April 28, 1888 Vol. III, No. 17Whole No. 69

CONTENTS:

[Note: a subscriber’s address is rubber-stamped or handwritten diagonally across the right half of this box, reading approximately “102 S Mendelsen 167 / 179 W 74th st”; it hides the ends of several entries below.]

Politics That Mean Something. A Way Out of It. Putting Niagara in Harness. Will Australia be First in the Race? The Factory System in Agriculture. The Pinkerton Troops. Straws Which Show the Wind. Cooks of the Arist[illegible]y. Sow Thou Thy Se[illegible]n). The Sugar Questio[illegible]ada. A Voice from Hollan[d?]. The Single Tax. New York’s Lodging Ho[uses?]. Wages and the Tariff. Personal. A Negro’s Inspiration. A Case for Medical Treatment. The Shepard and the Sheep. Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. Society Notes. Men and Things. Foreign Notes. The Beating of the Drums. Queries and Answers. Cigarmakers’ Troubles. Outcast London. Trusts. Pen, Paste and Scissors. Mr. Dana’s Brothers. Roaring of the Sea (Poem.) Mrs. Muller’s Houses. The Landless (Poem.) Tax the Land (Poem.) Philadelphia’s Homes. Go West, Young Man. The Single Tax Movement. Women.

POLITICS THAT MEAN SOMETHING.

Mr. Mills’s speech in opening the tariff debate, as printed in full in the Congressional Record, justifies the impression produced by the telegraphic reports. It is a manly, vigorous, and most effective free trade speech, abounding with telling points that go to the very heart of protection. It ought to be largely circulated as a campaign document.

If there remained in the mind of any one a lingering doubt lest the issue between the two giant parties should be belittled into a mere question of tariff tinkering Mr. McMillin’s speech on the reopening of the tariff debate on Tuesday last should dispel it. “I would be gratified,” said the Tennessee congressman, “to have any man explain the justice of requiring one man to contribute a tax in order to make another man’s vocation.” This is not talking tariff reduction. It is talking free trade. The man who fires his revolver at a burglar is doing a little more than merely asking his furtive visitor to surrender part of his spoil.

The democratic clubs and politicians are wheeling into line splendidly, and it is now certain that protectionists like Messrs. Charles A. Dana and Samuel J. Randall will ere long have to “eat crow” or go over formally to the republican party. And a great body of republicans and men who have cared nothing for either of the old parties, are moving toward the support of Mr. Cleveland, now that he has raised the standard of true democratic principles. The coming election means in fact a reconstruction of both parties. Though old names will be preserved, the real struggle will be between protection and free trade—that is to say, between special privilege and equality of rights, between the principle of restriction and the principle of freedom.

Mr. Cleveland, it is now certain, will be nominated at St. Louis by acclamation. Who shall be nominated for vice-president is not determined. But it is time that a southern man was placed on the presidential ticket, and the southern man whom the democracy would do best to put there is ROGER Q. MILLS of Texas.

The empire state of the north, and the empire state of the south! Grover Cleveland of New York and Roger Q. Mills of Texas! It is a ticket that would make the protectionists howl. And that is the reason of its strength. The stronger the opposition the stronger the support. Every voter who really fears free trade will cast a ballot against Mr. Cleveland anyhow. If the Danas and the Randalls pretend to support him it will be but to stab him in the back. But if the fight be hot, men will see the absurdity of protection, and will be irritated by its pretensions. In such a struggle as the democratic party is now committed to, courage means certain victory. Timidity means defeat.

And here is something that would make the best kind of a democratic platform. It is from the report made to the house of representatives cn May 19, 1858—just thirty years ago—by the special committee that in the earlier part of the session had been appointed to consider the whole subject of federal expenditure and revenue—the house of representatives being at that time democratic:

Resolved,

That the vast and increasing expenditure of the federal government indicates the necessity of a change in our fiscal system, whereby the protective policy shall be entirely abandoned, and a resort had at as early a period as may be practicable exclusively to direct taxation.

That the highest development of the industrial resources of the country is to be attained by the greatest freedom of exchanges, which can only be thoroughly accomplished by the entire abolition of duties on imports, and a resort exclusively to direct taxation.

That the system of direct taxation presenting the most advantages is for each state to collect and pay over its quota, to be ascertained by the constitutional rule of apportionment, thus insuring perfect equality, and dispensing with multitudes of federal officers.

This report was signed by W. W. Boyce of South Carolina, Richard Mott of Ohio, John A. Quitman of Mississippi, Jacob R. p. 1, col. 2 Wortendyke of New Jersey, and F. E. Spinner of New York.

Boyce, Wortendyke and Quitman were democrats; Mott and Spinner were republicans. But it is the true democratic doctrine on the tariff question; and now that the slavery question and the issues that followed it, have passed away, men who have called themselves republicans, and men who have called themselves democrats, will be found uniting again on the Jeffersonian platform of equality and freedom.

Perhaps it is too much of human nature to hope that such a convention as will assemble at St. Louis will adopt such a platform as this would be. But it really makes very little difference what sort of a platform they adopt. It is in this direction that the democratic party must inevitably go under the stimulus of the campaign. The real issue that will be discussed will be, not high tariff or low tariff, but protection or no tariff at all.

And this report made to congress after the Walker tariff had been running twelve years, and when our duties on imports were but nominal as compared with what they are now, indicates how rapidly experience was bringing our people to recogni[ze?] the advantages of free trade. But for slavery our ports would now doubtless be open to the world, our ships would plow every sea, and we might be addressing ourselves to other tasks than that of proving that a people cannot tax themselves into prosperity. A generation has gone, and the fight against the robbery of protection is only beginning. But it will go on fast.

Andrew Carnegie, whose soul is filled with alarm for the beneficent system of “protection to American industry,” has not yet gone to his castle in Scotland, but lingers on this side of the Atlantic, while his great steel works at Braddock are being filled up with Huns guarded by Pinkerton troops, with militia in readiness.

But his striking workmen have no business to complain. Have they not all the advantages which protection to the Amercan workingman gives them? Has not all the rest of the country bowed to Pennsylvania for their sakes, and is there not a duty of twenty dollars a ton (seventy-four per cent) on steel rails, imposed, not for the advantage of their employer, but for their especial benefit? This ought to make them happy, though they stand idle. And if they are not happy, all they have to do is to spend their leisure in reading “Triumphant Democracy.” It will show to them that they ought to be happy, and that the man who cannot win fortune in this well protected and most glorious country is either imbecile or lazy. Andrew Carnegie came to this country a poor boy. Let them look at him.

But to do Mr. Carnegie justice, he does not pretend that we have to have a protective tariff here because of high wages, or that we are under disadvantage in production because of the lower wages of other countries. In fact, Mr. Carnegie is a protectionist in this country and as concerns this country. When he goes to the other side of the Atlantic he is a free trader. But Mr. Carnegie does not want the tariff kept up for his own advantage. No protected manufacturer does. The whole country might be gone through with a fine tooth comb to find a capitalist who wants that. Mr. Carnegie, if I understand him rightly, wants a protective tariff kept up (on steel, at least, in which he takes the most benevolent interest), because of our natural disadvantages. According to him—and as the largest steel manufacturer in the world he ought to be the best authority—God Almighty has made Great Britain an easier place to manufacture steel in than Pennsylvania, for there the coal, the iron stone and the lime are close together, whereas, while Pennsylvania has the coal, the ore has to be brought long distances—from Spain, Algiers or Michigan, and the lime must be transported. It would certainly seem to a “mere theorist” that if England was the best place to make steel in, it would be a good deal cheaper for us to get our steel from England, and to carry one ton of steel across the ocean rather than transport three and a half tons of raw material for long distances on land. But then, Mr. Carnegie points out, we should lose the business which all this transportation gives to our railroads, and all the employment this furnishes to our labor. What lots of transportation we might get if we prohibited railroads altogether. It would only be a step further in protection.

The war brought the nation one good thing—the taxing out of circulation of the notes issued by state banks, and the substitution for these local issues of a currency of uniform value throughout the United States. But the institution of the national banking system had nothing to do with this beneficial change. That was simply a sop to the banks—the bribing of these powerful corporations, by giving them special privileges at the expense of a people whose patriotism made them for the time careless of how they were taxed. While the ordinary citizen who bought a government bond, parted with his money in consideration of the interest he was p. 1, col. 3 promised, the favored corporations who took advantage of the national banking law were given back in government notes, bearing their names, nine-tenths of the face value of their bonds—thus getting back nine-tenths of the money they were supposed to loan the government, while continuing to draw interest on the whole amount.

This virtual subsidizing of the national banks has cost the people far more than the vast sums paid to the national banks as interest on money they never loaned. The influence of the national banks upon our fiscal legislation is largely accountable for a policy which seems as if expressly designed to make the payment of the debt incurred during the war as costly as possible to tax payers. And now that the redemption of the debt threatens the withdrawal of the national bank circulation based upon the deposit of bonds, all sorts of plans are proposed to secure the continuance of the special privileges of the banks.

The proposition of Senator Farwell of Illinois to issue fifty-year two and a half per cent bonds for the use of the banks, on which they are to be allowed circulating notes to full par value, and to permit them to substitute for United States bonds, as a basis of circulation, state, county or municipal bonds at seventy-five per cent of their par value, is the latest of these propositions to perpetuate the national banks, and brings into striking light the preposterous nature of the whole system.

The issuing of a bond means, or ought to mean, the borrowing of money. Yet under Senator Farwell’s proposition the United States is to issue bonds bearing two and a half per cent interest, to hand back to the purchasers all the money they pay for the bonds, and then to go on for fifty years paying them interest on money it has not borrowed and they have not loaned. And then to secure the perpetuity of this system of subidizing^sic the banks at the expense of the people, Senator Farwell proposes that the United States shall go into a similar one-sided banking business with these corporations on other securities than its own. Reduced to its simplest terms the proposition is simply that when these favored banks lend a state, county or municipality $100 at four, five or six per cent interest, the United States is to lend them $75 without interest.

If it should do this for the banks, why should it not do this for merchants, and manufacturers, and miners, and farmers, for the publishers of books and newspapers—and, in short, for everybody else? Banks are useful things, it is true. But farms, and factories, and ships, and dry goods stores, and carpenter shops, and boot black stands, and some newspapers, are also useful things. And if the national banks, who take good care to charge other people interest when they loan them money, are to be suffered to borrow money from the federal government without interest, why should not the United States go into this business of lending money free of interest to everybody?

Senator Farwell’s preposterous proposition is only carrying one step further the existing system of bank subsidies. It is but a natural result of the manner in which the people of the United States have for years permitted themselves to be taxed for the benefit of a few favored corporations. There never was any good reason for the institution of the national banking system, and there is not to-day any good reason for its continuance. Like all special privileges, it is but a taxing of the many for the benefit of the few, and like all using of governmental power for private advantage, its results have been governmental extravagance and political demoralization. The pretense that there is some mystery about currency and banking that common people cannot understand, is like the pretense that no one but the members of the protected rings and trusts are competent to say what tariff taxes shall be levied on the people. The pretense that the national banking system rendered necessary aid in putting down the rebellion, and that it has given us a uniform currency, is like the pretense that we owe our growth and prosperity to the tariff. The national bank notes are current over the United States and fulfill the functions of generally acceptable money. not because they have the name of a bank printed on them, nor because bonds (on which the banks continue to draw interest) are deposited for their redemption; but because they are issued by the general government, bear its stamp, and rest upon its credit. They are in no wise better than the notes directly issued by the government, but derive their security and usefulness from the same source that gives the greenback its security and usefulness—the fact that they are issued by the government and are receivable for its dues. The only reason for continuing them is the enrichment of the few at the expense of the many. Every single dollar of the two hundred and seventy odd millions of national bank notes outstanding represents a dollar on which the people of the United States are taxed to pay interest, but which is loaned by a paternal government to the privileged banks without interest.

There is no legitimate connection between p. 1, col. 4 the functions of government and the business of banking.

The proper business of banking is the receiving, the keeping and the loaning out of money, and the facilitation of exchanges by the extension, interchange and cancellation of private credits. With the issuance of money the proper business of banking has nothing whatever to do.

It is one of the proper functions of the general government to issue money. But with the proper business of banking the government has rightly nothing whatever to do. There is no more reason for national banks subsidized by the government by loans of its money without interest, than there is for national grocery stores or national restaurants, for which government should supply the capital while private individuals took the profits.

Outside the bank of England there is not a single one of the many hundred English banks and banking institutions that has anything whatever to do with the issuing of money, and even in the United States, where this monstrous system of national banks has been suffered to grow up, a great part of the banking business of the country is conducted by banks like the Bank of America, Wells, Fargo & Co., and Drexel, Morgan & Co., that have nothing to do with issuing money, and yet discharge all the proper functions of banks as satisfactorily as do the subsidized corporations. To withdraw the national bank currency and to substitute for it notes directly issued by the government would be annually to save to the people millions directly, and still more millions indirectly; but it would not in the least interfere with the proper business of banking. If any of the national banks chose to wind up when their one sided partnership were dissolved, private banks would quickly take their places.

The national banking system is but an outgrowth and a part of the protective system. It having been conceded that it was a legitimate part of the business of government to levy taxes for the “encouragement” of capitalists who put their money into manufacturing enterprises, it was very natural that the capitalists who put their money into the business of banking should demand and should receive their share of “encouragement.” Then the silver mine owners of the Pacific, who were able to buy seats in the senate, wanted their share of encouragement also. And taking advantage, on the one side of the false ideas propagated by the promoters of the conspiracy to enrich the creditor class at the expense of the debtor class, by the forced contraction of the currency; and on the other, of the crude notions of those who have wished to resist and reverse this process by a depreciation of the currency, they have got the United States government into the business of buying, coining and locking up $2,000,000 of silver every month, for no other real purpose than the creation of an artificial demand for silver.

Not merely has all this been aided by the governmental extravagance fostered by the protective system, which has for its object the keeping up of taxation for the sake of taxation; but the first and most important of all the false steps made in the administration of our national finances during the war grew out of the popular acceptance of the protective fallacies. Our national currency was dishonored at the outset, a tremendous speculation set up in its depreciation (for gold having a comparatively uniform and stable value, what was called speculation in gold was in reality speculation in the greater or less depreciation of the currency) and the burden of the war debt was enormously enhanced by the law under which greenbacks were repudiated at the custom house, and the payment of duties required^sic. The underlying motive in this provision was to keep up protective duties.

