imported nearly $60,000,000 of wool and clothing on which we paid nearly $45,000,000 in duties. The total value abroad of all dutiable articles brought to the United States that year was about $550,000,000; the duties paid on them amounted to about $300,000,000, so that these goods really cost our people about $850,000,000.

Does anybody believe that the importer of an article, which he afterwards sells for consumption, does not add the amount of the duty or tax he pays to the government to the original cost in fixing the price at which he can afford to sell the article to the consumer? Does anybody believe the foreign manufacturer pays to the United States $300,000,000 for the privilege of getting into our market, and then does not sell his goods at such a price as to reimburse himself for the amount thus paid? We might as well tell the people that they do not pay the freight upon any article which they buy; that they do not pay for the labor that enters into it, or that they do not pay for the raw material of which it is composed. Every article that comes here for sale is charged with every item of expense which it incurs up to the time of delivery to the consumer, and either the consumer pays it or the seller pursues a losing trade. It must be conceded that a tariff upon any article which is brought to this country from a foreign port is a tax upon that article; that the tax is paid primarily by the importer, and that it is recollected by him from each individual to whom he sells a yard of cotton cloth or a suit of clothes, or to whom he sells the iron that he uses or any other imported article embraced within the tariff schedules.

It is claimed that protective-tariff laws are advantageous to the people of this country in this, that they hold the American market for the American producer or manufacturer, and that whilst the imposition of the duty may temporarily make the protected article higher, the encouragement to the manufacturer by driving out European competition so stimulates production in this country that the increased production and the competition in the home market bring down the price of the article to the consumer lower than it was before the tariff was laid. I

think I have fairly stated the claim made by Protectionists in this respect.

I am one of those who believe that in determining a policy which is to affect every individual in the United States, rich or poor, high or low, we should as far as possible be guided by our own experience rather than by theory, no matter how distinguished the theorist may be. Now, what is the condition. of the American market? Ninety per cent, perhaps I do not undertake to be precisely accurate as to the amount-but ninety per cent, perhaps, of the manufactured articles used in this country are now produced by the domestic manufacturers. The existing law has given them a market, practically without foreign competition in very many manufactured articles, and the result is, speaking generally, that our people pay a higher price for such articles in the American market than is paid for corresponding articles in other countries where the tariff is much lower or where there is no tariff at all.

If the theory of the Protectionist be true, there ought to be now, after twenty-five years of protective, and in many cases, prohibitory, tariff laws, such a general reduction in the cost of articles manufactured in this country as to demonstrate the truth of the claim that Protection reduces instead of increases the cost of the article protected. If experience has demonstrated the truth of the theory that a high protective tariff reduces the price of the articles so protected, is it not extraordinary that we find our manufacturers so constantly and so clamorously demanding more Protection? Is it reasonable to suppose that the passage of a law which will diminish the price of what men have to sell is so desirable to them that they will travel hundreds of miles and haunt the corridors of the Capitol to obtain the passage of such a law? Why is it that the protected industries of this country demand the continuance of a system, the effect of which they themselves say has been to reduce the price of what they have to sell? If Protection is not intended to enable the producer of the protected article to realize a higher price for that which he produces than he would otherwise obtain, how does Protection protect? From whom

does it protect and for what purpose does it protect?

In truth, as the cost of the foreign commodity is increased to the consumer by the amount of the duty, which goes into the Treasury of the United States, so the price of the domestic article is increased to the consumer very nearly, if not quite, to the amount of the duty, which goes into the pocket of the protected manufacturer. His protection consists in putting a burden upon the goods of his competitor which forces him to add the burden to the price, and thereby enables the American manufacturer to sell his goods at about the same price as the foreign article; thus the burden, which in both cases the consumers pay, is a tax as to foreign goods and a "protection" as to home manufactures.

