the whole people; the other in the interest of a few thousand manufacturers. The one is designed to reduce both Government revenue and taxation, the taxation especially which bears heaviest on the necessaries of life; the other is intended to raise public revenue indeed, but to maintain private revenues by increasing and retaining taxation on all the necessaries of life.

The advocates of the substitute freely propose to reduce duties or abolish them on those things which yield only Government revenue, but refuse to reduce or abolish duties on those things which produce private revenue. This purpose is avowed, and is defended on the ground that it is all for labor. When it is remembered that the average tariff duty on all manufactured goods is 47 per cent. and the average share of labor therein is about 20 per cent., it will be seen that their love for the working-man is based on the other 27 per cent., which they pocket. Having robbed him of more than half of the bonus which the law gives the working-man they can well afford to love him; and that love will continue unabated until he insists on having all the law gives him. But the minority think it safe to say that the chief reductions in tariff taxation, as provided by the substitute, are confined to the articles of sugar and rice, with jute, jute butts, molasses, zante, currants, and a few other unimportant articles put upon the free list, while there is an increase of duties imposed upon the multiform manufactures of cotton, wool, iron, and steel-articles that the whole people, and especially the poor and most needy classes, are compelled to use.

The substitute relieves the non-necessary, tobacco, in all its forms, except cigars, cheroots, and cigarettes, from internal taxation, and gives free alcohol to the arts. Taking the tax off of tobacco will reduce revenue about $24,000,000; and it is estimated that the tax taken from alcohol for the arts will make a further reduction of about $7,000,000. But in view of the impossibility of preventing frauds upon the revenue that should be derived from distilled spirits used for purposes other than the arts, the loss of revenue may be safely estimated at many times $7,000,000.

Practically, the substitute offers to the people free whisky and free tobacco, leaving all the expensive machinery for the collection of the revenue and enforcement of the law in full force, while it increases taxation upon the actual and indispensable necessaries of life, and this, too, when there is a large surplus in the Treasury, and under existing laws that surplus is being increased at the rate of over $10,000,000 per month; thus withdrawing and withholding from the channels of trade, commerce, and business of the country money absolutely necessary to their successful operations.

But to better illustrate let us refer to the following schedules: Take Schedule C, metals.

In no single instance is the policy upon which the substitute was framed more clearly demonstrated than in that of railway iron.

The cost to produce rails at a leading mill in the United States in 1887 was less than $27 per ton, of which less than $4.25 per ton was

paid in wages.

The present rate of duty on steel rails is $17, and by the substitute it is reduced to $15.68 per ton. The question arises whether this will reduce the wages of the operatives $1.32 or whether $11.43 bounty above the whole cost paid for labor will satisfy the manufacturers.

The labor cost in a ton of steel rails being $4.25, on the pretense that this is so much higher than the former wages the burden of $15.68 is thus laid upon every ton of steel rails imported into the United States, and thus governing the prices here in order to equalize the difference in domestic and foreign wages.

This burden is laid upon the transportation of the country, on its foreign trade measured by the amount of duty collected, but where it is transferred to our internal commerce, the burden is measured by every pound of rails over which that commerce has to pass, and ultimately falls with crushing weight upon the agriculturist, whose bulky products must seek a foreign market over these tax-laden roads and in foreign ships; and when these foreign markets are reached, these products must compete with the pauper products of the cheapest labor to be found anywhere under the sun.

The House bill made a great stride for the farmer's relief when it reduced this tax to $11.00 per ton.

The rods out of which the farmers wire fence is made are not apparently changed in rate, but by various changes in classification actual and important additional burdens are imposed. A reduction in duti able value from 3 to 3 cents per pound weight accomplishes this. An additional size, number 6, added without an apparent change of rate does adroitly increase the rate paid on wire rods of this size from 45 per cent. to about 54 per cent., and is an increased tax on this one size of wire rods of nearly $300,000, upon the basis of the importations of 1887, and there is added a proviso by which rods smaller than number 6 are classified as wire, and thus effect a third distinct increase of tax in this one section-and this is called part of a "system," and rightly so called.