Now that the subsidy system is being called in question, and a great national campaign is to turn upon the issue between the theory of protection and the theory of free trade, it will not be long before the currency question also comes up. And the lines on which it ought to be settled are the simple lines of free trade—the equality of all citizens and no special privileges to any one. Let the buying of silver and the hoarding of gold be stopped. Let the bonds be called in and paid as fast as they mature, either in government notes to be issued for that purpose or in specie if it be preferred. Let the silver be sold for telephone wires, to which it is better adapted than any other metal and would be far more useful than lying in vaults. Let a two and a half, or possibly a two per cent bond, be issued to whoever wants to pay for it at par, for which any one, whether he be a national banker or not, can have issued to him government notes to its face value whenever he chooses to present it at the treasury—the interest of course to cease the moment the bond is thus redeemed. With, perhaps, some provision for meeting general charges in the rate of interest^sic by the issuance of bonds at a slightly higher or slightly lower rate of interest—a matter that could be far more safely left in the president’s hands than the enormous powers of deposit and purchase now confided to him—we should then have a currency p. 1, col. 5 that would automatically conform to the wants of the country, expanding when more currency was needed and contracting when it became superabundant.

Our national finances ought to be conducted on the simple principle that would govern any business man—that of paying as little interest as possible and putting his capital to its most productive use. But as we have been, and are now going, it is conducted on principles the very opposite.

The use of money is worth to the masses of the American people from six to twelve per cent—in fact, great numbers of them, in purchases on credit or on instalment, pay far higher rates. Yet by a system of taxation that takes from the ultimate tax payers at least five dollars for every dollar the government gets, we are wringing from them not only enough to maintain a most extravagant government, but to keep an enormous surplus idle. The federal tax gatherers are virtually taking seed wheat from the farmer, tools from the mechanic, machinery from the manufacturer—capital in some sort from every producer, in order to hoard coined bullion in treasury vaults, to pay off bonds at a high premium before they are due, to deposit money with national banks without any charge for the use of it. And while we are paying enormous sums in interest on the public debt we are virtually lending hundreds of millions to these national banks without interest.

But at last, in the revolt against protection, the struggle against the system which prostitutes the powers of government to enrich the few and impoverish the many, has begun. Thanks partly to the courage of a few of its leaders, and partly to the attacks of its opponents, the democratic party is at last beginning to face in the direction of the principles of Jefferson.

Talking to a group of our friends a little while ago, when the expediency of running an independent ticket was being spoken of, Benjamin Urner of New Jersey, whose name is known to every old greenbacker in the country, said some very impressive things about the manner in which a reform movement might be retarded by being forced prematurely into party politics, instancing the greenback movement as an illustration with which he was thoroughly familiar. Just prior to the organization of the greenback party, Mr. Urner said, the masses of both the great parties were rapidly awakening to the injustice and waste of our financial policy; and the halls of congress rang with speeches from prominent and influential men among both republicans and democrats as earnest and radical as any subsequently delivered from the greenback stump.

“But when,” said Mr. Urner, “a lot of us enthusiasts, despite the advice of cooler heads, insisted upon organizing a third party upon this issue, I can see very clearly that we really set back the movement we wanted to advance. The people were ready to think about the question, but they were not yet ready to leave the old parties and vote with reference to that alone. We had no prospect of immediate success, and so only a few of those who really believed with us were willing to”stand up and be counted.” The consequence was that we polled a miserable vote; at the same time we made it impossible for men to openly express greenback views and remain in their old parties. Men of position, ability and influence, who up to that time had been advocating our principles, stopped and remained silent, leaving a few of us to make an independent struggle, so hopeless as to make our cause insignificant and throw on it in popular view the onus of crankism. I point with pride,” said Mr. Urner, “to our greenback struggles; but to what purpose were they? A few local victories were won, always by alliances with our opponents. We did what a small political organization, acting independently, could do to arouse attention. But we became more and more insignificant, until now even the name of the party we hoped so much from is among the records of the past. It really hurt, not helped, the cause it was formed to serve—really deadened, by making it seem hopeless and ridiculous, the agitation we wanted to promote. But now that the greenback party has ceased to exist, the idea is already beginning to awaken among the old parties as the fear of odium is beginning to be lost.”

Mr. Urner also went on to speak of the assertion sometimes made by those whose knowledge of the American political history is very vague, that the anti-slavery men gradually won their way by an independent movement in politics. “The truth is,” he said, “that the real leaders of the anti-slavery struggle, such men as William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and John G. Whittier, were steadily opposd^sic to political movements, and that the third party movements which attempted to bring the anti-slavery struggle into practical politics were engaged in by men indoctrinated with anti-slavery ideas, but impatient of what seemed to be their slow dissemination in the public mind—men so rash as to wish to begin the battle against disciplined hosts when they were but a bare handful of undisciplined enthusiasts. These third party movements really retarded instead of advancing the growth of the anti-slavery movement. The p. 1, col. 6 republican party did not grow out of them, but out of the quiet permeation of anti-slavery sentiments through the elements of the old parties. And while they did something, perhaps, to advance the discussion in some ways, and by alliances in some localities with the old parties, elected some members of congress, they at the same time, stirred up party rancor and awakened a bitter opposition which made it inevitable that the evil of slavery could only be removed by violence and blood.” And so, from what to him had been costly experience, Mr. Urner argued that it would be in the highest degree injudicious to attempt to organize a third party on the single tax principle so long as the majority of the people were not informed about it; as that would necessarily be to arouse prejudices, which would be most difficult to overcome, and to give it an appearance of ridiculous insignificance that would prevent men from seriously considering it. The history of our country, he said, gives no instance of a third party beginning small and gradually growing to be the leading party of the nation. On the contrary, parties which show themselves so small as to have no chance of success inevitably tend to become smaller.

I am inclined to think Mr. Urner right, and that both in the ways he pointed out and in the fact that small and insignificant parties attract ill-balanced extremists, the attempt to form an independent political party on the currency question has led to a widespread notion that any opposition to the existing financial policy of the government means a belief that wealth can be created and interest abolished by running enough printing presses on government notes. But the time is coming—and the changed attitude of the democratic party hastens it—when the whole question must be fairly discussed.

In the meanwhile everything goes to show that our principles, instead of being relegated to the background because there is to be no real attempt on the part of single tax men to go into independent politics this year, are really coming into wider and more general discussion. Church Progress, a Catholic paper published in St. Louis, is comical in its astonishment at this. “The calamitous defeat of the George party in New York last fall” and the “disruption of the party itself,” all seemed, it says, “to clinch the popular belief that the land heresy had been interred as a dead and profitless hobby.” But it complains that outpourings in the magazines and press “show that it has been dug out again and replanted as a perennial flower of controversy.” And then the Church Progress, not to omit doing its share, goes on to devote its longest leader to the subject.

Our exchanges all indicate the same drift. The attention that the tariff controversy is beginning to call to matters of taxation is tending inevitably to show the absurdity and injustice of taxes upon the products of human labor, whether they are imported from other countries or produced here, and the dispute as to whether protection does or does not increase the wages of labor is bringing men to see on what wages really do depend—the terms on which labor, the active factor of production, can gain access to the passive factor of production, land. And not only in this country, but in other parts of the world, the great cause is moving on. Our struggle is confined to no one country, but is in reality a world wide fight in which whatever is done in one country reacts on the others.

HENRY GEORGE.

What Our Manufacturers Need.

The Kind of Labor in Demand on the Pacific Coast.

A Bright Outlook in Nashville.

NASHVILLE, Tenn.—Two years ago in this city the single tax doctrine was unthought of. I remember mentioning it to one of our labor reformers, and the answer I received was a laugh accompanied with ridicule. But to-day there are many who are advocating it boldly. The Knights of Labor assemblies are at work discussing the question pro and con. One of our most prominent lawyers of this city is now out with us and I believe ready to come before the public as soon as an opportunity presents itself. Rev. Dr. Kelly is also holding public meetings in the opera house every Sunday afternoon, discussing the labor question from a Christian standpoint to large audiences. Talk not of being discouraged. The grand revolution is moving forward with irresistible power. Those dissatisfied elements of ours will all play their part, and

p. 2, col. 2 when the time comes for action and the mists have cleared away we will all march in the right direction without the tap of a drum. Three years ago I was in favor of protection but could not tell why. Now I am a free trader, as I believe it will assist us in getting free land.

Please ask all readers of THE STANDARD in Nashville, Tenn., to send their addresses to me, that we may come together and have an understanding and form a plan for advocating the principle and bringing it before the people.

P. H. CARROLL, 225 N. High street.

Nearly 120,000 Horse Power to Be Utilized—An Immense Profit from the Rise of Land Values Alone.

The Niagara river hydraulic tunnel, power, and sewer company propose to commence in July the construction of a gigantio^sic work, which will enable them to utilize a portion of the power of the great falls, greater, it is said, than all the other water power of the country combined.

The company’s proposed methods are certainly ingenious. At a point several miles above the falls they will construct a tunnel, 100 feet under ground, and about 400 feet distant from the river, which will be carried to a point below the falls, when it will discharge into the main stream. Into this tunnel wells will be sunk from the surface at intervals, into which water will be led from the river by means of conduits. Turbines in the wells will utilize the head of water thus obtained. As the wells will be kept constantly full, the power will be absolutely uniform, while the depth of the tunnel will prevent any trouble from ice. It is estimated that the force thus secured will amount to 119,000 horse power, which, of course, can be doubled, trebled or quadrupled at will by running additional tunnels.

The company has acquired possession of the land along the line of the proposed tunnel, which it will rent for mill sites. It also owns the water frontage, which will be specially valuable, as the mills will be located so far above the falls that vessels of any draft can come to the wharves, thus securing cheap water freights from the mills to tide water. It is said that [238?] mills can be supplied with power, and in addition it is said that the city of Buffalo has offered $100,000 a year for power sufficient to maintain its electric lights.

The estimated cost of the tunnel, wells and conduits is [$3,000,000?]. The increase in land values arising from the concentration within a small space of so many manufacturing establishments, will be very large. However great it may be, it will all be taken by the company.

Frank Hurd Out for Free Trade and Direct Taxation.

Mr. C. J. Buell, president of the Minneapolis anti-poverty society, writes: At a recent meeting of the political science club at the State university, J. C. Haynes, president of the American district telegraph company, read a paper on trusts, which brought out a lively discussion. It was made clear to all that combinations, pools, monopolies and trusts can be traced to one or several of the following causes: Tariff taxes, internal revenue taxes, patent laws, private ownership of public franchises and private ownership of ground rent.

The free trade club here has had public meetings addressed by Hon. Gordon E. Cole of this state, Hon. Frank Hurd and Rev. F. B. Nash of Fargo. Both Hurd and Nash declared in favor of absolute free trade and direct taxation, and brought down tremendous applause.

Hardly a day passes without my hearing republicans declaring that if things continue as at present they will vote for Cleveland.

Hammering Away in Indianapolis.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—Our anti-poverty society is hammering away at bigotry, intolerance and indifference and I think we are doing great good. We are a gritty band and propose to hang on until we accomplish our purpose.

Howard Briggs of Green Castle was with us the other night and will come again before long and deliver an address. He is doing good work by both voice and pen.

Mrs. Mary A. Parker will address the society shortly. She is a fluent speaker and well posted on the industrial and economic questions. I wish all THE STANDARD readers in Indiana who contemplate going to the Chicago conference would drop me a card, as I am a member of the committee of arrangements and will find such information useful.

L. P. CUSTER.

Thirteen Single Tax Men in Congress.

Waterbury American.

There is quite a colony of Henry George men in Washington, and several of them are able, fearless and enterprising. They have an organization and in a quiet way are pushing their propaganda in quarters where it is believed their efforts will do the most good. The movement has been well managed, the more startling and radical phases of it being kept in the background, and an endeavor made to give it a thoroughly scientific and philanthropic cast. This, it was shrewdly seen, was absolutely necessary in Washington, whose people are more out of sympathy with any movement of this kind than the inhabitants of any other section or city of the country. The average Washingtonian, having had no political functions to discharge for many years, has lost all interest in politics, and thinks of the labor question and the great brood of kindred subjects which are part of the daily life almost of the people of other cities as things which can affect him only in the smallest degree, and in which it would be a waste of time and energy to try to get up any interest. So it will be understood that those who undertook to get up a Henry George society in Washington had a difficult task before them. Yet they claim to have succeeded very well so far, and one of the leading spirits talked very enthusiastically of their achievements and hopes for the future.

“Why,” he said, “you would hardly believe it, but I have found no less than thirteen members of congress who are practically Henry George men. Some of them do not acknowledge it; in fact, they would no doubt deny it if publicly charged with holding to George’s theories; but in private life they readily acknowledge that they think his conclusions on the land question are correct. There is a very strong George man in the house, and we hope to get him to startle the country with a bold single tax speech before the close of the session.”

This pronounced George man is said to be Tillman of South Carolina. Most of the other George men are also said to be democrats. The single tax propagandists are very anxious to gain a strong foothold in Washington, for they feel that whatever they do here will count for much more in the country at large than if done elsewhere.

The Tail of the Cat.

From Congressman Mills’s Speech.

If we had no tariff, if all the custom houses were torn down and the government was supported by direct taxation, not more than ten per cent of all the manufactured products consumed by all the people would be imported into the country.

p. 2, col. 3

Associations in Many Places Spreading the Single Tax Idea.

A large public meeting was held recently in Sydney, Australia, for the formation of a land nationalization league. Rev. H. L. Jackson, a church of England clergyman, presided and W. H. Traill, editor of the Sydney Star, and E. W. Foxall, a most active worker in the cause, spoke at length. The title given to the new organization was “The land nationalization league of New South Wales,” with the motto, “The land for the people,” and a manifesto setting forth concisely and clearly the objects of the league, was adopted.

Mr. Foxall has just taken a trip, covering 1,600 miles and delivering seven lectures en route.

John Farrell of the Lithgow Enterprise writes: “We get on splendidly out here. All the Australian colonies are taking fire. Our chief difficulty is the compensation question. Hundreds of half informed men try to bring out patent arrangements of their own for meeting the difficulty, instead of accepting the just and only solution—no compensation. But one by one these are being converted, and the real truth is taking root. We intend to enlarge the Enterprise and run it as closely as possible on the lines of THE STANDARD, which has already, in my opinion, done more for the world than any other paper yet published.”

