hence the most notable exemplification of the practical workings of a policy which establishes industries by means of guaranteeing a stable market for their products. It also happens that the tin plate trust is the most conspicuous one among the trusts whose products enjoy the benefits of a protective tariff which has in any notable degree advanced its prices. It is not my purpose to defend or apologize for this action on the part of the manufacturers of tin plate, but rather to inquire into the facts with a view to arriving at an intelligent conclusion as to the merits of the question. I find, to begin with, that the difference between the present price of American tin plate and the price of Welsh tin plate laid down in this country, duty paid, is very much less than the duty of 14 cents per pound. Recent quotations for tin plate in Wales for export are 16 shillings per box of 108 pounds, while the price in the United States is $4.523 per box of 108 pounds. The Welsh price is equivalent to $3.89 in United States money. This price is subject to discounts for cash of 3 and 1 per cent, and a brokerage of 2 per cent is customarily paid to the foreign broker for buying the plates and inspecting them, so that the net price would be practically 2 per cent less than $3.89, or $3.81. To this must be added 15 cents for ocean freight and insurance, making the price in bond in New York $3.96. The duty on 108 pounds, at 13 cents, is $1.62, making the price on dock in New York, duty paid, $5.58. While foreign plates would cost in New York $5.58, American plates are costing at mill $4.524, or $1.05 less. The price of American plates at mill is $0.56 more than the price of foreign plates at New York, before the duty is paid, so that under present conditions just about one-third of the duty, or one-half a cent a pound, is actually benefiting the American tin plate industry. The other two-thirds is nominal. It should be noted that the comparison made is not as favorable a one as might be drawn, because the principal consuming centers of the United States are nearer the mills than they are to New York, and the freight from New York to the point of consumption would average more than the freight from mill to point of consumption. There is no question that had there been no tin plate industry established in this country, Welsh tin plates would be selling at very much higher figures to-day. The Welsh manufacturers were securing very good profits out of the American trade before the McKinley law, from the absence of competition. They would have continued to secure such profits had no competition arisen in this country, while the demand has so increased that were there no source of supply but the Welsh tin mills, there would have been an excess of demand over production of 25 to 50 per cent

at the present time, and prices would without doubt have been sent much higher. It would be the height of folly to attempt to deny that with the Welsh manufacturers retaining a monopoly of the American demand, their prices would be, not $0.56 higher than they are now, but many times this advance, and in this case free Welsh plates would cost the American consumer much more than American plates do now. The American tin plate industry is to-day indebted to the tariff for but about one-third of the protection it nominally offers, and it requires this small protection only because Welsh tin plates are selling much lower than they would be selling were there no American industry.

The advances that have occurred in tin plate in the last nine months are in great part, if not wholly, explained and justified by the advances in raw material on the one hand, and the increased demand on the other. That such influences are fully able to produce still greater advances is shown by the condition in tank plate, which early last year sold at one cent a pound and is now selling at 23 cents for delivery in the next two months, an increase of 175 per cent, as against an increase in tin plates of less than 70 per cent, from $2.60 to $4.37 for 100 pound cakes. With a very few exceptions, iron and steel products, which have no trust control whatever, and on which the duty is merely nominal, have advanced much more than have tin plates. From August 1, 1898, to August 1, 1899, the standard grade of tin plates quoted by the Treasury Department in the monthly summary of the Bureau of Statistics increased in price 77 cents a box. In the same period the same grade of goods in Wales increased $1.45 a box, and that foreign increase was nearly all made in 1899. In other words, in free-trade England tin plates increased twice as much in price as in the United States under a protective tariff.

It is urged in behalf of tin plate manufacturers that they had no desire, when the Dingley bill was under discussion, to see the rate of duty advanced, and it is a fact that some of them were actually opposed to the increase. They knew that the advance would not secure them any higher prices for their product, and that the workmen would make it a pretext for demanding higher wages, and the outcome proved that they were right. The only tin plate lobby was that of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, through the influence of which the duty was advanced. The price of American tin plate was not raised a particle by the increased duty, but at the next scale settlement the workers demanded an advance in wages on the strength of the higher duty, and they got it. Last summer they demanded

another advance, and they got that also, the two advances amounting to about 25 per cent over the wages paid under the Wilson law. The earnings of about 54,000 tin plate operatives have been affected by these advances. Nine years ago there were no operatives in the tin plate industry; there was no such industry in existence in this country.