As to laborers in manufacturing establishments, and as to the farmers of the country, I am sure the protective tariff has been injurious. We find from experience that the imposition of a high duty upon the foreign article enables the domestic manufacturer at once to sell his product at an increased price, and when we think we have about reached that state of domestic competition which our Protection friends claim will result in lower prices to the consumer than he had before the imposition of the duty on foreign articles, behold these same manufacturers enter into an agreement or combination, sometimes called a trust, the purpose and object of which is to keep up and maintain prices, so that the consumers do not, in fact, get the cheap goods which we were told domestic competition would give them.

Our tariff laws destroy or prevent foreign competition. They thus reduce the number of those who supply our market with such products; and, as they diminish the number of those competing for the market, they also make it more easy for that number to combine with each other for the purpose of increasing the price of what they have to sell. Laws which reduce the number of those who may sell in a given market are in furtherance of combinations and trusts. The greater the number of those who compete for a given market the more difficult it is for them to combine to increase prices. There may be a combi

nation where there is no restriction, but this general rule cannot be denied, that it is much more difficult to form combinations and trusts to increase the price of an article, where there is a large and unlimited number of its producers, than it is where the number who produce it is small and restricted.

The laborers in our manufacturing establishments want reasonable wages and steady employment. They and their families must live from their daily or weekly wages. What is the situation of this class in this country? What effect has the present law had upon their employment and condition? Grant that they receive reasonable wages for the time they are employed, still their condition is not satisfactory, because their employment is not steady.

Our manufacturers must pay a duty on the raw material they use. When they do this they cannot sell their goods in foreign countries in competition with those foreign manufacturers who get free raw material. The foreign market, therefore, is denied. They must rely upon the home market. When this is supplied, and as to some articles we make more than we consume, the mill stops or runs on half time, and the workmen get only half wages or none at all. Most of our manufacturers seem not to want a foreign market for their goods; "the American market for Americans" is their cry.

To constitute a market there must be buyers and sellers. The buyers of manufactured articles in this country are numbered by millions, the sellers by thousands. The millions who buy want cheap goods, the thousands who sell want high prices. Left alone the law of supply and demand would satisfactorily regulate prices in this market, but the thousands who sell do not want to be let alone; they want a law which drives out many who want to become sellers, thus restricting the number of those who sell, and enabling them to get higher prices for their goods from the millions who buy. Naturally the millions who buy are Americans; they must be. The thousands who sell may or may not be. The cry of "the American market for Americans” means, therefore, that none but Americans shall have the privilege of selling in the American market. Why should this

be demanded if it did not enable the seller to get a higher price for his goods? And why should this privilege be granted when its only effect is to impose an additional and unnecessary burden upon millions of our people in order that some thousands may "reap where they have not sown"?

Let us look at the condition of the farmer to-day in this country after twenty-five years of protective-tariff laws, which take from the farmers money that belongs to them and transfer it to others having no right thereto. The farmer of this country under the present law is taxed upon almost every article he buys. I have the honor to represent an agricultural district whose chief product is cotton. The principal marketable crop

forced to pay

of the Southern States is cotton. In many of the Western States the principal crop is wheat, and in others corn; for this class of farmers I now speak. The present tariff law imposes a heavy burden upon every manufactured article they buy; but has any Protectionist ever explained to the Kansas corn raiser what advantage the tariff is to the producer of corn? It is very easy to show the burden it puts upon him. It is very easy to demonstrate that he is, by reason of that law, more for the clothing he wears, that he is forced to pay more to dress his children, that he is forced to pay more for his crockeryware, that he is forced to pay more for the plow that turns up the earth than he ought to pay; that the prices of all these articles are increased by what our friends call a protective and what we call an oppressive system. Can any benefit be suggested that he derives from it? The old argument was that in return for these burdens he was furnished a home market for his produce. Where is his home market? Where is the market of the Kansas corn-grower? He has burned corn that cost him months of privation and toil because he could not find this home market. Is it possible by putting a tariff on butter and eggs to furnish a home market for farmers who produce such articles, and that therefore he who does not produce them must bear his burdens and be satisfied? Where is the home market for the Minnesota farmer who raises wheat, when we produce many millions more bushels than the people of this