Mr. Farrell is an out and out single tax man, and has been doing good work in combating the protection idea in the colonies, as well as fighting bravely for the land tax.

Thos. J. Hebblewhite of Goulburn, New South Wales, says:

“Relatively to population, I believe the anti-poverty crusade is making far more rapid and substantial progress in New South Wales than in America. The principles enunciated in”Progress and Poverty” are permeating the country, and we are beginning to entertain the hope of being able to definitely introduce land nationalization into politics within one or two years at the furthest. In Goulburn, for instance, with a total population of 9,000 and 2,200 voters, we established a league at the close of December last year with seventy-five members. We possess to-day a numerical strength of one hundred and twenty, and the influence of our meetings has led to a widespread discussion, not merely in the city but in the smaller outlying townships. Among our members we count five out of the nine aldermen comprising the borough council, including the present mayor and an ex-mayor. From ten to eighteen (I am not quite sure what the true number is) other leagues, all on the same basis, have been established elsewhere; and a large public meeting is announced to take place in Capital City on the 13th instant. As the electoral vote for the entire colony contains some 240,000 voters, a very few years indeed of our present rate of progress should see the single tax principle fairly launched on the way toward superseding the present unjust system.

“Generally speaking, the press is ignorant. or indifferent, rather than openly or designedly antagonistic to the movement. Here and there a labored endeavor is made at intervals to cast discredit upon it, but in a general sense silence characterizes the more influential press. Nevertheless, the vitality of the crusade is well indicated by the fact that over a dozen newspapers, chiefly provincial, have within the last eight or ten months announced themselves as convinced of the equity of levying taxation on land values only.

The railways being state property we have additional arguments here in support of our contentions. It is impossible to avoid assenting to the position that if the public revenues are expended in the construction of a railway, private estates values along its route will be doubled or perhaps trebled. The people whose money has built the railway and gives the additional value to land, have an indisputable claim to the values created by such expenditure.

“Probably the triumph of ‘anti poverty’ will be earliest realized here. Our system of voting, the small number of electors to be educated in the matter, the growing objections against further alienation of public lands and the wonderful progress made in half a hundred different centers during the past few months, are so many things in our favor. That our victory will have a tremendous influence upon American thought is evident. Should the pride of being the first to burst the cerements of old tyrannical custom rest with us, however, the real honor will lie with the splendid army of self-devoted men and women in the United States who have made it possible for us to see light amid the darkness. Believe me, earnest eyes are looking upon your herculean labors, and the names of men in the lead of your movement are growing familiar in the ears of thousands who never heard of Cleveland or Blaine, or if they did, were not quite sure whether they were men or mountains.”

One Man Stirring Up a Whole Country.

LARNED, Kan., April 6.—I have now delivered lectures in five different school houses in Pawnee county, and in several of them more than once. The interest awakened by these efforts has become so general that I am unable to respond to all the calls made for information. I have now given, without any income, about all my time and energies to this work since February 8th. The destitution of our laboring people, especially the farmers in this county, is such that they are unable to supply themselves even with the needed reading matter.

W. M. GOODNER.

Destroying the Value of Our Exports.

From Congressman Mills’s Speech.

The greatest evil that is inflicted by it is in the destruction of the values of our exports. Remember that the great body of our exports are agricultural products. It has been so through our whole history. From seventy-five to over eighty per cent of the exports of this country year by year are agricultural products. Cotton is first, then breadstuffs, pork, beef, butter, cheese, lard. These are the things that keep up our foreign trade, and when you put on or keep on such duties as we have now—war duties which were regarded as so enormous even in the very midst of hostilities that they were declared to be temporary—when you put on or retain those duties, they limit and prohibit importation, and that limits or prohibits exportation. It takes two to make a trade.

A Buffalo Paper Begins to Think.

Buffalo Herald.

Here is another side of the Henry George argument: A railroad man in speaking of the suburban trains says that his own road, the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburg, is in good shape to run such trains to Orchard park or even Springville, but he knows that there would be no use in it. Just as soon as the residents of towns on the route should hear of such a rumor, instead of bestirring themselves to invite Buffalo people to build homes with them, they would lay out a few hundred new lots and double the price of every inch of real estate in reach of the trains. That would kill the whole thing and the trains would get no new encouragement from village growth.

p. 2, col. 4

The Good Time Coming When Land Shall Be Worth at Least $50 Per Acre, and the Ignorant, Degraded and Impecunious Cannot Get It.

David A. Wells in Popular Science Monthly for May.

That the only possible future for agriculture, prosecuted for the sake of producing the great staples of food, is to be found in large farms, worked with ample capital, especially in the form of machinery, and with labor organized somewhat after the factory system, is coming to be the opinion of many of the best authorities, both in the United States and Europe. And as a further part of such a system, it is claimed that the farm must be devoted to a specialty, or a few specialties, on the ground that it would be almost as fatal to success to admit mixed farming as it would be to attempt the production of several kinds of manufactures under one roof and establishment.

Machinery is already largely employed in connection with the drying and canning of fruit and vegetables, and in the manufacture of wine. In the sowing, harvesting, transporting, and milling of wheat, the utilization has reached a point where further improvement would seem to be almost impossible. In the business of slaughtering cattle and hogs, and rendering their resulting products available for food and other useful purposes, the various processes, involving large expenditure and great diversity of labor, especially in “curing,” succeed each other with startling rapidity, and are, or can be, all carried on under one roof, and on such a scale of magnitude and with such a degree of economy, that it is said that, if the entire profits of the great slaughtering establishments were limited to the gross receipts from the sale of the beef tongues in the one case and the pigs’ feet in the other, the returns on the capital invested and the business transacted would be eminently satisfactory. It is not, however, so well known that the business of fattening cattle by the so-called “factory system,” on a most extensive scale has also been successfully introduced in the northwestern and trans-Mississippi states and territories, and that great firms have at present thousands of cattle gathered under one roof and undergoing the operation of fattening by the most continuous, effective and economic processes. The results show that one laborer can take care of 200 steers undergoing the process of grain feeding for the shambles, in a systematic, thorough manner, with the expenditure of much less time and labor per day than the ordinary farmer spends in tending fifteen or twenty head of fattening steers under the disadvantages existing upon ordinary farms.

In these mammoth establishments a steam engine moves the hay from one large barn to another, as needed, by means of an endless belt, and supplies it to a powerful machine, where it is cut into lengths suitable for feeding, and afterward carries the cut hay by other belts to the mixing room, where, by means of another machine, it is mixed with corn meal, the corn having been previously shelled and then ground on the premises by power from the same engine. Again, the mixed feed is carried automatically to the feed boxes in the stalls. The same engine pumps the water for drinking, which runs in a long shallow trough within reach of the steers; and even the stalls are cleaned by water discharged through a hose, the supply being raised by the engine and stored for use. The steers are not removed from the stalls in which they are placed from the time the fattening process is begun until they are ready for transportation to the big establishments above mentioned for systematic slaughtering.

The advantages of such establishments are not, moreover, confined to labor saving expedients merely. The uniformity of temperature secured through all kinds of weather is equivalent to a notable saving of feed; for where fluctuations of temperature are extreme and rapid, and not guarded against, “a great deal of the grain which the farmer feeds is ‘blown away’ after having been consumed by his stock,” in form of vital heat, strength and growth which are the products of the conversion of the grain by digestion. . . Another saving is in building materials; the larger the structure in which the machinery, the hay and grain and the animals are kept, the less the proportionate quantity of lumber needed; and then again in such an establishment, temperature and ventilation, which in ordinary farming are matters that receive little attention, are economically and effectively regulated.

An American practical farmer, the owner and manager of seven thousand acres (Mr. H. H—— of Nebraska), to whom the writer is indebted for many items of information, communicates the following additional review of this subject from the American (western) stand point: “The average western farm is now recklessly managed, but capital will come in greater volume and set up processes which will displace these wasteful methods. The revolution is certain, even if the exact steps can not now be precisely indicated. At present the hay, and much of the grain, and nearly all of the tools and implements, are unsheltered; and more than fifty per cent of the hay is ruined for a like reason, while the animals themselves (I do not mean now on the wild stock ranges, but even on the trans-Missouri farms) have no roof over their heads, except the canopy of heaven, with the mercury going occasionally twenty and even thirty degrees below zero. These wasteful methods in farming are in part promoted by the United States homestead law, and the occupation of the hitherto inexhaustible expanse of cheap lands. When the ignorant, degraded, and impecunious can no longer acquire a hundred and sixty acres upon which to employ their barbarous methods, and when the land already taken up shall have risen from the low prices at which it now stands to fifty dollars or more per acre, a new dispensation will arrive. Neither the cattle, nor the food which the cattle consume, will then be raised by any such methods as now prevail; neither will they be exposed to the elements in winter. True enough, the opening up of the virgin fields in Australia, South America, Africa, and elsewhere, may retard this rise in the value of the land in the western part of our continent, and thus to a certain extent delay the passing of the land exclusively into the hands of larger capitalists and better managers; but it must be considered that not all climates are suitable for energetic, capable farming populations, and likewise that the best forage plants are restricted to temperate latitudes.”

National Ruin from Exportation of Clam Shells.

The fear of national ruin from the exportation of specie dates a long way back in the history of this country. Wampum, or seawant, as it was called, was the medium of exchange with whites as well as Indians in the infancy of our colonies. Seawant was manufactured from the inside of the shell of the hard shell clam or quahaug. The Indians broke off about half an inch of the purple color and converted it into beads, which they strung on the sinews of animals. The Indians of the interior bought commodities from the Dutch and English with seawant, and the Dutch and English used it to buy other commodities from the Indians of the seaboard, who in turn bought from Indians living further inland. Thus a brisk trade was kept up both between the whites and the Indians and between different tribes of Indians. But it seems that some one discovered the idea of debasing this coin, though how seawant could be debased is as incomprehensible to us as was the value the whites put upon gold to the Indians. So it was, however; and, according to the historical notes of Gabriel Furman the prosperity of the country demanded governmental interference:

In 1641 an ordinance in council in the city of New Amsterdam (now New York) was

p. 2, col. 5 enacted, which recited that a vast deal of bad seawant or wampum—nasty rough things imported from other places—was in circulation, while the good splendid seawant, usually called Manhattan seawant, was out of sight or exported, which must cause the ruin of the country. Therefore, in order to remedy the evil, the ordinance provides that all coarse seawant, well stringed, should pass at six for one stuyver only, but the well polished at four for a stuyver; and whoever offered or received the same at a different price should forfeit the same, and also ten guilders to the poor. This is the first public expression of an apprehension of evil to the country from the exportation of specie that we have met with in our history; but like most other matters of the kind, it seems to have regulated itself, and the country went on prospering from the little city of about two hundred and fifty inhabitants, as New York then was, to the great commercial mart, with a population of near four hundred thousand, as it is at present.

A Well Equipped Little Army Always Ready for Private Hire.

New York Sun.

Labor troubles in different parts of the country during the ten or a dozen years past have been instrumental in bringing about public demonstration of an interesting fact, viz., that there is in America a private business concern capable of suddenly bringing into action anywhere in the land, at the bidding of individuals or corporations rich enough to pay for their services, large bodies of men armed, equipped and drilled for effective military service. Thus far nothing has occurred that has seemed to require the development of such a force in greater numbers, at any one point, than 500 men, but the system by which they are put into the field is perfected to such an extent that there is hardly a question of the ability to muster 5,000 with almost equal promptitude. The concern controlling this military service is Pinkerton’s national detective agency, the headquarters of which are in Chicago, with branches in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, St. Paul and Denver. While there is a nominal dividing line between the detective service and the field of duty of the “preventive patrol,” or military branch, in point of fact they work together, and are so far interchangeable that the latter is officered from the former, when called into requisition, and that men demonstrating peculiar talent therefor may be promoted from the patrol, which is an emergency employment, to the permanency of the regular detective force. As to the system of organization and direction of the Pinkerton army, Mr. H. G. Julian, who is one of Mr. Robert Pinkerton’s principal aids in this city, says:

“Telling you how we can here bring into almost immediate service a body of say 150 men, or more if required, will give you sufficiently comprehensive idea of our arrangements in the five other cities in which our branches are now established, the system in all being about the same. In the first place, we have as our regular detective force a body of thoroughly trained men, many of them brought up from youth in this employment, men whom we know to be cool, resolute, courageous, faithful and resourceful. From these, when the occasion arises, we officer our companies of men enlisted for special duty. But we have also among these men a good many who are employed by us pretty much all the time, at least during the spring, summer and autum^sic, and who, consequently, are well trained and known to us as in every way perfectly trustworthy. For instance, we supply by contract every summer from twenty-five to thirty men for the protection of of the public and the preservation of order at Glen island, and as many more at Manhattan beach; for the spring, summer and fall racing seasons we supply sixty or seventy men to the Coney island jockey club and about a like number to the Brooklyn jockey club, and then we have smaller detachments on special services, such as the guarding of Vanderbilt’s tomb, or temporary protection of stores of heavy importers of silks when they have unusually large stocks of valuable goods on hand. Taken all in all, there are probably 200 men thus employed by us—in work apart from the detective service—pretty much all the year, and of these we can command the services of at least 150 at a very few hours’ notice, even out of their ordinary seasons of employment, since we keep all their addresses and they understand that they are liable to be called upon for duty at any moment. Those men will serve as the nucleus of as large a force as may be demanded. Then we have on record a list of several hundred picked men from among the thousands who have applied to us for employment, all of whom have come to us well recommended, and whose character, record and associations we have had thoroughly investigated by our own detectives. They also are supposed to be ready to serve upon call at any moment, and, in point of fact, at least three or four hundred of them would respond immediately. In summer we, of course, could not spare so many of our regular men for an extraordinary service, but we would still have enough to serve as a nucleus, especially since we are so careful in our selection of the listed volunteers, among whom we always, by the way, give the preference to men who have honorable discharges from the army, equal qualification otherwise being understood.

“I cannot say how many men we could furnish upon occasion, since the limit of our capacity has never been tested. When the recent strike out at Chicago threatened the property of the Pennsylvania railroad company there we were suddenly called upon to furnish 150 men in addition to those we had already sent out on account of the C. B. & Q. strike. In just two days we had organized, armed, and equipped the required complement and sent them away. Could we have sent more? Oh, yes, but these were enough; all that were wanted. One-half of those we sent were our own regulars, thoroughly familiar with their duties under our system and capable of quickly instructing and guiding the others.