Contrasted with this large increase in the rate of wages among tin plate workers in the United States is the action taken by the provisional committee of the newly formed South Wales Tin Plate Masters' Association, which met representatives of the workmen in conference in Swansea recently on the wage question. A cable dispatch says:

"After two hours' discussion it was decided to recommend the acceptance of a 10 per cent reduction throughout the trade."

No one has yet succeeded in showing that prices of tin plate have been advanced in the United States to the point of unreasonable or oppressive exaction, in view of the large increase that has taken place in the cost of production by reason of higher wages, increased cost of materials, etc. It is not my purpose to either accuse or defend the tin plate trust. That organization, like all other trusts, will stand or fall on its merits. This much, however, is clear and indisputable: That to the policy of protection is wholly due the fact of the establishment of the tin plate industry in the United States; and that through the establishment of this industry, many millions of dollars have been saved to the consumers of tin plate, and many millions of dollars have been added to the gross sum of wages paid to American labor.

Enemies of protection, unable to explain away the catastrophe which has overtaken their cherished theories through the wonderful development of our export trade in manufactured products, seem to find much comfort and consolation in the assertion that this tremendous trade has been brought about by means of a general cut in prices, and that the home consumer pays more than the foreign consumer pays for the same article. There was a time, in the four years of depression following the free-trade triumph of 1892, when to a considerable extent our manufacturers were compelled to sacrifice their profits in order to find a foreign outlet for their surplus products. This was a time of national underconsumption and hence of national overproduction; a time when a reduction of prices afforded a means of obtaining ready cash for products rendered unsaleable because of the greatly diminished purchasing and consuming power of the nation as a whole. In this way manufacturers found it possible to keep their plants in operation and their labor employed during a long and

But

trying period of deadly depression. Their goods were marketed abroad at figures which left little or no margin of profit, and sometimes involved actual loss. But there was no choice. Either this, or close the factories and discharge the workpeople. this dismal necessity no longer exists. Export prices are now much nearer on a parity with domestic prices. It would be hard to find a manufacturer to-day who is developing a foreign trade without profit or at a loss. Mills are too busy working over-time to catch up with orders. Discounts are allowed on goods sold for export, for several good reasons-such as the spot cash payment for such goods, whereas in domestic trade long credits are the rule and spot cash the exception; and the additional fact that in marketing his product through the export trade the manufacturer is at no expense for advertising, maintenance of agencies, and other items in the cost of distribution amounting in the aggregate to fully the difference between export prices and domestic prices. The domestic consumer understands this perfectly, and does not grumble at it. It is only the American free-traders who feel aggrieved at a condition which increases the use of American material, increases the employment of American labor, and increases the consumption of American food products by American workers to the enormous average of over $50 per capita, against an estimated per capita average of less than $1.50 of American food products sold to and consumed by the workpeople of Europe. Who should find fault with such a state of things? The foreign manufacturer and his American agents and friends don't like it, of course; but I think it will be found that the American farmer is not losing any sleep because Europeans get a small discount from current American prices on agricultural implements, sewing machines, or typewriters; still less is the American wage earner worrying over the practical workings of a system which gives him increased wages and increased employment. Our export trade of a million dollars per day, including Sundays and holidays, in the products of American manufacture is one of the glories of the protective policy. Foreigners know it, and recognize it as the direct outgrowth of that policy.

Mr. Havemeyer's contention that "the customs tariff is the mother of trusts" was a blessing in disguise. It was intended as a blow at the party in power at the time Mr. Havemeyer failed to get the increase of duties he wanted on refined sugar, and also failed to get a reduction or repeal of the duties on raw sugar. Its effect has proved to be exactly the opposite of that which was intended. Before Mr. Havemeyer left the witness stand he placed on record the damaging admission that the sugar trust could,