United States as a whole have to go with their surplus, or it will not be raised, or if raised, will be left to rot on the ground; and there are, furthermore, more people in the United States who depend for their employment and living on the raising and selling of surplus agricultural products to Europe than are employed in all the iron and coal and textile industries of the country. So our farmer sells his 9,000 bushels of corn in England and, as he wants things rather than money, and as many things are cheap in England, he concludes to take his pay in hardware, woolen clothing, blankets, starch, paints, oils, glass, salt, cordage, hats, crockery, cotton ties, and other like articles, and starts for home by way of New York. There is no man with a gun behind a bush on the wharf to lie in wait for him, but there is another man, armed with something better than a gun, who tells the farmer that he must give up more than half the value of all the things he has received in payment for his corn before he can come into possession of the other half. If he doesn't pay quickly or if he makes any fuss about the charges, this other man will take the whole, and not unlikely put the farmer in jail. If the farmer could pay in things instead of money, and had taken salt in exchange for his corn, then for every hundred bushels he would have had to bring and give up 73 additional bushels. For every yard of the cheapest carpet, he would have had three quarters of a yard cut off; and if he had cotton ties, each tie would be shortened to the extent of 90 per cent. If he had taken the commonest kind of China plates or cups, then in order to carry a dozen of them home, he would have had to pay for eighteen. And so on. If our government needed to impose and collect such taxes in order to meet its necessary expenditures, there would be some justification for such procedure. But revenue was not the object sought for in the enactment of the laws which authorize or require them ; but the restriction of trade to prevent the farmer from selling his products to the best advantage. In short, carry out logically and to their fullest extent McKinley's views about industry, and you would have every man trying to produce a good deal and sell as little as possible.

TRUSTS.

The declaration has been made over and over again by leading Republican senators and representatives that whenever it could be shown that the tariff favored or created trusts then the tariff in such respects should be abolished. War on trusts and monopolies is a cardinal feature of the Republican creed as it is proclaimed to the people. Let us see how much this creed amounts to:

What is a trust? In the popular and political sense it means a combination of the domestic producers of certain commodities to control production and advance prices. No trust of this kind, operating on articles for which there is a possible competitive supply from other countries, could be maintained in the United States for a single month except under one of two conditionseither all the competitive producers throughout the world must be brought into the "trust"; or, what is the same thing, the product of the whole world must be controlled; or the product of all foreign producers must be shut out from the markets of this country. The first result is not attainable. It would be obviously impracticable to induce all the manufacturers of starch, for example, in all the different countries of Europe to unite and put the control of their business in hands of trustees residing in the United States. The second is made not only possible, but effective in the highest degree, by the imposition of tariffs, or duties on the importation of the articles in which the trusts are specially interested, so high as completely to bar them out of the American market. These duties the McKinley tariff act provides. It thus becomes the creator and preserver of trusts and monopolies, the like of which cannot and do not exist under the tariff system of Great Britain, as the starch trust, plate and window glass trust, nail trust, linseed oil trust, lead trust, cotton bagging trust, borax trust, axe, saw, and scythe trust, cracker, cake, and biscuit trust, oatmeal trust, rubber boot and shoe trust, and many others; all of which, freed from foreign competition, are advancing prices to American consumers to an extent that will afford them from 50 to 100 per cent more profit than can be fairly considered as legiti

mate, but in which profits their employees do not participate. For a more detailed illustration of trust operations, take the case of the "cracker, cake, and biscuit trust":

"It consists of two companies, the New York Biscuit Company and the American Biscuit Company. The former controls all the trade of the country east of Chicago, and the latter the trade west of Chicago. The former has a capital of $5,000,000; the latter, one of $10,000,000. They control nearly all the cracker factories in the country. In the spring (1891) there was a war between the two. The United States Baking Company, composed of twenty-six cracker concerns, joined the latter. Later in July there was a division of the field. There was an advance of 20 per cent in price and retrogression in quality.”

Breadstuffs, in all forms, it is needless to say, are fully protected against all foreign competition.

Chauncey M. Depew said at the Cracker Trust opening in New York:

"As the representative of a monopoly, I am glad to welcome one to this city which, by concentrating its resources, can produce an article of food cheaper than before."

But said Mr. Depew at Woodstock, Conn., on July 4, 1891 :

"If trusts or combinations of capital in any form seek to destroy competition, to restrict trade, to oppress communities, or to gain undue advantage, the whole machinery of legislation and the courts should be put in motion for the emancipation of commerce and employment."

There are more than 100 trusts in the United States that could have no existence except for the high duties that have been enacted or kept down in order to maintain and protect them. And yet the Republican party through its chosen leaders declare that they are opposed to trusts. But to what trusts are they opposed? How did the party vote? How did your representa

tive in the last (51st) Congress vote?

Did he vote for the salt trust, protected and alone made capable of existence by a duty of from 44 to 85 per cent?

Did he vote for the window glass trust with a Protection of from 120 to 135 per cent?

Did he vote for the linseed oil trust with a Protection of over 90 per cent?

Did he vote for the white lead trust with a Protection of 75 per cent?

Did he vote for the starch trust with a Protection of over 90 per cent?

Did he vote for the steel trust with a Protection running from 40 to 115 per cent?

And so of all the other trusts created by the tariff and especially by the McKinley bill. Look them up; and if you find that your representative voted for such an imposition of taxes, ask him to explain why he did so.

DAVID A. WELLS.

WH

WOOL AND THE TARIFF.

BY THEODORE Cox.

7HY has the Democratic House of Representatives failed to repeal the McKinley bill? That "fraud," that "robbery of the majority of the American people" has been allowed to remain with all, save a scanty half dozen, of its 2,500 items intact. And yet, only a few short months ago these same gentlemen, whose present action is causing such comment, were loudly proclaiming from one end of the land to the other, that all they asked was to be given a chance to lay their hands on that "culminating atrocity of class legislation" and they promised "its repeal as one of the beneficent results that will follow the action of the people in intrusting power to the Democratic party." Well, the people acted, they intrusted, and what have these gentlemen done in the way of redeeming their pledges? The session is drawing to a close and still they refuse to act. Now what is the meaning of this? There must be some cause for such strange proceedings. Such a cause there is, and it is not difficult to discover. For at every step toward Free Trade the Democratic majority in the House has found its way blocked by such determined opposition from manufacturers, farmers, and, in short, from all classes except college professors, that it has literally been forced to remain passive. No matter how hard it tried, it was unable to find a single article upon which to practice its "tariff reform" theories without accomplishing the ruin of the manufacturers and growers of that article, and thus causing wide-spread devastation. take the free wool bill, for instance, and we will find that both the woolen manufacturers and the woolgrowers are unanimous in condemning it, and that they have good reason to be so. We will first survey the effect upon the manufacturer, since he is