“The largest number the Pinkerton agencies have ever had to furnish for emergency service at any one point was 500. This was on the occasion of the stock yards strike in Chicago in 1886. In 1887, from January until March, we had to keep 300 men on duty at the coal yards of Hoboken and Bergen Point. It costs something to employ a large force of Pinkerton men, the charge for them being [$5?] a day each in addition to food and quarters. The pay of a regular detective is [$3?] a day.

“The armament of our men consists of Winchester repeating rifles and navy revolvers, and we employ no men who are not skilled in the use of these weapons. A very large supply of rifles, enough for three or four hundred men any way, is kept in the Chicago headquarters, and at least that many men could be mustered there in a few hours at any time under Captain Patrick Foley’s command. The advantage is possessed there of a nucleus of 150 trained men who are constantly employed as watchmen guarding private property. When we put any considerable force in the field it is divided up into companies of from thirty to thirty-six men each, and we have a captain, adjutant, lieutenant and sergeants in pretty close imitation of military system.”

But the Trouble Is That Light and Air Are Not Free in Great Cities.

It has been ascertained that, free as light and air are, there are over 27,000 families in the city of Paris inhabiting apartments having no other opening than a door, and that at least 60,000 families in the city of London reside in cellars.

Robbed on Both Sides.

From Congressman Mills’s Speech.

The tariff robs the farmer on one side by increasing the price of what he buys; it robs him on the other by decreasing the price of what he sells.

p. 2, col. 6

The Climax of Republican Tax Reduction.

From Congressman Mill’s^sic Speech.

The gentlemen who represent the minority of the committee on ways and means boast that they have reduced the taxation $350,000,000. They point with pride to the splendid column which they have erected, but that column has no stone in it to tell of their devotion to the masses who live by daily toil. It is built of blocks of marble, every one of which speaks of the favoritism to the wealthy, of special privileges to rich and powerful classes. In 1883 they finished this magnificent shaft, which they have been for years erecting, and crowned it with the last stone by repealing the internal tax on playing cards and putting a twenty per cent tax on the bible.

Wages in California.

Pacific Rural Press.

Over a hundred negroes with families, coming from North Carolina, have been placed in Fresno at $15 per month, and they say there are many more in the south who would prefer $15 per month in California to $7 in their present homes.

The High Priced Chefs Who Cater to the Palates of the Better Classes—What it Costs to Keep a Chef, and How You Have to Use Him.

It pays to be a good cook in New York. Not the ordinary, every day kind of good cook, who can boil potatoes into flour, turn out rice so that every grain will fall separate, bake a good loaf of bread, and broil a steak as it ought to be broiled. Not that kind. The realiy first-class cook—the man who scorns to call himself a cook and claims the title of a chef—is supposed to know how to do all these things, but never does them. He keeps female assistants and other menials for that kind of work; but he himself does little but compose, and does actual cooking only in the way of experiment, just to see if things turn out as expected. And he gets from $1,800 to $10,000 a year, besides his board and lodging and a commission on everything he buys. Who wouldn’t be a chef?

The chef market is not overstocked. The World has been looking into the matter, and finds that at the outside there are about one hundred of them in the city. They work for men who, by their own industry, frugality and lucky speculations, or by those of their fathers before them, have acquired fortune. The ordinary American citizen doesn’t keep a chef. He can’t afford it.

The World give us^sic lots of information about this happy hundred of high salaried cooks. It tells us, to begin with, that “no modern establishment, well appointed and equipped in all its branches, either in New York or Newport, is now considered complete unless the kitchen is presided over by a chef who is skilled in all the mysteries of a nineteenth century cuisine.” And as there are at most only one hundred first class chefs in New York, it follows of course, that there is only the same number of “complete modern establishments.” Ward McAllister certifies to four hundred members of society. It follows, therefore, that there must be some society people who haven’t got “complete modern establishments.” This is sad to think of, and awakens a mild wonder as to how the unfortunate creatures get along.

But even a good cook, the World informs us, is as nothing unless he has an appreciative employer:

Without proper appreciation and applause they will not show their uner^sic qualities. However conscientious they may be they require this stimulus for any brilliant or effective exertion. On the other hand, if the employer is a man who is learned in the secrets of their calling and is able to recognize their best achievements, and criticises them with intelligence and subtle appreciation, the ordinary chef will do everything possible to extort admiration from his patron. He will stand behind curtains, watch the waiters bring his dishes on the table and listen with a greedy ear for the exclamations of surprise and pleasare^sic which they elicit from his cultivated master. Then he will return to the kitchen in the happiest possible frame of mind and anticipate with beating heart the time when the gratified employer will descend to the kitchen and compliment him in enthusiastic phrases on the latest development of his skill. It is a common remark among the good livers in the Manhattan and Union clubs that Mr. Belmont is able to give good dinners because he knows how to order them, knows how to estimate them when they are served, and insists on having a good dinner every day of his life.

It is not in New York, however, that the artist of the kitchen shines the brightest. He needs the tonic of the watering place, the bracing sea side air, the murmer^sic of the sad sea waves, the society and counsel of his fellow artists. He is at his best at Newport:

Probably the best dinners given in this country are given at Newport during the summer season. Here the cooks come together and enjoy more intimate converse than they are able to do during the winter season in New York. The enthusiastic chefs spend hours composing menus, and the tables are arranged for the reception of their poems and compositions so that the table and the service blend together like the voice and the orchestra. It is a matter which is interesting to note that there is no rivalry between cooks at all. They always stand ready to develop the discoveries of their brothers in the art and to do everything possible in the way of suggestion or actual experiment to bring new ideas into a final and effective and artistic shape.

On the occasion of a notable dinner in a Newport house the kitchen of the establishment immediately becomes a convention hall for all the leading chefs in town. There is a cabinet meeting of cooks. Dishes are discussed, as the cabinet in Washington discusses bills and measures. When the formula for a new dish has been decided upon its progress is watched by a dozen pairs of eager and critical eyes from the time that the ingredients are first mingled until the final result is triumphantly attained. All kinds of experiments are tried, and the result of their earnest deliberations, if deemed successful, is finally sent up stairs for the consideration of a second cabinet gathered around the dinner table. And here again, the exacting chefs are always devising schemes for the testing of the intelligence and keenness of appreciation of the patrons of their art. At a large dinner given in Newport last summer one of the chefs prepared a leg of mutton in an entirely novel manner, so as to give it the appearance, and as far as possible, the flavor of venison. It was piqued and larded out of all likeness to its original condition, and was sent upstairs labeled, or rather announced, as venison, and with divers small wagers among the chefs below that the deception would not be discovered, notwithstanding the fact that it was to be submitted to a company of exceedingly experienced diners. And the confidence of the chef in his work was justified to the extent that in a company of twenty people only one of them discovered what had been done, and said to the company that he was not eating venison, but very exquisitely and artistically prepared mutton.

And really, after one has got over the first great blow of paying the cook’s wages, the providing of a really perfect dinner is not a matter of such terrible expense. Hear the wisdom of the World upon this point:

The mere material for a good dinner for ten or twelve people costs about $60. This is without the wine and without the groceries. This sum will pay simply for the meat, the game, the fish and the vegetables. What the material is the season of the year of course determires^sic. In the fall and at Newport the leading feature is young turkey. In the winter here in New York canvas back duck and terrapin are always to be found leading the programme. Then there are the truffles, which, by the way, should not be used more than once during the dinner, although a great many New York people who allow their extravagant habits to outweigh all considerations of taste and propriety sometimes introduce them two or three times. In France, where truffles are native and where their use is understood, their appearance on the menu never occurs more than once.

The great reason which will operate against the more common employment of chefs in this city is the want of places to keep them in. The average New Yorker occupies from one to four rooms, and generally occupies them pretty fully. The kitchen might perhaps be surrendered to the chef, but besides a kitchen the gorgeous creature requires for his use a salon, a boudoir, a salle a manger, and a chambre a coucher. This would drive the unfortunate employer on to the roof, and even then leave the chef a room or more short.

On the whole, we fear the chef habit will not spread among us. A few of the haute

p. 3, col. 2

noblesse may employ them, but American citizens in general will stick to the old fashioned American system of letting their wives wield the frying pan.

What it Costs Canadians to Sweeten Their Tea—Some Interesting Figures.

The Toronto Globe has been interviewing some sugar men for the purpose of getting at the true inwardness of that much protected business. One importer furnished the following account of the actual cost of a lot of granulated sugar imported by him last fall:

To which add duties:

or $6.92 per 100 lbs.

The same importer said:

At present Liverpool and London quotations the same sugar would cost us $7.33 cash, delivered; while the refinery price to the guild is 6⅞, less 2½ per cent—$6.71 net f. o. b., or $6.92 cash, delivered here, being 41 cents in favor of the Canadian prices. To those outside of the charmed circle the price is ¼ of a cent more. So that even to those the Canadian price is lower than imported; and this is invariably the case, the refiners evidently governing their prices to shut out the foreign sugars. The quality of the imported was quite as good as the best Canadian granulated, but the yellow or soft white sugars of English or Clyde make are much superior in flavor, color and purity. These sugars are practically shut out by the present tariff.

How the Farmers in the Low Countries Are Being Driven Into the Large Cities—Forests Where Once Were Thriving Communities.

Deutschland.

“Everybody comes to the city.” One hears this complaint in every large town in Holland on account of the steady increase of population, mainly that part of the population which is unable to contribute to local taxes and in winter is forced to beg for work or alms from the authorities. Few however of the well to do citizens who complain of it have given any thought to the causes of this condition. The causes are many.

In the first place, in many country localities the local taxation has increased to such an extent, that in some places, as for instance in Friesland, it amounts to seven or eight per cent of the estimated income. No wonder then that the people of means who give employment to some of the country people, withdraw from the heavily taxed country to the city, and as a consequence many poor people who were dependent on these others also move to the city. But by this departure of the rich the taxes become still higher for those who remain, and the situation becomes worse just in proportion as the well to do population decreases.

In the second place the land has become so dear, the price of the products so low and the rate of interest on mortgages so high that the working farmer can no longer purchase land. The lucky ones of the former land owning farmers (those owning their own farms) sold their land in the good times and live now on the interest of their money in the cities. Others have inherited a share in an estate too heavily taxed, and have, in order to buy out the shares, borrowed largely on mortgage and lost everything because they could not pay the interest on the mortgage with what they raised.

Most of the farmers have willingly or unwillingly become renters; willingly where they found it comparatively cheaper to rent land than to buy it; unwillingly where they were evicted for non-payment of mortgage or interest. It is a fact that the land is passing with increasing rapidity out of the hands of the farmers into the hands of capitalists, and this could not be otherwise. No working farmer who must pay four and one-half per cent interest on a mortgage on land that only produces two and one-half per cent net on its capitalized value can own land. The land owning farmer must go. The high price of land has the worst results and causes directly the depopulation of the country and the over-population of the city.

When the farmer was still a land owner he always had laborers on his farm who with their wives and children lived on premises belonging to the estate, and paid for the little plots they themselves cultivated by working for the farmer on his land. But since he has become a renter, and the rent has by competition risen to the highest point at which the farmer can live, he is no longer able to let other people live with him on the land; land is too valuable for that. He has only a few unmarried hands, and in spring and fall has the necessary work done by wandering bands of men, women and children, whom he discharges as soon as the work is finished. The dwellings in which the former farm help and his family lived are destroyed. These farm laborers that were, with their wives and children join the bands of wandering laborers and in winter of course flock to the cities. It follows then that the capitalist who owns the land does not care to hire men and purchase fertilizers out of his small proceeds. He prefers, when possible, to get what he can from his land without the aid of farmers, which is a much easier way. He rents his farm to a beet sugar factory which has the work done by its hands, or he turns it into a hay farm from which he gets two crops a year, or he fattens cattle on his land and sells them in the autumn. He needs, then, no tiresome tenants who are always complaining and asking for a reduction in rents, while he reckons they are getting the land cheap enough, as he only makes three per cent on his investment.

This driving of the farmers from country to city only occurs in the case of the rich land. For the cultivation of the poorer land, the “sand soil,” men are still required, but in this region, too, it will be possible for the capitalists to drive the people to the city. A good example of this came under my observation a few days ago:

The red glow of the sky showed us that in neighborhood of our city a fire had broken out on a farm. We did not know whose place it was. One of my acquaintances said to me: “I have a farm property in that direction, but if there is a fire there it won’t hurt me. I have insured the house, barns, etc., for 3,000 gulden, and the farmer understands that his lease ends at once if the buildings burn up. Then I will get my 3,000 gulden, which, at four per cent, will bring me in 120 gulden, and I plant the property with fir trees, which bring a good price in Belgium. The ownership of this farm at present, on which nothing but grain and potatoes is raised, is no business. Only with the greatest exertion can the farmer pay me 225 gulden rent, and he is always complaining. If I get 120 gulden interest and after twenty-five years sell my trees, then I make anyway as much as now and with less trouble.”

I remarked that if the land was planted with grain and potatoes the yearly product would amount to more than the yearly increase in value of the trees, and that in planting trees he would have to wait twenty-five years for any return. He answered: “That is quite true, but at present the farmer and his wife and children live on the farm, and what they consume must, of course, be deducted from the whole product. I would get from interest on my insurance money and the sale cf^sic the trees as much as the present rental. And I do not need the interest every year. It would be a savings bank for my children.”

The man was right, and I could say nothing. His reckoning was true, but that he can in this way prove it, is fatal to the people. Where, at present, a farmer with wife and children, men and women servants, is able to earn his living, pay his rent, and over and above furnish work and bread to the rural builder, wagon maker, blacksmith, tailor, baker, store keeper and other tradesmen in the nearest village, there will be in the other contingency a lonesome forest where only after ten years have past will the ax of the woodsman be heard, and for a short time a few people be employed.

J. STOFFEL.

How the Idea is Advancing in Minneapolis—Interviews with Prominent Citizens.

The Minneapolis Star and News has followed the example of the Chicago Mail in interviewing officials and business men on the single tax proposition. As a result it publishes the interviews, which, with some condensation, we reprint. The Star and News says it has interviewed only well known citizens who are not identified with the single tax movement:

Alderman Mareck, president of the council: “I am in for the single tax body and soul. It has got to come some time.”

Judge Bailey of the municipal court: “I have read a very fair criticism on the single tax that appeared in the Harvard Law Review. I have always believed that a tax on the land was the proper thing, but I would not want to favor it without some study. I am reading George’s ‘Progress and Poverty’ now and am looking into the question.”

