a ton. In the United States the price was maintained at $28 a ton, and it is still kept at that figure. Others than Mr. Holt have given the men who have developed the enormous railroad systems of the United States credit for knowing their own interests. It is reasonable to suppose that even Mr. Holt would agree with them if he had any knowledge of just what happened

when the railroad builders of the United States were dependent upon foreigners for steel rails and other railroad supplies. A glance at the price lists of the British Iron and Steel Association, covering the period since railroad building began to be actively pursued in the United States, would do him good, as it would teach him that we paid dearly for everything before we developed our own rail manufacturing industry.

The list referred to shows that the price of rails in England in 1851 was £9 11s. per ton, and that under the stimulus of a big American demand it was put up in 1853 to £16 2s. per ton. In the slack period of 1856, and following, there was a drop, in 1860 the price being fio per ton. With the almost complete cessation of railroad building in this country the British price in 1862 dropped to

£7 11s. In 1863 there was a renewal of railroad building in the United States, and rails promptly went up to fII a ton, and in 1865 the average for the year was £13. In 1867 we constructed 7,379 miles of road and the effect of our activity was to send up the price of British rails still higher until £15 14s. was reached in 1872. After 1872 the American rolling mills began to be heard from, and the British were obliged to drop their prices. When we practically ceased to import from Great Britain the quotation was as low as £6 17s. Any occasional reduction of British prices in the meantime is clearly traceable to American competition and British depression, and not to an indisposition on the part of the Birtish ironmasters to get all the money out of their business they possibly can.

The American railway managers and all broad-gauged business men in the United States are protectionists because they understand clearly that the development of American resources is the source of the nation's prosperity. They do not make the mistake of the tariff reformer, who assumes that nominal cheapness is real cheapness. They keep their eye fixed on the figures of production and consumption, and when the latter is twice as great here as it is in any other country, they know that the thing consumed is cheaper, no matter what the quoted price is. American railroad managers can be depended upon to recognize their interests. Mr. Holt may dismiss all worry on their account.

Late statistics show that the railroads and industrial corporations in the United States are owned by 626,984 stockholders.