Steel ingots, cogged ingots, billets, bars, etc., now pay 45 per cent. duty if valued at less than 4 cents per pound. By the substitute, if valued at 1 cent or less, they are dutiable at one-half cent per pound; and as some of these items were valued at seven-tenths of a cent per pound in the imports of 1887, the rate of one half cent is an increase from 45 to over 70 per cent., and nearly a million dollars tax added by this one section.

Cotton ties also receive careful consideration by the majority. It is not enough that the most formidable and insolent trust which ever laid its hand upon the throat of honest labor, threatening every class, from the poor colored cotton-picker whose few pounds of crop he could not get to market for lack of means to wrap it, to the merchant and capitalist who had advanced the necessaries of life to sustain that labor through the

season. To these come the proposed revision, not with helping hand, but other burdens, and the cotton ties which their own friends had reduced to 35 per cent. in the tariff of 1883 (one of the bright oases in a desert of iniquity) they omit by name, but include in a new classification, so that instead of 35 per cent. it must pay according to the valuation of 1887 over 100 per cent., adding nearly a quarter million dollars tax on the imported ties alone, all of which is a loss to the cotton producer. Even with this they are not content, but still further tax the struggling agriculturist in this schedule by raising the duties on trace chains, and all other kinds less than three-eighths of an inch thick, from 24 cents, which is equivalent to 44.37 per cent., to 3 cents per pound, equivalent to a rate of 53.57 per cent. Can ingenuity go further?

That taggers iron should be raised from 30 per cent. to 65 per cent.; that table cutlery for the poor should be raised by specific rates added to ad valorem; that knives for the poor should be more heavily taxed and made cheaper for the rich; that breech-loading shot-guns should be made cheaper for the $200 grade and dearer for the $15 grade by making each pay the same tax, $10 and 25 per cent. ad valorem; all these and more are no longer startling, and prepare the mind for a thousand other inconsistencies and discriminations hidden by new and obscure classifications that only time and patient investigation will reveal.

COTTON SCHEDULE.

In this schedule again the great process of "leveling up" is called into requisition, to what end or for what purpose who can say? For instance, medium yarns are raised 3 cents per pound-they are already paying about 45 per cent. tariff tax. Is this to pay the difference in wages here and abroad? Hardly, since by the census of 1880 it is shown that cotton goods workers are only paid 21.06 per cent. of the product. They do not get half of the present tariff, yet it is proposed to still further increase the rate. By changes in classification and by new subdivisions, still further complicating the administration, and by changes in rates, in effect principally increasing taxes, most glaring inconsistencies and discriminations are perpetrated in this so-called revision.

Cotton yarns pay about 50 per cent. Cotton cloths made from this yarn pay 45 per cent., while the clothing ready made by the tailor or seamstress from this cloth must pay 40 per cent. Hosiery is made dearer for the poor, but undisturbed for the rich. A sock worth 75 cents per dozen must pay 60 cents per dozen and 20 per cent. ad valorem, or 100 per cent., but after they reach $3 per dozen in value the tax is left at the old rate.

Collars are raised from 30 per cent. to 80 per cent. and upwards on the cheaper kinds of linen or cotton.

WOOLEN SCHEDULE.

The substitute not only retains a duty on raw wool, but increases the duty from 10 to 11 cents a pound on clothing and combing wool, and the existing duty is retained on carpet wools, which all parties agree are not produced in this country, and the changes made in the manufactures of wool increases the taxation, and to that extent increases the cost of the manufactured article, and especially the cheaper grades—the clothing of the poor.

To illustrate, take this example: The cheapest woolen dress goods, costing only 15 cents a square yard, is taxed by the substitute 6 cents a square yard and 40 per cent. ad valorem, making the whole tax thus imposed 80 per cent.