City Clerk Cornman said: “I have never studied the question, but there ought certainly to be some way of getting at the personal property of the rich to tax it, or give up attempting to tax it altogether. It is a noted fact that the rich to-day do not pay their proportion of the personal property tax.”

City Assessor Case had heard of the single tax, but had never given it much thought. He said: “I see by the papers it is discussed a good deal. Mayor Hewitt of New York has recommended it to the city council in a message, and business men in Chicago have been interviewed on the subject; but I cannot regard it right to tax property of one kind and not tax that of another. Aside from the question of justice, it would make the assessors’ job a very simple one. I would like to make the assessments under that system.”

Assistant City Engineer Huntress: “Its too big a question^sic to hazard an opinion upon. I haven’t studied it.”

Ed. Stevens, of the park commission: “I have never given the subject my attention, but it strikes me very favorably.”

Assistant Building Inspector Seigman: “I think that would be an injustice. It would force people to improve their property who haven’t the money with which to do it, and it would knock the value all out of land.”

W. H. Donahue, attorney, said: “I have never looked into it closely, but it seems a very plausible scheme.”

Captain Connelly, of the Algonqnin^sic club, said: “I would vote for the man that agreed to favor the scheme in the legislature. A fair tax on land according to what it is worth aside from the improvements upon it, will prevent mad real estate speculation.”

Dr. M. P. Finnegan was unequivocally for it. He said: “It really is no tax. A man simply pays for what he gets. I would call it restoring economic rent to the creators of that rent, the people, as a whole.”

City Comptroller Holbrook: “I have been thinking of how that tax would affect society, and it almost startled me. An adoption of the idea would amount to a practical revolution of the established order of things. It is a big question, and I have given it so little study that I hesitate to express an opinion, but I must admit that it looks very plausible.”

Alderman McArdle: “I believe in the Henry George idea of taxation, but I never made a study of the subject.”

J. H. Kehoe, of Kehoe & Mathews, tobacconist: “I have not looked into the question very much, but from what I know of it I am inclined to favor it.”

Judge A. Ueland: “I am opposed to the land tax theory. It would work injustice. For instance, if you had come here twenty or thirty years ago and bought a piece of land for $100 which by rise in values was worth $10,000 to-day, and which I buy from you at that figure, would it be proper for the government to come in and tax me to the extent of that ‘unearned increment’ of $9,900?”

A. H. Bare, confectioner: “The scheme is a good one, though I would reserve my opinion until it has been more widely discussed. Personally I favor it.”

Edward C. Gale, attorney: “I do not want to be put down as an out and out Henry George man. I am convinced that as a just, wise and equitable means of taxation the method proposed by him should be adopted and I believe it will eventually come into practice. I do not believe, however, that it will abolish poverty, vice and crime, as so many claim. K. N. McFee read a paper before the Political science club recently that treated this question as applied to St. Paul and Minneapolis. He showed that the levying of the tax upon land alone at a rate equal to the present rental value would furnish the same amount for government support as it derived from the present system.”

George D. Emery: “I am satisfied to let well enough alone. I do not believe that Henry George doctrines are going to revolutionize the world and its systems.”

George Harrison of Harrison, Farrington & Co.: “I could not venture an opinion. I have studied the question some, and know what it is, but as to its effect I am not prepared to say anything.”

E. B. Barker, assistant manager St. Anthony and Dakota elevator company: “I think it is the greatest thing ever was. If land had to pay the taxes the speculators would have to go. These foreigners could not afford to buy land and wait for the increase. Were it not for the iniquities and injustice of the present system, I could live in town and would not be compelled to go away out in the country for a place to build a home. There are thousands of vacant lots in the city which poor devils, such as I, cannot afford to buy, simply because the owners are holding them till they can get exorbitant prices The single^sic land tax would fix that very speedily and fill those lots with comfortable, pleasant homes.”

B. W. Thompson: “It would never do. The farmers would have to bear the burden. They have comparatively little personal property and consequently this theory if put into practice would only serve to weigh them down.”

Freeman P. Lane, attorney: “There are some things about the Henry George land theory that are admirable and others that are the opposite. The taxing of land would drive out these land sharks and speculators, these English lords and titled Dutch who buy up tracts of land and let it lay waste while the toiler on the adjacent acres enhances the value of their land by the improvements on his. On the other hand, the tax would work injustice to the poor man. Here we are in Boston block. Land only is to be taxed. The ground on which we are is worth, say, $250,000, and the building the same. Off yonder is a vacant lot not worth as much as this, owned by some poor man. Is it right that he should pay as much tax as the owner of this property? You see the poor would suffer for the benefit of the rich, and the farmer for the benefit of the owner of city property.”

William M. Regan: “I do not know much about it, but I think George is off.”

A. T. Ankeny, attorney: “I do not understand the thing. Personal property is kept out of sight enough now and does not pay its share of the taxes.”

Over 300 Houses With More than 12.000^sic Lodgers—What the President of the Health Board Says About Them.

New York Sun.

In this city there are more than 300 lodging houses, which nightly shelter over 12,000 persons. Most of these men are industrious fellows who have work to do and do it, but who in a stress of hard luck went to the lodging house long ago and found it suitable to their way of life and have stuck to it in preference to going to boarding houses. Their “hotel” is near to their shops and their places of recreation, and they have grown tired of the restraints which a workingman’s

p. 3, col. 5

boarding house puts upon them. Some of the patrons take to them from motives of economy for the time being, and are glad to get away when they can. In the cheaper lodging houses are found the poor, the shiftless and the idle, happy enough to have places to put their heads and bodies for one or two nights as a change from the benches of the city parks, the planks at the station houses, or the iron door sills of shaded warehouses.

To familiarize himself with these queer places, President Bayles of the health board, paid them a visit one night recently. He told a reporter of the Sun that he was much surprised at what he saw. He said:

“I spent the whole night in my trip, and I got a good chance to see everything at its worst, for no prior notice whatever was given of my visit. I took in the fifty-cent house and the five-cent house. I must confess myself thoroughly surprised at the general excellence of everything. In the fifty-cent house I found a room fixed up like the cabin of a North river steamboat. The beds were comfortable and clean. The linen was regularly changed every day. There were wash basins, and some were of the stationary sort. I have often while traveling had to sleep in places not so inviting. There were two houses, not more than two, that I did not think well of. It was explained by the man in charge that it simply was impossible to keep things in any decent shape with the class of patrons that came to him. I felt that that was so, for the sleepers were little more than cattle. They, perhaps only just a little, were better off there than on the station house plank. The Bowery lodging houses were admirable. Usually they charge 25 cents for a lodging. They are above the first floor. They are well lighted and well ventilated. In the evening it is the custom of every one to gather in the office. There upon the tables or upon the walls I found every popular publication.

“The persons who conduct these houses make money. Some time ago the board of health took away the license of a house on the Bowery, one of those of which I have just been speaking. It was not for uncleanliness, but because the space between the rear wall of the lodging house and that of the wall of the adjoining property at the rear of it was not what the board of health requires. This proprietor did not tear down the wall. He just simply changed his lodging house into a hotel. The charge to his patrons is $14 a month.

“Lodging houses, wisely, are divided into three classes. The first are reported upon whenever it is thought desirable or necessary; the second on the last Wednesday of every month; the third on Monday of every week. It is supposed that lodging houses are more patronized in the autumn and winter than in the summer, for every summer the lodging house patron goes to the country to work if he can. They return in the fall.”

The proprietors of the lodging houses coincide with President Bayles in saying that there is money in lodging houses. Just now there appears in the newspapers an advertisement asking purchasers for two houses, the New England hotel and the Salem house, both of which are on the Bowery. The owner of the New England is P. V. Husted, who lives at 353 Fifth avenue, and does business in Wall street. He has owned the New England hotel thirty years. It was among the hotels to yield to the lodging houses. He says he wishes to be rid of the hotel because he is seventy-five years old. He says: “A man who owns a lodging house in this city need not fear that he is ever going to starve. Business is done mostly on a cash basis. The losses are few. There is always going to be a demand for lodging houses.”

The proprietor of the Salem house is Hugh McCormick, also an elderly man. His reason for wanting to sell is that he is getting too old. He says he has been in the business from the time that the lodging houses took on their present aristocratic turn.

“The financial crisis in 1873 makes the present lodging house a necessity,” Mr. McCormick said. “Hundreds of homes were then broken up and their heads took up their abodes in lodging houses. The wife and children went to friends. Most of the men remained in the lodging houses.

“We have in the lodging houses now mechanics, laborers and peddlers, and, in fact, people who do everything and people who do nothing. It is a common thing to find lodgers staying in some houses for five or six years. The number who are a dozen years in them is also large. There are men there who went to them in 1873^sic.

A Labor Paper Pricks a Protectionist Bladder With Figures From a Protectionist Document.

Detroit Advance.

Wages are claimed to be high in the United States because of protection, and low in England because of free trade. Certainly this is the argument used by protectionists when appealing to workingmen for votes. Instead of comparing wages between England and the United States, where the conditions are entirely different, and where neither free trade nor protection, if applied equally in both countries, would bring wages to a common level. suppose^sic the wages of free trade England and protected Germany are compared? Both countries are densely settled. Both are ruled by hereditary monarchies. Both are intelligent and enterprising. Yet the condition of the people is much better in England than in Germany, the wages in the former being higher, the purchasing power of a day’s labor being greater and the number of hours comprising a day’s labor being less.

Examine the following table of wages, taken from a republican campaign document, in free trade England and in protected Germany:

Not only are wages higher in England, but the purchasing power of a given amount of money is greater than in Germany. Particularly is this so with the necessaries of life, such as flour, meat, potatoes and sugar, the difference being from 15 to 25 per cent in favor of England.

Since the free trade movement was inaugurated in England wages have steadily risen. The two factors contributing to this are a larger market and the organization of the trades into unions, enabling them to get a greater share of the profits than they would have otherwise received. Ask the iron workers of Wyandotte or the glass workers at Delray what wages they would receive if it were not for their organizations and they will tell you that the manufacturers would immediately cut them down to the rates paid in England and Belgium, no matter if the tariff was prohibitory. While this is not true in whole, it is true in part. Wages would certainly be reduced, but not below the rate the average wage worker could earn by going on the land.

It cannot too often be stated that wages are comparatively high in this country from natural causes—cheap, fertile land easy of access. When this natural advantage disappears, as it soon will, no tariff can prevent a decline in wages until the conditions of labor in the old and the new world are on a common level.

How Not to Do It.

The speaker of the British house of commons has found himself compelled to introduce an innovation into the methods of that august body. One of the honorable members, desiring to choke off another honorable member, who had introduced a motion that would make things uncomfortable for a third honorable member, moved the previous p. 4, col. 5 question. Now, according to the old practice of the house of commons, “the previous question” was a curiously roundabout formality. When a member moved “the previous question,” the issue put to the house by the speaker was “That the question be now put.” The man who moved “the previous question” desired that the question should not be put at all. Consequently he voted no to his own motion, and if he had a majority the resolution of the house was that the question be not put, which is the object sought by moving “the previous question.” But unluckily the motion for closure is in the form “That the question be [now?] put.” To avoid the confusion that would follow from employing the same formula for two motions of a diametrically opposite character, the speaker proposed an alteration that met unanimous approval. When the closure is moved the form of the question will be “That the question be now put.” But when “the previous question” is moved the form will be “That the question be not now put.” The result is that the house of commons has two methods of silencing a minority instead of one.

The Way Industry is Encouraged.

RICHMOND, Ind.—Nothing is exempt from taxation in Indiana. Even the poor widow’s cook stove must pay a tax or else be sold. Every male under a certain age must pay a poll tax, and if anyone is enterprising enough to cultivate a farm, build or improve a dwelling, or embark in business, the assessor takes him in hand as if he were getting too smart and should be punished. I cite one instance out of many: A workingman bought a lot on the outskirts of our city for $300, due at a certain time. On looking over the tax books he found that the lot had previously been assessed at $30 valuation and paid each year 67½ cents thereon. But no sooner was the deed of the lot made over to him than the valuation was raised to $175, and the first year he had $4 in taxes. As he made improvements his taxes increased. On the adjoining vacant lots still held by the speculator were paid only a nominal tax, though their value was increased by reason of this man’s enterprise.

We have a little knot of single tax men here who are sowing the seed.

M. RITCHIE.

A Suggestion.

NEW YORK, April [23?].—If the united labor party must take a hand in the next political contest—if it be imperative that they “stand up and be counted”—why shouldn’t they nominate Mr. Cleveland as their standard bearer? “Cleveland and Mills” would be a strong ticket. True, neither of them indorses the Syracuse platform, but they are both bathing in waters wherein a land tax current is rapidly forming, and it would take but a very little to drag them into it. The ticket would not be elected, but Mr. Cleveland would, and the principles of the land tax party would be brought into prominent notice. Surely a half loaf is better than no loaf. I offer these suggestions for consideration by the Cincinnati conference.

WARREN JAMES.

Preached the Doctrine on the Cars.

OSHKOSH, Wis.—I am doing what I can to push the single tax doctrine wherever possible and am meeting with gratifying success. For instance, en route here our train was held some two hours at a little station in consequence of an accident, and I fell into a discussion of the single tax with an opponent of the principle, and soon had an audience of about forty, and entertained them with passages from “Progress and Poverty” and with comments.

Finally we took a vote and I was quite surprised to find fully three single tax men to one opposed. But I had to give up my “Progress and Poverty.” I can seldom keep a copy through a hundred mile trip. I have met three or four solid crusaders here.

WM. SPALDING.

Taxing Slavery Out of Existence.

One of Erwin pasha’s^sic experiences in central Africa, as narrated in his recently published “Letters and Journals,” is instructive. One of the problems that confronted him was the slave trade and how to put an end to it. He solved it, not by a decree of emancipation—which would probably have led to a bloody revolution—but by insisting that every man should announce the number of his slaves and pay taxes on them. Slavery and slave trading were soon rendered unprofitable, and it was not long before they became unpopular as well.

The Conservatives Were Too Strong for Him.

The recently deceased sultan of Zanzibar once paid a visit to Great Britain. Disraeli was prime minister at the time, and took advantage of the dusky monarch’s presence to have a talk with him about the abolition of the slave trade, which was then one of Zanzibar’s chief sources of revenue. It is said that the only time Dizzy was ever thoroughly taken aback was when the sultan answered his remonstrances with the announcement that he was very sorry, but—“conservative party very strong at Zanzibar!”

