degree, "but the maturity of the younger generation will witness the predicted crisis." Therefore, in his opinion, the sooner we prepare to meet the coming danger the better able we shall be to palliate its worst effects; in other words, we suppose he would have us cross that bridge before we come to it. The success of the scheme outlined by Mr. Whelpley is dependent upon the fiscal policy which the colonies may prefer to maintain. If they are not disposed to confine their industrial development to the production of articles of food for the especial benefit of the mother country, the project will never be carried out; for if they diversify their industries they are sure to make a rapid increase in population and industrial independence, in which case they may need a good part of what they can produce from the soil for their own subsistence and will have little available for export. By that time they may become not only industrially independent but politically independent.

It is well known, of course, that it is the present aim of England to save as much of her trade as is possible from the aggressions of other countries by means of preferential tariffs between the mother country and her colonies-"free trade within the empire and protection against the rest of the world." But this raises the practical question of what the colonies have to gain from this policy. The policy of English statesmen in the past has been the repression of manufactures in the

colonies and to induce the colonists to devote themselves to pursuits, mainly agricultural, which would not conflict with those established in the mother country. Of course it is no longer possible for England to force colonies like Canada and Australia to produce only such things as she most requires, but during the process of reconstruction in South Africa she may succeed for some time in limiting industrial enterprises in that possession to the production of certain food products, until the colonists become numerous and powerful enough to strike for their industrial independence. Those misguided people in Canada and Australia who are now apparently so anxious to supply England with natural products and to take more of her manufactures in exchange, will yet come to see that their real interests do not lie in that direction, but in pursuing a firm and consistent policy of internal development, unrestrained by unnatural limitations upon their enterprise.

It is reasonable to assume, in view of our rapid growth in populationeven with the successful reclamation of a great area of our arid lands by irrigation-that by the time the agricultural resources of the British colonics have been developed to the point of supplying all of England's food requirements-it may be in twenty or thirty years-our home consumption of farm products will have become so enlarged that we will have practically no surplus to sell to foreigners. This is by no means an improbable contingency, provided we

maintain a tariff policy that will fully conserve the interests of our internal trade. The time is hastening when the farmers of the Northwest and the South will be compelled to diversify their crops. The great areas now devoted solely to the production of wheat, corn or cotton will be divided into small farms, and mixed farming will largely supersede the present one-crop system; and yet the aggregate production may not thereby be diminished but it may be much increased. This change has already taken place in some of the older Western States, and it will inevitably extend to the others. When that time comes we shall have a more perfect and harmonious development of our material resources than is possible under existing circumstances, and if we then have no surplus to go begging for purchasers in foreign markets we need not worry about it. But should we still have a surplus to sell abroad, we need have no fear that it cannot be disposed of in other of the world's markets, even if the necessities of England are fully supplied by her colonies. When that time comes, it may be found that we can do without a good part of the $165,000,000 worth of merchandise we are now importing annually from the United Kingdom, to say nothing of the $54,000,000 worth we are importing from Canada, British Australasia and South Africa.

It is easy to discover the general drift of Mr. Whelpley's article without reading much between the lines. The primary object is to demonstrate

to the American farmers, and especially to those who produce the articles which are more commonly exported, that their future interests lie in supporting a more liberal tariff policy, whereby foreign manufacturers can send us more of their products in exchange for a larger and more permanent market for our surplus agricultural products. This insidious appeal to the farmers to aid foreign producers and American importers. to break down our protective system by tariff reductions and commercial treaties recalls the similar appeal of Augustus Mongredien to the Western farmers some twenty-four years ago, in which that writer sought to impress them with the greater advantage of foreign markets for their surplus products (and, of course, the greater their surplus the lower the cost to the foreign consumers) and in return for this favor our farmers would be supplied with European goods cheaper than they could buy domestic goods protected by a "robber tariff." The farmers of that time, except in two or three states, were not extensively hoodwinked by Mongredien's specious arguments, and we do not imagine that many at the present time will be deluded by this new appeal.

American farmers should know by this time, in the light of all past experience, that any tariff policy that would hurt manufacturers would be equally detrimental to them, as it would reduce the home demand for the farmers' products. Anything that would increase the consumption

of foreign articles and decrease that of domestic articles would be at the direct expense of all classes of producers, the farmers included; and for this loss no foreign market would afford adequate compensation. As Henry C. Carey said, in substance, the farmer, finding under a high tariff a readier sale at better prices for his commodities, and enhanced value on his real estate, should not think protection to manufacturing interests a very heavy load for the agricultural interests of the country to carry. The fact that the purchasing power of the country increases with adequate protection and declines when the tariff is reduced, sufficiently answers the free trade contention that protective duties are intended only for the benefit of a class. The interests of manufacturers and farmers are not antagonistic, but the prosperity of the latter is largely dependent upon that of the former. When our industries fail to stand together they will fall together.