On dress goods wholly of wool the duty is increased from 9 cents a square yard and 40 per cent. ad valorem to 11 cents per square yard and 40 per cent. ad valorem, making an increase of taxation on this single article upon the basis of the importations of the fiscal year 1887, when 31,136,149 yards were imported, of $622,722.

And as these goods only cost an average of 21 cents a yard in the foreign market and under existing law are taxed 82.96 per cent. ad valorem, they are by the substitute increased to 92 per cent ad valorem.

Of this class of goods we imported in the fiscal year 1887, $6,522,568 worth, upon which we collected $5,411,280, with many times that amount extorted from consumers in the form of bounty to the manufacturers.

But the people will better understand the effect of this change when they see that they are paying in the form of taxation about 193 cents upon a square yard of goods that cost in the foreign market only 21 cents a yard, making the cost to the consumer 40 cents a yard.

While it is impossible for the minority to state the exact amount of the increase of the revenue resulting from these changes, it is confidently expected that there will be an increase of revenue upon these three schedules of at least ten millions of dollars per annum.

LUMBER.

The duty on lumber is practically left undisturbed, and an aggravated tax thus continued on the whole people, and more particularly upon the distant farmers and settlers whose shelter must be brought from great distances, and the tax thus retained inures to the benefit of but a few individuals to the distress of millions.

SALT.

Bulk salt, which is now dutiable at nearly 80 per cent., is continued in the substitute at the same rate. Salt is a product of the sea and earth, which nature's God bestowed upon man for his use. So free is it in nature's plan that a little sea-water exposed to the sun-heat and the air, nature's own factory, and the residuum is salt. Wherever found we employ the great forces of steam and electricity instead of manual labor in preparing it for use. Why a tax should be imposed on an

article so easy of production and of such prime necessity and universal use is not shown. The existing law gives free salt to the fishery interests of New England and taxes salt to the farmer and dairyman. The House bill makes salt free of tax to all.

PROVISIONS.

Macaroni and vermicelli, put upon the free list long ago for the benefit of the poor, are now taken from the free list and burdened with a tax of 2 cents per pound, over 35 per cent. ad valorem.

Animals, live, are made dutiable at specific rates, at $20 per head for horses and mules.

Animals for breeding purposes are now free, and over two and a quarter million dollars worth of breeding horses were imported in the year 1887 for the purpose of improving the stock of this country, and on this importation alone the farmers of the country would pay under the proposed substitute over $300,000 more tax than now.

And other animals now paying 20 per cent. are taxed at the same rate as the more valuable breeding animals. None are benefited but the wealthy. A $10,000 coaching team of six, which costs $2,000 to import under the present law, may come in under the substitute at only $120, while six bronchos from across our southern border, worth $10 a head, which would now come in for $24, must, under the proposed substitute, pay 200 per cent.

TRUSTS.

The present tariff is the nursing mother of trusts. It is the wall behind which these combinations are formed, by which the people are plundered. Tariffs keep out the foreign competition and the combination suppresses the domestic, and the whole people are at their mercy and must pay whatever is demanded. Language is inadequate to describe the iniquity of these corporations against the rights of the people, or to depict their disastrous effects upon the general welfare. As the tariffs, which render trusts possible, are established and maintained at the special instance of those who form them, it would seem but simple justice as well as good policy to tear down as much as possible of their covert and refuse to longer aid them in wrong-doing. They are not "private affairs," as has been asserted, but public evils of the gravest character, affecting the price of every article which contributes to the comfort and support of the people. The provisions of the substitute favor them greatly, and will serve to encourage their formation in still other branches of manufacture. Many of those belonging to trusts appeared before the Finance Committee, clamorous for such legislation as would promote their interests. They are all opposed to the House bill, which should commend it to all who condemn their methods. It is bad enough to permit those who are most interestedmanufacturers-to appear before our committees and suggest the legis lation they wish, but surely we should not listen to the trusts and aid them to rob with both hands.