The South Brooklyn Single Tax Club.

This club meets every Tuesday and Friday nights at 358 Sackett street, when they read a chapter of “Progress and Poverty” and then discuss it. They are distributing through their district a prospectus of the club containing a number of quotations and inviting friends or opponents to come to their meetings and join in their debates. Their prospectus is ornamented by the striking cartoon, “An Object Lesson in Political Economy,” originally printed in the Toronto Grip and afterwards republished in THE STANDARD.

Good News for the Bondholders Who Own Egypt.

Reports from Cairo state that the Egyptian cotton crop promises a better and larger yield than ever. Much more land has been sown than during the last season, and the plants are coming up in fine condition. The great overflow of the Nile last year immensely increased the fertility and area of soil suitable to the crop.

A Guaranty of Prosperity.

San Francisco Examiner.

The land sale now in progress at Merced should reassure those persons who fear that a revision of the tariff may injure the fruit interests of the state. The capitalists chiefly interested in this sale are the members of the Southern Pacific company. Mr. Crocker and others have been at great expense in making the land marketable. The opening of their grand canal was a railroad event, celebrated by the entire force of railroad orators and journals,

This land is advertised as especially adapted to raisin growing. It is sold upon the representation that the culture of raisins upon it will give the purchaser a competence. Some of the colonies into which it is divided are called distinctively “raisin colonies.”

The railroad men know whether these promises are true or false. They know whether the raisin business is what it is asserted to be, or whether it is in danger of extinction at any session of congress. It is not p. 4, col. 6 likely that they would permit purchasers to buy their land under a mistaken impression.

It happens that the railroad possesses the power of redeeming its promises whatever may be the effect of tariff legislation. Suppose the Mills bill should be adopted and should prove itself capable of devastating our vineyards, as its opponents say it will, a word from Mr. Crocker could check the destruction. All that would be necessary would be a reduction of transcontinental freight rates. Ten cents a box taken off the duty and the same amount taken off his freight bill would leave the producer in a better position than now, for he would reach a wider market at the same net price.

It is not to be supposed that the railroad would neglect so simple a means of making good its word. If it sells land to settlers upon the assurance that they can make raisin growing pay it will not let raisin growing cease to pay by its fault. Our producers may look with entire equanimity upon the action of congress. Revenue reform will help them in most directions and there is a power that will keep it from hurting them in any.

An Anachronism.

Chicago Herald.

Mr. Kelley of Pennsylvania was put forward as the champion of protection to answer the arguments of Mr. Mills, but he paid no more attention to Mr. Mills’ speech than if it had never been uttered. He read a dissertation from manuscript on what he supposed would be the effect of the present bill, and he seems to have connected it in some way with the slavery question, and that slavery could only be perpetuated by free trade. He called the bill an anachronism for that reason, but the truth is Mr. Kelley himself is an anachronism. He belongs to a different time and period from the present. He is an advocate of war taxes after the war is over, and goes back twenty-five and even fifty-years ago^sic for his arguments to support them. As matters have been standing in this country for a quarter of a century slavery may be considered as abolished, and it is now the desire of a people ambitious to be entirely free to abolish that other form of oppression and wrong—high tariff taxation.

Crowding Down the Prices of Our Own Products.

From Congressman Mills’s Speech.

We are the great agricultural country of the world, and we have been feeding the people of Europe, and the people of Europe have got to give us in exchange the products of their labor in their shops; and when we put on excessive duties for the purpose of prohibiting the importation of their goods, as a necessary result we put an excessive duty upon the exportation of our own agricultural products. And what does that do? It throws our surplus products upon our own markets at home, which become glutted and oversupplied, and prices go down.

She Didn’t Understand That the Law Paid Him for Lying.

A prominent resident of Burlington, in making out his list for the assessors, put in his carriage horses at $100 each. The gentleman’s wife, when she looked over the list and saw the valuation put upon the horses, said: “Well, if those horses aren’t worth more than that, I want a new span.”—[Burlington Free Press.

Liberty.

William Lloyd Garrison.

They tell me Liberty! that in thy name I may not plead for all the human race; That some are born to bondage and disgrace, Some to heritage of woe and shame^sic, And some to power supreme and glorious fame. With my whole soul I spurn the doctrine base, And as an equal brotherhood embrace All people, and for all fair freedom claim! Know this, O man! whate’er thy earthly fate— GOD NEVER MADE A TYRANT, NOR A SLAVE: Woe, then, to those who dare to desecrate His glorious image!—for all he gave Eternal rights, which none may violate; And, by a mighty hand, th’ oppressed He yet shall save.

A Photographer Wants Some Too.

Why are you so persistent in opposing protection to American industry? What we really need is not less protection, but more. Take my case. I am a photographer. I have to pay more for many of the materials used in my business than I would have to pay if it were not for the tariff. Of this I do not complain, for I know that in paying more for my materials I am helping American industries. For instance I use a good deal of glass, which costs me more on account of the tariff. Well, that is good for glass makers, and I do not begrudge the extra cost. But what I do complain of and what I have a right to complain of is that I am not protected in my business. The business is being ruined by amateurs. This ought to be stopped. These people go around taking pictures for fun or at such a price that I can’t compete with them. It isn’t fair. I pay my taxes and I ought to be protected. I have no doubt there are a good many other industries just like mine, where they have to pay protective duties and are not themselves protected. If you would turn your attention to this subject you might do some good. It is not by taking the tariff off of glass that you will benefit photograpers^sic, but by putting a protective tariff tax on amateur photographs. And that is the way with everything. Business men will be glad to pay high prices for their materials in order to protect the manufacturers; all they ask in return is to be protected from amateurs. You do not seem to understand the tariff question. I would advise you to read the Press. Before that paper came out I was all in a fog about the question, but now it is perfectly clear to me.

T. B. JOHNSTON.

Manufacturers Who Don’t Like the Tariff.

Congressman M. H. Ford of Michigan recently presented a petition signed by 140 furniture manufacturers of fourteen different states, representing $10,000,000 of capital and employing 24,000 men, asking that coal, burlaps, German looking glass plates and sponges be placed on the free list. The petition says: “The collection of these taxes does not benefit any industry in this country, but is a grievous burden to furniture manufacturers, and if our petition is granted it will divert from the national treasury $3,573,805 annually and will save this amount and many millions more to the people.

How the Two Great Parties are Mustering for the Tariff Fight.

The tariff law is no longer in aid of the beginnings of great industries, but in maintenance of vested interests and of high wages for the workingmen.—[Mail and Express.

That there is nothing that will kill protectionism so quickly as discussion ought to be evident to every man who has just confidence in the intelligence of the American people.—[Richmond State.

In Scotland there are 1,000,000 tons of pig iron which the holders are keeping to dump upon our shores as soon as the free traders carry their ends in regard to the tariff.—[St. Joseph, Mo., Herald.

The fact that the different sections of our country, with their differing wages rates, get along prosperously without any trade barriers between them is a fact worth thinking about.—[Providence Journal.

Every man in the country who favors the American system—who understands the advantages which protection gives to every citizen—should exert himself in behalf of the most righteous cause that has existed since the armies of Washington drove the English free traders from American soil.—[Washington Republican.

The wage workers of the country are fast beginning to realize that all of this boasted protection to American labor that we are said to be getting now through a high tariff is a delusion and a snare. Wage workers do not want a protection that simply protects and enriches big monopolists.—[Minersville, Pa., Free Press.

What a grand thing this protection is. It enables everybody who has anything to sell to get high prices for it, but everybody who has anything to buy can get it at extremely low prices, or, in other words, we buy at low prices of people who sell at high prices, and we sell at high prices to people who buy at low prices.—[Ceresco, Neb., Times.

According to the census of 1880 the average wages of the unprotected railway employe was $450 a year, while the protected iron workers averaged only $312. Do miners and smelters get higher wages than the bricklayers? Do skilled workers in cotton and woolen mills receive more than the carpenters? Every one knows that they do not, but that, on the contrary, their earnings are much less. How then do those high taxes benefit labor? It is an undisputed fact that workers in silver mines are much better paid than the men who delve for iron, yet on iron there is a high protective tariff while in silver there is absolute free trade.—[Philadelphia Call.

The following passage appears in the call of the Wisconsin republican state committee for a convention to choose delegates at large to the national convention: “All voters who oppose the doctrine of free trade as un-American and dangerous, and who favor such protection to American industries as will yield a fair return to capital and liberal wages to labor, and who favor a reduction of internal taxes, a wise revision of our tariff laws, and reduction of taxation on imports, placing on the free list, as nearly as possible, the necessaries, and making the luxuries of life bear the expenses of government, are invited to join in the election of delegates to this convention.”

England will not go back to protection for the purpose of securing an addition to the prosperity of her people, for the reason that her people know that such a change might be good for the classes, but would surely be most injurious to the masses. There will be changes in England’s policy as soon as the enfranchised democracy learn to know their power, but the tendency will be toward greater freedom of trade and not toward restriction. Protective duties might increase rents, but they could not raise wages, make employment plentiful or add to the profits of industry and enterprise. Badly off as some of the English people are to-day, they were far worse off under the old fiscal system which received its death blow in 1846.—[Hamilton, Ont., Times.

Figures That Tell the Story.

From Congressman [Mills’s?] Speech.

I have here a letter from the chief of the bureau of statistics, which shows that in 1850 with a low tariff the consumption of domestic manufactures in the United States was [88.39?] per cent of the whole, and of imports 11.61 per cent. In 1861, with a still lower tariff, our home manufactures constituted 87.57 per cent, and the consumption of imports was 12.43 per cent. In 1870 the consumption of domestic manufactures was 93.14 per cent, and 6.86 per cent of imports, and in 1880 were consumed 92.58 per cent of home manufactures, and 7.42 per cent of foreign manufactures. Now, it is evident from these figures that under any circumstances we can hold 90 per cent of the market against the world. If we had no tariff, if all the custom houses were torn down and the government was supported by direct taxation, not more than 10 per cent of all the manufactured products consumed by all the people would be imported into the country [end of line damaged at foot of page; final punctuation not visible]

Buy the Shanty.

JERMYN, Penn.—I purpose getting married in the near future, and need some advice.

I am a deadly enemy to the unearned increment of land, and cannot contentedly submit to the system. Moreover, notwithstanding the outrageously excessive prices which individuals enforce for building land, I feel that it is better to pay it than to go on paying rent to infinity. That the reform which the united labor party are working for will be achieved is certain, but the time when is not exactly so clear. Therefore I will thank you much if you will kindly suggest the best way for me to act.

The other day I was apprised of the fact that a gentleman had a house and lot for sale. I at once sought him. Yes, it was true that the property was for sale. “How much do you want for it, please?” “Twelve hundred dollars.” The lumber and erection of the shanty (I can’t truly call it anything else) cost upward of $200; the $1,000 was unearned increment, if I understand the term rightly. I asked this magnanimous property owner what it was that enchanced^sic the value of his land? He could not say improvements, there was not a shadow of improvement on the place, not even a well. PETER KELLY.

If the price is reasonable, under existing conditions, and you have the money, I advise you to buy.

You are right in supposing the $1,000 value to be what is commonly called “unearned increment.” Land is so far monopolized that people are willing to pay $1,000 for that particular piece rather than not have the use of it. Hence, the owner is able to get $1,000 for doing nothing. If the land value tax were in full operation, you would not need to buy the lot. All you would have to buy would be the $200 shanty, and if you didn’t want to buy that you could take a neighboring lot on which there was no shanty, and put up a house to suit your taste and your pocketbook, with the assurance that whether you put up a good house or a poor one, a cheap house or a dear one, your taxes would be just the same, and neither more nor less than the owner of the tumble-down shanty would have to pay. Nor would those taxes be likely to be as high as the taxes you will have to pay now if you buy the lot with the shanty on it.

Let us figure a little on this case of yours.

You have $1,200 saved up. You intend to marry and want a home to take your wife to. You do not wish to run in debt and mortgage your home, and that is sensible. You have looked around for a place, and the best you can do for $1,200 is this lot with a shanty on it. To these quarters, therefore, you must take your wife, and be compelled to exhaust all your savings to do even that. But this is not all. After you have settled, the tax collector comes around with, say, a two per cent tax on a sixty per cent valuation. What if the landlord from whom you have bought owns a vacant lot for which he pays two per cent on a twenty-five or forty per cent valuation! “You are getting the good of your property while he is not,” so the collector will tell you and therefore you ought to pay a higher tax. You pay it, and there goes, in one lump, $8.40; and you must consider yourself lucky that it is so small. Then you will be taxed on the furniture which belongs to your wife. That may not be much, but put it down at $1. If you smoke you will have to pay twice the value of your smoking material on account of the customs and internal revenue taxes and the monopoly they foster; that item will be low at $5. The tariff tax on your coal at five tons a year would be $3.75. If you bought no more than $50 worth of clothing in a year your taxes on it would amount to $15 at least. Your taxes on sugar would be no less than $3.50. Besides these there are many other articles of household consumption on which you would have to pay taxes, but which I cannot specify; if we put the taxes on these at $10 we shall be well within the limit. And then there is the profit of the wholesaler and the retailer on the taxes which they advance upon these various commodities and afterward collect of you; put that item at $5. Now let us tabulate these items, all of which you will agree are moderately estimated.

Interest on cost of house and lot at six per cent.. $72 00 Tax on house and lot paid to collector………… 8 40 Tax on furniture paid to collector……………. 1 00 Tax on tobacco paid to tobacconist……………. 5 00 Tax on coal paid to coal dealer………………. 3 75 Tax on clothing paid to clothier……………… 15 00 Tax on sugar paid to grocer………………….. 3 50 Tax on sundries paid to merchants…………….. 10 00 Profit on the capital of wholesalers and retailers invested in taxes…………………. 5 00

Total………………………………………. $123 65

Now, suppose the single tax to be in force so that it takes the full annual value of the land. Instead of paying $1,200 for your lot and shanty you will pay but $200, for the land, being taxed to its full value, will have no selling price. Therefore of the $1,200 which you have saved up you may retain $1,000 for use as capital. Let six per cent be the land value tax which you must pay annually on your lot, worth $1,600; you will have no other taxes to pay. If we tabulate these items we shall have:

Interest on cost of house at 6 per cent. ………… $12 00 Tax on land worth $1,000 at 6 per cent…………. 60 00

Total………………………………………. $72 00

Here is a clear annual saving of the difference between $123.65 and $72—a saving of $51.65, which is enough to pay interest on the cost of a house four times as good as the shanty you propose to buy.

