1835 reduced the revenues of the Government below expenses," and, to cap the climax, says that the present tariff is making our national wealth grow more rapidly than ever before; and that it "has caused the great immigration, especially from Ireland and Norway;" is the thing that makes us all rich and the "country desirable." In a newspaper editorial, probably written or inspired by another high-salaried Pennsylvania professor, it is stated that " Twenty-four dollars will pay the passage of a foreign laborer or mechanic from any part of Western Europe to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, or New Orleans; sometimes less, and alway untaxed. "These people work for about one-half what our own countrymen do; and if we had no tariff laws, wages would be no higher, or a very little, here than where our foreign competitors live." These are but samples of the thin sophistry, contradictions, and "bosh" which the suffering and declining victims, who labor on and need rest, are supposed to continue to believe. This tariff tax is out of date; behind the times; has more than accomplished its object; is making the rich richer and the poor poorer now-making the latter virtually and directly pay all the national debt and expenses, and building up rapidly a millionaire aristocracy over them, while deceiving and brow-beating them besides. If protection be not to allow strength and growth and ability to stand alone, then what purpose has it? If it does not do this, it weakens, at an immense cost to others, the industries it pretends to foster. When the younger brother of a family is raised, he is left to do for himself; when the young bird can but imperfectly fly, even its mother drives it from the nest to care for itself. Then, since our manufacturers are shipping goods right into the English and other foreign markets; since

they own immense factories, unmortgaged and well insured-own bonds, mortgages, bank stocks, railroads, and telegraphs, as well as millions of mortgages on Western farms-is it not time, not only to reduce the vast subsidy and feed, but to begin to protect the working producers, who are the bulk of the people? Instead of listening to prejudices, it behooves the laborer to look at the facts and figures which vitally concern him. Local taxes, poll taxes, all other taxes put together, do not near equal the protection tax the laboring man has to pay these shrewd barons who pretendedly claim weakness; talk so feebly; but who subsidize newspapers; wake up John Bull-dogs and Southern blood-hounds, and pay for their stirring music to reach his ears and warm his ire, as the little pension catches the old but brave soldier and those he may chance to owe through the protection taxes he pays, though they doubtless exceed the amount of the pension. The only national plea for protection is the expectation that it will make free trade possible, and that a graduated income tax will follow its gradual withdrawal. Even Henry C. Carey says that protection is only to attain to free trade with all the world, and all of the original protectionists in every country have favored rapid and ultimate free trade, and free traders have generally admitted a national but a class benefit in protection, for a limited time, in new countries. Leading minds on both sides are not so far apart as are those who are not conversant with the subject, and those who are financially interested as against the sufferers who receive no benefit. Those who fully understand the question cannot and do not see any protection to industry, to manufacturing, mining, or to the forests, in the high protection tax on lumber. It can certainly protect no one but the large

owners of our forest lands. It makes lumber dear to house-builders, mechanics, etc., and there is no possible compensation. Spinners of silk get no more per day than spinners of cotton, though the protection tax on silk thread is large, and on cotton virtually nothing. Raising wages ten per cent., and the price of the necessities of the worker fifteen per cent., would be but to lower his wages; and this protection does, as comparisons of similar periods and similarly situated and conditioned countries prove. As the profits of agriculture decrease, the profits of manufacturers increase Conditions of trade and industry change from year to year, and protection should change with them. In cases of careful investigation of workmen's family expenses, the tariff tax on one article of consumption alone amounted to the average of all local, state, and county taxes combined, and this could be obviated on all the articles of consumption by giving a bounty to manufacturers and producers so long as artificial stimulation must be used, thus making the great wealth of the country pay at least a fair share of national burdens. In subsidizing steamship lines, direct evidence of the effect of subsidies has been afforded. In manutures, we have no sure proof of their effect, as in giving medicine it is not known but that the patient might have recovered as quickly or more so without it, or possibly even lived instead of died. From 1850 to 1858 the Collins Steamship line was protected by a cash subsidy of $858,000 for bi-weekly trips to Liverpool, and, though honestly managed, proved a disastrous failure. From 1865 to 1875 a subsidy was granted the Pacific Mail line to China. It was, prior to this, declared to be a sound company, with its shares above par. In nine years from the beginning of this subsidy its shares fell to forty

cents and below, and the Government came to its further relief by the addition of another half million, voted in 1872; but this high feed caused a wholesale corruption in the company, and, with public opinion against it, the contracts expired, with no renewals. France has recently met with a similar experience. Subsidies have caused waste, loss, and weakness. Trade between our forty-two States has been as free as air, active, and healthy. The theory of protection would demand a high-a very hightariff of duties for the young West and new South, as against the old rich East and its "pauper labor;" for if there are two similar things, they are the new and old parts of America, and the new and old countries of America and Europe.

78

Education and Elevation

The spread of education among mankind, particularly notable in the nineteenth century, has been rapid, and the ways for its more thorough advancement have been carefully chosen. Education bespeaks the need of civilized aids to occupation and comfort, and a continual striving for additional stepping-stones to elevation. The introduction of the present systems of public instruction in the United States has been attended with the best results, not alone as paving the way for those who seek a higher education, but as affording valuable preparation for business and the mechanical arts to those who must labor in them. At the beginning of this century, the system of public instruction in New England, where common schools were first established in this country, provided merely the rudiments of education. It did not, as now, include the elements of, and preparation for, a higher education. From New England this common school system came into action successively in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and in other Northern and the Northwestern States, and brought about a more satisfactory diffusion of knowledge. To some of the Western States grants of land for school purposes have been made by the United States, and these now amount to near 68,000,000 acres, worth more than