Therefore the farmers should consider that as protection tends to increase industrial pursuits, the earnings of labor and the general purchasing power, a tariff that would increase importations of foreign commodities that we can produce ourselves, check industrial diversification, depress wages and decrease the purchasing ability of the masses would be most detrimental to their interests. It is probable that the hundreds of thousands who would be thrown out of employment by the depression of manufacturing indus

tries would be compelled to go into agriculture. In such case the surplus of agricultural products for which the farmer is compelled to find a foreign. market would be so greatly augmented that he would be unable to sell them at a profit; and it is absurd to suppose that, in any contingency, foreign countries will take more than they need for current consumption at any price. Is it not clear to the comprehension of every intelligent farmer that the home market is his only certain reliance, and that it may some time come to be his sole dependence? It is therefore not time to injure the home market by an unwise tariff policy, but rather we should extend and increase it by maintaining a consistent and adequate protective tariff which will restrict the importation of those things we can produce ourselves and so prevent the wages now paid to our own labor from being transferred to other countries.

The farmers should further consider that the tariff taxes relieve them to a great extent from paying a direct tax; that is, the burden of tariff taxation which now falls chiefly upon those who are best able to pay tariff taxes would fall upon the whole people if a direct tax were substituted, and the farmer would have to pay a larger proportion than he does under a protective tariff.

Finally, the farmer should consider that American producers can be protected from foreign competition only in the home market which consumes about 83 per cent of the total value of all farm products; and

that when they strive to compete in the world's markets they must do this upon the conditions existing in other countries. These conditions are more likely to be unfavorable than otherwise, unless we suppose an economic absurdity that other nations will arrest their industrial development to insure us the practical monopoly of their trade privileges.

Now we can preserve our vast internal trade intact, or we can fritter it away piecemeal in needless tariff concessions to competitive foreign products as a special favor to some export interests which assume that such concessions will enable them to increase their sales in foreign markets. This is a case where the interests of the many should not be sacrificed to serve the interests of the few. However important may be our foreign trade, it is the consumption in the great home market, the material well-being of of our people, and the continued protection of our domestic interests that should control our tariff policy. No nation occupies an impregnable industrial position which places its chief dependence for prosperity upon foreign markets; and all protective measures should therefore be for the preservation and expansion of our internal trade and not for the preservation and increase of external trade.

own

Ir is much to be regretted that the number seems to be increasing of the Americans who are disposed to look to "the government" to right the wrongs trom which we sometimes suffer, as if the government were something superior to

and wiser than the body of the people. The government of the United States is simply us. It is what the people themselves choose to make it. If they send to Washington stupid or wicked men, then inevitably the government will be stupid and wicked. If the people are incapable of choosing fit men for the public offices, but are mere foolish instruments of the bosses that control the party machines, then popular government is a failure. The impulse, when there is suffering, to turn to the government for help is the impulse of a weak man, and a government put into power by weak men can help nobody.-Textile Record.

THE Dingley Act was passed for the purpose of causing the production, within the United States, of all commodities which our national resources permit us to produce in quantities sufficient to supply the home market. All tariff acts are compromises and perhaps never entirely satisfactory to any interest. There is certainly nothing "sacred" about the Dingley Act. It was what seemed best and possible at the time, and it accomplished its purpose. If we were framing a tariff act to-day it would doubtless be different in many respects from the Dingley law, but we know of no reason to suppose it would be better for the country. It is very certain that the attempt to frame a new act would at once put a damper on all industrial effort, and it is the position of consistent Republicans that it would be the act of crazy men to interrupt the prosperity of the country.-San Francisco Chronicle.

THERE are some indications that the cost of living, which has risen so rapidly during the last few years, will show at least a moderate decline during 1903. There is little probability that it will decline in the near future to anything like the figures prevailing during the years of depression beginning with 1893. Still there were special influences that caused the sensational advance in prices last spring, and these are now no longer in evidence.-New York Commercial.

HE Philadelphia Times approv

THE

ingly comments upon the conclusion reached by Charles Henry Butler in his work on "The TreatyMaking Power of the United States," that the President and two-thirds of the Senate have the right to enter into any covenant they may choose to with a foreign country, regardless of the language, spirit and limitations of the Constitution. This privilege, the author says, "extends to every subject which can be the basis of negotiations and contract between any of the sovereign powers of the world;" and the Times assents and adds "it is sufficiently curious to know that it (the treaty-making power) possesses such comprehensive liberties, and that it can freely override Congress and the states without their being qualified to offer any hindrance to the proceeding," and it says that "we are indebted to Mr. Butler for having elucidated this important point in constitutional law."

Are we really under obligation to Mr. Butler for making his alleged discovery? If so, how shall we evince our gratitude? By thanking him for enlightening us and letting it go at that, cr by seriously investigating his arguments with the view of ascertaining their value and remedying the imperfection in our organic law if we find that he is right and

that the men we have credited with aiming to endow the American people with a representative government missed their object and only succeeded in creating an oligarchy whose power for evil would illimitably exceed that exercised by oligarchies called into existence by evolutionary processes?

It might be urged in reply to Mr. Butler that his arguments do not deserve serious consideration, because he overlooks the vital fact that "might makes right," and that in the last resort it will always be possible for Congress to nullify the treatymaking power by refusing to contribute the means to carry conventions into effect. Mr. Butler insists that "the United States may make treaties affecting matters so clearly and distinctly national as the collection of duties on imports." It may, indeed, provided that Congress is in the mood to accept them, but if it is not, they must, in the nature of things, share the fate of those arranged by the late Mr. Kasson and remain inoperative. There is no doubt whatever that the necessary majority of the Senate to confirm this particular batch of treaties could have been secured by hook or crook, had it not been for the apprehension that the work would have proved fruitless in the face of the opposition