But there would really be a greater difference in your favor. The lot you speak of is now worth $1,000 because land is so completely monopolized; but if the single tax were fully enforced, so much land would be thrown open that it would not be remarkable if that lot fell fifty per cent or even more. Then instead of paying a land value tax on a lot worth $1,000 you would pay only on $500, and the table would read like this:

Interest on cost of house at 6 per cent…. ……..$12 00 Tax on land worth $500 at 6 per cent…………… 30 00

Total………………………………………. $42 00

Now see what you could do under the single tax if you invested your whole $1,200 in a home. Your land would cost nothing but the annual tax. Suppose you built on a lot worth $500, spending all your savings in the house, and here is the table:

Interest on cost of house ($1,200) at 6 per cent….. $72 00 Tax on land worth $500 at 6 per cent…………… 30 00

Total………………………………………. $102 00

So you see that if the single tax were

p. 6, col. 2 fully enforced you could live in a $1,200 house for less than it must now cost you to live in a $200 house.

You may say, however, that you see all this, but inasmuch as you must pay $1,000 for the land now, what will happen if the single tax is put in operation after you buy. Well, we have already seen in the first table that your minimum tax under the present system will be $123.65. The enforcement of the single tax will reduce the value of your land to at least $500. Then your annual payments (including interest on your original investment) will be as follows:

Interest on cost of house and lot……………… $72 00 Tax on lot worth $500 at 6 per cent……………. 30 00

Total………………………………………. $102 00

Even then you will be benefited by the difference annually between $123.65 and $102, and if we do not allow for fall in land values, but tax you on the original value of your lot ($1,000), you will only pay (including interest on your investment) $9 more a year than you do now. But if you save something and improve your house you will pay much less than you would have to now. You would get your building materials [for?] less and when the house was completed you would have no additional taxes to pay.

Think about this, and talk it over with your wife.

Constitutionality of Direct Taxes.

AUBURN, Me.—If congress should abolish our indirect taxes, should we then be obliged to amend the constitution of the United States in order to collect money enough to pay the expense of government by taxing land values?

This matter was discussed some in our last meeting and showed conflicting ideas. Although there isn’t such an exchange of ideas in Maine as in some other states, a good deal is being said here in Auburn. Our club holds regular meetings weekly and there is no lack of material to make them interesting. Protectionist debaters are scarce, although a good many believe it or think they do.

H. G. CASEY.

No constitutional amendment would be necessary.

Section 8 of article 1 of the federal constitution empowers congress “to lay and collect taxes, duties, imports^sic and excises.” The only limitation of this power is found in section 9 of the same article which provides that “no capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to the census,” and this limitation is explained in section 2 of the same article, which requires that “direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included in this union according to their respective numbers.”

It is strange, in the face of these constitutional provisions, that any one should doubt the power of congress to lay an ad valorem tax on land, provided the whole amount of tax so raised be apportioned among the several states according to population. That the power exists is too plain for argument; but if you need precedent you will find examples in the congressional laws, which show that congress has several times laid direct taxes on different kinds of property, notably on real estate during the war. And if you would like to quote authority, turn to the 30th number of the Federalist, in which Hamilton discusses, among other things, the claim of the opponents of the constitution that internal taxation should be reserved to the state governments. Also, to the 35th number, in which he distinctly recognizes the power of congress to tax land by saying: “No tax can be laid on land which will not affect the proprietor of thousands of acres as well as the proprietor of a single acre; every land holder will therefore have a common interest to keep the taxes on land as low as possible.” Also to the 36th number, in which, discussing objections to direct taxation by congress, he refers officially to one and says of it: “The objection when applied to real property, or to houses and lands, appears to have, at first sight, more foundation; but even in this view it will not bear a close examination. Land taxes are commonly laid in one of two modes, either by actual valuations, permanent or periodical, or by occasional assessments, at the discretion or according to the best judgment of certain officers whose duty it is to make them. In either case the execution of the business which alone requires the knowledge of local details must be confided to discreet persons in the character of commissioners or assessors, elected by the people or appointed by the government for the purpose. All that the law can do must be to name the persons or to prescribe the manner of their election or appointment; to fix their numbers and qualifications, and to draw the general outlines of their powers and duties. And what is there in all this that cannot as well be performed by the national legislature as by the state legislature? But there is a single point of view in which this matter may be placed that must be altogether satisfactory. The national legislature can make use of the system of each state within that state.”

If you wish to go further in this investigation, refer to the Congressional Globe of the times when direct tax laws were passed, and also to the supreme court reports in cases relating to the administration of these laws.

Notes.

JOHN S. DEHART, New York.—The movement in which we are engaged is not one to vest titles in the federal government, but to abolish taxes on industry. When all taxes shall have been transferred to land values the demand for revenues for public improvements will tend so strongly to the absorption of the full value of land that further agitation may not be necessary. In that case the doctrine of the land for the people will have been established. But, even if the movement aimed directly at making the government a landlord, your idea of having land leased to its occupants for life would not be a good one unless the rent were to be readjusted at frequent intervals. No landlord, however, is better than any landlord; and under the single tax there would in effect be no landlord.

CHAS. H. MITCHELL, New York.—If in my answer to the query of Jeremiah Sullivan in THE STANDARD of the 31st I conveyed the impression that invention is necessary to increase in land value it was unintentional. Increase of land value may be due to increase of demand for land relatively to supply, or to decrease of supply relatively to demand. Greater population will enhance demand for land and tend to increase its value. So will invention. While the cornering of land will diminish supply and also tend to increase value.

LOUIS F. POST.

p. 6, col. 3

Four-fifths of the Cigar Makers Favor the Abolition of the Internal Revenue Tax on Tobacco.

The leaders of the cigar makers’ international union are not meeting with success in their efforts to compel the membership to accept the decision of the last convention at Binghamton, in regard to the internal revenue tax on tobacco—a decision opposing the abolition of the tax. Unions 144 and 90 still stand suspended by President Strasser, and they have appealed to the other unions of the international body, who will take a vote on sustaining the president. The result, which will not be known for a month or two, it is hard to predict. Nearly one-third of the entire membership of the international organization is located in this city, but they will be barred by President Strasser’s action from any voice in the settlement of the matter. The president’s influence among the smaller organizations outside this state is said to be very great, and he may be sustained; and, if he is, unions 144 and 90 will have to obey Mr. Strasser’s order to expel the men who took part in the Cooper union meeting in favor of^sic abolishing the tax on tobacco or be themselves expelled, in which event they will be deprived of such privileges as an interchange of working cards and concerted action.

The position taken by the late Binghamton convention, and by the president of the international union, is a peculiar one. While they have insisted in the past that the unions, as unions, must take no part in political affairs, they now maintain that they have a right to say what side the local unions must take in what will shortly be the only political issue before the people of this country. President Strasser has declared that the Binghamton resolution opposing the repeal of the internal revenue tax is now a law of the international union, and that any union or member of any union disapproving the resolution must be punished for insubordination. THE STANDARD stated two weeks ago that the members of the two unions named above refused by a decided majority to obey the order of suspension issued by President Strasser against the members of those unions who were instrumental in getting up the Cooper union meeting. It has now transpired that the vote was nearly four to one against it, which, when the outside unions come to vote on the appeal from the president’s decision, may give them pause, however much they might like to sustain the decision.

Whatever may be the result of the general vote, however, the agitation for the tax abolition has already had a beneficial effect in this city; for, notwithstanding that the discussion of political questions is prohibited in cigar makers’ unions, the abolishment or nonabolishment of the tobacco tax is about the only thing now discussed, in meetings and out of meetings. The local officials are using all their influence among the men to try and keep down the feeling which everywhere crops up in favor of the abolition of the tax. The friends of abolition are on the alert, and follow the officials to all the meetings and debate the question with them.

At a meeting held last week Frederick Haller, who is an official of union No. 10, delivered an address in favor—of maintaining the internal revenue tax. His principal reasons were:

If the tax were abolished cigar makers would make cigars on their own account, perhaps at their homes; they would enter into competition with each other, and thus bring down the price of cigars; this competition would affect the large manufacturers, and thus be the cause of bringing down wages; cigar makers would teach their wives and children how to make cigars, and thus make competition keener; by cigar makers going into business on their own account the unions would be weakened and perhaps destroyed altogether.

John Vince, one of the oldest members of union 144, and one of the men whom President Strasser ordered to be suspended because of the active part he took in bringing about the Cooper union meeting, answered Mr. Haller. He said that the abolition of the tax would enable cigar makers to make cigars on their own account, because the abolition of the internal taxes would remove the bar now existing to their doing so. Was it not the desire of every cigar maker to be independent? Wouldn’t every man, if he could do so, prefer to be his own boss? What was it stood in the way? A cigar maker needed under just conditions little capital to start for himself—a table, a knife, a little paste and some tobacco. But the internal revenue taxes stood in the way. A cigar maker must furnish bonds in $500 before he could make a cigar on his own account; and there were other internal revenue taxes, not to speak of blackmail, which must be continually paid. There was the constant espionage of the internal revenue department, for fear the cigar makers would make a cigar without paying the tax on it—everything was now done to prevent a man from making a living outside a factory. A man who made a cigar now, and who could not meet all the requirements of the internal revenue laws, was a criminal, and if caught would be sent to prison. Whether men would or would not make cigars at home was of no moment; but he did not believe as a rule they would, for cigar makers would be just as anxious to keep the tobacco smells out of their homes then as they are now. The chances were that shops would be opened where men could rent space enough for their purposes away from their homes. He asserted that even the men who now make cigars in their homes—the tenement house system—would be delighted to make a change—that none of them now allowed their homes to be strewed with tobacco for their children to roll in and their wives to walk over because they preferred it. They did it because their necessities compelled them to do it.

The assertion that if cigar makers manufactured on their own account they would be brought into competition with each other and thus bring down prices, Mr. Vince said, was all bosh. Prices would be correspondingly high when the tax was abolished as they are now. The large manufacturers do all the competing now, and the workmen have no say in the matter; but when the tax was abolished the men who make the cigars would have a say in fixing the price.

“As it stands now,” said Mr. Vince, “a manufacturer may call on, say Thurber, and say to him, ‘I would like to get an order from you. I will make you a certain cigar for twenty-six dollars a thousand.’ If Thurber replied, ‘I pay only twenty-five dollars now,’ the manufacturer, after figuring, could say: ‘Well, if you will give me a large order I will make them for twenty-four dollars.’ Suppose Thurber gives him an order for a million cigars—what happens? Mr. Manufacturer goes to his factory and says to his workmen: ‘I have an order for a million cigars. I had to figure the price down to get it. Now, you people must make those cigars for so much a thousand—a dollar or so less than what I have been paying you. If you won’t do it for that price, I can get plenty of cigar makers who will,’ and the cigar makers either agree to the reduction or quit work. In the latter event the manufacturer, though put to the inconvenience of fighting the union, ultimately succeeds in getting all the cigar makers he wants at the reduced wages. The

p. 6, col. 4 manufacturer does the competing, and the cigar makers, who have had no hand in the bargain, are made to suffer, either by working for less money or by being turned out on the streets, while the manufacturer makes about the usual profit. If the cigar maker could employ himself he would be able to do at least as well as he does now, and probably much better.

Mr. Vince pointed out that there would be another benefit to the cigar maker. The abolition of the internal revenue tax on tobacco would make cigars cheaper, and therefore more of them would be smoked, making more work for cigar makers. “Wages,” said he, “could not possibly be worse than they are now, and I believe that when the tobacco tax is removed wages will improve.”

Mr. Vince admitted that Mr. Haller’s fear that if cigar makers made cigars on their own account they would teach their wives and children how to make them, and thus increase competition, might come to pass. “That,” said he, “is a moral question, and could only be decided by each cigar maker for himself. But I believe that as our condition improved this evil would decrease. The man who now makes his family work with him at cigar making would perhaps do it then. But I believe that the average cigar maker loves his family as well as any other man; and that, unless compelled by conditions over which he had no control, he would take more care of them than he is able to do now. Give us better conditions and we will take better care of our families.”

As to Mr. Haller’s fear that if cigar makers went into business on their own account the unions would be weakened and perhaps destroyed, Mr. Vince replied that, speaking as one of the oldest members the international union^sic in his vicinity, he did not fear any evil results from that calamity—if it could be called a calamity. “We cannot be much weaker than we are now,” said the speaker; “we have been whipped in every struggle we have engaged in for a long time past. We have attempted to build a wall around ourselves, regardless of the surging waves without. We have been like the ostrich, who, when hunted down, stuck his head into the sand, and thought he was securely hidden from sight, while the most prominent part of his anatomy was exposed. I believe, when cigar makers have at least an equal chance with their employers—which the abolition of the internal revenue tax on tobacco will give them—that instead of weakening our international union, it will strengthen it; for we will then have a closer bond of union than we have now—one of mutual self-interest. I believe the question then will be, not what the large manufacturers may choose to pay us in wages, but how much we will demand for working for them, for if they will not pay us more than we can make while working on our own account, we will surely not be fools enough to go to work for them. Of course we may be able to get along with fewer officers and boards and laws than we have now, but that will not be an altogether unmixed evil.”

It is generally admitted that the tenement house fight of the cigarmakers is lost. Straiton & Storm’s men, who were suspended for refusing to continue to pay the fifty cent assessment, which was levied to keep up the fight against the tenement house system, have brought suit for reinstatement.

Where Few Children Live Long to Tell the Tale of Their Sufferings.

A writer in the London Echo, relating what he saw while making the rounds with the medical officer in one of the most thickly populated London districts, says of one of the places he visited:

To get to the place we had to ascend three or four flights of stairs. The house was squalid to a degree that cannot be described; scarcely any light penetrated the filthy windows on the landing; the atmosphere of the place seemed to be as thick as pea soup.

On first impression the room we entered seemed empty. The floor was bare the light bad^sic, and for a moment I saw nothing in the apartment. But in a corner, lying on a sort of sack bed upon the floor, we discovered a child, who awoke from a sleep with a violent cough, which continued for a minute or two. In the meanwhile an attendant arrived in the person of a ragged young woman, who said she was the boy’s aunt.

“He’s got his death through beggin’ in the streets,” she said. “He’s been beggin’ and sellin’ matches, picture books, penny watches, pencils, laces and cups in the city. Of course he didn’t have no thick boots on, and every bit of damp came through to make him cold, and then his clothes got wet, and he had to keep them on all the same. His father don’t do much work; he runs errands in the city when he can get them to do, and he sent out the boy to pick up what he could; and now the doctor says he can’t live long. Well, perhaps it’s better for the boy to die.”

“What’s the matter with you?” I said to the child. “I’m tired,” was the reply. “The doctor says I can’t live, and I’m glad of it. I wish I could die soon; I don’t want to live any longer. What’s the good o’ livin’ when you don’t get nothin’ to eat, and nothin’ to keep the cold out?” and his little eyes ran down over the rags and tatters he was in.

“Bless your heart,” ejaculated the medical man, as we emerged into the street, “there are any number of such cases. Out of the children who sell various kinds of things on the streets, only a very small proportion ever reach the age of maturity. The newspaper boys earn a lot of money compared with the others, and are able, as a rule, to take care of themselves. But the little ones who sell matches and fuses, and those who topple and turn somersaults, with the lot that hawk trifles of all sorts in the city, are horribly badly off, and fall into the grave one after another, like unripe fruit drops off a tree in sudden frost.”

How They Come and What They Get Their Name From.

At a recent dinner of the political science club in New York, ex-Assemblyman McAdam gave the following pertinent illustration:

Some years ago some friends of mine conceived the idea of going into the business of making encaustic tile, such as is used for floors of vestibules. The first thing needed was, of course, to have a duty put on foreign tile high enough to keep it out of the market and force people to buy their tile.

They went to congress to ask for the putting on of the duty, when some such dialogue as this took place:

Manufacturer—We have to pay higher wages in this country than they do in England, and to enable us to compete with the pauper labor of Europe, we ask you to add to the cost of production in Europe a tax high enough to even up the difference in wages.

Congressman—Why don’t you pay the same wages that they do in England?

Manufacturer—Because the men in this country won’t work for them.

Congressman—If the men are out of work, I should think they would work for what they could get.

Manufacturer—But they ain’t out of work. Not good workmen ain’t.

Congressman—Then your idea is not to give work to men out of employment?

Manufacturer—Why, of course not. We expect to make money out of it.

Congressman—Thon^sic in order to enable you to make money you want us to pass a law putting a duty of forty per cent on foreign tile, so that the people will have to pay forty per cent more for tile than now, and you can pay the same wages to a lot of men who are already getting good wages somewhere else, your object being to make money for yourself?

Manufacturer—Well, this is only at first. We have a great many natural advantages in this country; we have all the materials going into the manufacture of tile, better machinery, plenty of water power, rents are not as high, and after we get the thing started we can manufacture tile much cheaper than they do on the other side.

Congressman—High wages and all?

Manufacturer—Certainly, high wages and all.

Congressman—And when that time comes, the duty can be taken off?

Manufacturer—Certainly.

And so the duty went on. This used to be the stock argument among manufacturers. All they wanted was a little temporary assistance during the experimental infantile stage of the particular industry—protection to our infant industries—it was called. When the duty was first put on, the idea was that some time or other, although it might take years to bring it about, yet, ultimately, at some time in the future, the tariff, so far as it was a protective tariff, could be taken off; because it would no longer be necessary.

Now let us see how it actually worked with my tile company. They got their forty per cent duty put on, and started their factory. At first, in spite of the duty, the scheme was not a success. My capitalistic friends sank money for upward of two years; meanwhile they got a good plant altogether, persuaded their friends into trying their tile, improved their processes, managed to cut down their expenses in various directions, and toward the end of the third or fourth year things seemed to be going quite satisfactorily. I made some inquiries about their processes, and learned to my amazement that they could now manufacture tile and make a small profit for about a quarter of what they sold it for. I said, “Gentlemen, I suppose you could get along now without any duty on tile?” They said, “Yes, we could now, but we have not got back what we put in the first two unsuccessful years yet.”

A couple of years after that I spoke to the same gentleman again. “Are you prepared to get along without the tariff yet?”

“Not now,” was the answer. “You see some people out in Ohio got wind of the profits we were making and have started a rival factory. They compete with us and divide up our profits.”

I met my friend the other day and again I asked him how things were getting along. “Well,” he said, “lots of companies have started up all over the country and we are all cutting into each other, and we are thinking now of organizing a trust.”

Remember, gentlemen, this example of this tile company is an actual fact drawn from my own experience.

What has happened in this case has been going on all over the country as a result of the protective system. A company desire to start the manufacture of some article. Instead of relying on their own resources for a start they ask and receive government assistance in the shape of a protective duty which shuts off foreign competition, on the theory that after a little while, after a few years, they will have things in such shape that they can get along without the tariff. As soon as they get to making money other companies or individuals start in the same business, and the profits, instead of going to one concern, is divided up among a number, and they are no better off than they were without the tariff. The longer they are in business the more necessary they think a tariff is to their continuance, until finally protection from foreign competition alone will not save them, but they must have protection from competition with each other. This they get by the device of a trust. It used to be considered a maxim that competition was the life of trade. Protection assumes that competition will kill trade. Manufacturers unnaturally fostered by protection become weaker and weaker, the life giving principle of competition being removed until the very last vestige of competition, viz., domestic competition, is done away with by a trust.

Has it ever occurred to any of you to consider why these combinations were called trusts? I will tell you. It is because the members have to trust to their memories and not to any written minutes as to what takes places^sic at their meetings and to each other’s good faith and honor in enforcing any agreement entered into, for the reason that the whole business is illegal. Contracts in restraint of trade are void under the common law. This has been the law of England and of this country for five hundred years, and is still the law. People who are not lawyers were probably surprised at the shortness of Mr. John E. Parsons’s memory when a witness at the recent senate investigation of trusts. But Mr. Parsons knew well enough that his clients had been engaged in making unlawful agreements, and doubtless thought the less he knew or said about it the better.

Thus protection encourages people to go into businesses which without government assistance is unprofitable. They do not rely upon the ordinary laws of demand and supply and of competition, but upon the laws of congress. If after a few years they find they are not making money, instead of trying to improve their processes by getting better machinery, paying less rent, lower salaries, smaller dividends, etc., they go to congress and say that instead of forty per cent duty they need sixty. Then manufacturers have a curious way of looking upon themselves as public benefactors. The government owes them not only a living, but a luxurious living.

p. 6, col. 6 You would think to hear them talk that they were employing men out of charity. Still more curiously, other people have fallen into the same way of thinking, and talk of a large employer of labor a public benefactor, who is to be helped out of any holes he gets into and treated very tenderly at all times. A good many people looked upon John Roach, who lived out of the government for years, to the utter ruin and annihilation of our navy, as a martyr when the secretary of the navy held him to a contract. Most people actually seem to think that it is better to have one man employing, say, a hundred men, than it is to have fifty men in the same business each employing two men. Just the reverse of this is the truth. It is better to have fifty men in a business than it is to have only one; that is, it is better to have fifty men of moderate means in a community than it is to have one of enormous wealth.

If we once get over this idea of looking upon manufacturers and capitalists as public benefactors, and look upon them the same as other people, as intent upon making as much money as they can with the least exertion to themselves, a great step has been taken. Then the laws already existing could and would be enforced, and a few of our so-called public benefactors would find themselves where they ought to be, in jail. Suppose milk had been kept out of New York by a stike^sic among the Knights of Labor instead of by a blizzard. Don’t you suppose there would have been a great outcry and a demand for a strict enforcement of the conspiracy laws? But when the price of milk is forced up by a milk trust it seems to be looked upon as all right. To sum up:

First.—The object of a protective tariff is to prevent foreign competion^sic.

Second.—The object of a trust is to prevent domestic competition.

Third.—The result is no competition at all; in other words, monopoly. The remedy is to begin to cut at the root of the evil—the monstrosity known as the protective tariff.

He Gives Them Theory in One Column and Fact in Another.

[Two parallel sub-columns in small type, left and right.]

[Left sub-column:]

N. Y. Sun, April 23.

Dead sure is it that if Mr. Mills’s tariff reduction bill becomes law the English, Belgian, German and French manufacturers will take off from the price of the goods they send here just the amount of our tariff reductions.

On you, workingmen, then will fall the crushing weight of the president’s first step toward free trade. For our manufacturers will have to meet those reductions in price or go out of business. If they keep their establishments open they will be compelled, however much they may hate to do it, to reduce your wages to the level of the wages paid by their competitors in England, Belgium, France and Germany. They will be obliged to do this or be bankrupt. You know the difference in the wages paid to skilled industry in America and in Europe. It is killing. The difference is one-half, yes, often more than one-half.

Brothers in the shops and factories, the final result of every free trade measure, if permitted to ripen, will be to transfer you and your industries to Europe—or to make you paupers and tramps in America.

What are you going to do about it?

[Right sub-column:]

N. Y. Sun, April 23.

This is a bad time for working people to strike in these parts. The new Kings county elevated railroad wanted 80 engineers last week; but the applicants numbered over [500?]. It wanted [30?] firemen; but the applicants numbered over 1,[illegible]. It wanted [illegible] conductors, gatemen, ticket choppers and other employes; but the applicants crowded the company’s quarters for ten days. From many other branches of industry there are like reports. It is evident that there is a large amount of what is known as surplus labor in the market.

BELFORD’S MAGAZINE.

Messrs. Belford, Clarke & Co. beg to announce that in May they will issue the first number of a new monthly magazine, to be devoted to politics, fiction, poetry, general literature, science and art.

In politics the new magazine will give an independent support to the democratic party and to the present administration. It will advocate the extinguishment of the surplus, not by squandering it in extravagant expenditures, which are usually merely a thinly disguised form of widespread corruption, but by a reduction in taxation. It will advocate the consummation of this reduction by a reform of the present iniquitous and burdensome tariff in the direction of free trade or of a tariff for revenue purposes only; such reform to be effected in the interests of the farmers, the workingmen, and the great mass of the population, as opposed to the manipulators of rings and trusts, and other monopolists whom the present tariff enables to accumulate vast fortunes at the expense of the general community. These and other political and social questions of general interest will be treated in a popular manner, suitable to the pages of a magazine, which is intended to reach all classes of the people.

The department of fiction will be exceptionally full. Instead of a serial story, dragging its slow length through several months, and exhausting the patience of the reader, a complete novel will be published in each number; and each issue will also contain one or more short stories complete.

In these departments of politics and fiction, and also in those of general literature, science, and art, the very best talent of the country will be enlisted.

As the publishers are convinced that the illustration of magazines has been greatly overdone in this country, they have decided to dispense with illustrations altogether. They intend that their magazine shall be read, not that its pages shall be merely turned over for the purpose of looking at pictures.

As editor-in-chief, the publishers are glad to be able to announce that they have secured the services of Col. Donn Piatt, a gentleman of long and varied literary experience, both as a journalist and as a litterateur, and also a patriot well known throughout the land by reason of his connection with the history and politics of the country during the past twenty-five years.

He will be assisted by a staff of sub-editors, and also by a large number of able contributors, among whom will be:

DAVID A. WELLS, HON. FRANK HURD, PROF. W. G. SUMNER, J. S. MOORE (Parsee Merchant), HON. JOHN G. CARLISLE, HENRY WATTERSON, HENRY GEORGE, JULIAN HAWTHORNE, EDGAR SALTUS, JOHN JAMES PIATT, THOS. G. SHEARMAN, GEN. H. V. BOYNTON, SARAH B. M. PIATT, EDGAR FAWCETT, JOEL BENTON, ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, REV. GEORGE LORIMER, E. HERON-ALLEN, COATES-KINNEY^sic, JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY, SOULE SMITH (“Falcon”), GERTRUDE GARRISON,

BELFORD’S MONTHLY will be a first-class medium for advertising, as the publishers guarantee a bona fide circulation during the first six months of at least 70,000 copies per month.

Price, $2 50 a year^sic; or 25 cents per number.

N. B.—All business communications should be addressed to the publishers, 384 and 386 Broadway, New York city. Contributions and editorial correspondence should be sent to the editor at the same address.

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., Publishers, New York, Chicago and San Francisco.

PROGRESS AND POVERTY,

An Inquiry Into the Cause of Industrial Depression and of Increase of Want With Increase of Wealth—The Remedy.

BY HENRY GEORGE.

25[illegible] pages.

CONTENTS:

Introductory.—THE PROBLEM. Book I.—WAGES AND CAPITAL. Chap. 1. The current doctrine—its insufficiency. 2. The meaning of the terms. 3. Wages not drawn from capital, but produced by the labor. 4. The maintenance of laborers not drawn from capital. 5. The real functions of capital. Book II.—POPULATION AND SUBSISTENCE. Chap. 1. The Malthusian theory—its genesis and support. 2. Inferences from fact. 3. Inferences from analogy. 4. Disproof of the Malthusian theory. Book III.—THE LAWS OF DISTRIBUTION. Chap. 1. The inquiry narrowed to the laws of distribution—necessary relation of these laws. 2. Rent and the law of rent. 3. Interest and the cause of interest. 4. Of spurious capital and of profits often mistaken for interest. 5. The law of interest. 6. Wages and the law of wages. 7. Correlation and co-ordination of these laws. 8. The statics of the problem thus explained. Book IV.—EFFECT OF MATERIAL PROGRESS UPON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. Chap. 1. The dynamics of the problem yet to seek. 2. Effect of increase of population upon the distribution of wealth. 3. Effect of improvements in the arts upon the distribution of wealth. 4. Effect of the expectation raised by material progress. Book V.—THE PROBLEM SOLVED. Chap. 1. The primary cause of recurring paroxysms of industrial depression. 2. The persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth. Book VI.—THE REMEDY. Chap. 1. Insufficiency of remedies currently advocated. 2. The true remedy. Book VII.—JUSTICE OF THE REMEDY. Chap. 1. Injustice of private property in land. 2. Enslavement of laborers the ultimate result of private property in land. 3. Claim of land owners to compensation. 4. Property in land historically considered. 5. Property in land in the United States. Book VIII.—APPLICATION OF THE REMEDY. Chap. 1. Private property in land inconsistent with the best use of land. 2. How equal rights to the land may be asserted and secured. 3. The proposition tried by the canons of taxation. 4. Indorsements and objections. Book IX.—EFFECTS OF THE REMEDY. Chap. 1. Of the effect upon the production of wealth. 2. Of the effect upon distribution and thence upon production. 3. Of the effect upon individuals and classes. 4. Of the changes that would be wrought in social organization and social life. Book X.—THE LAW OF HUMAN PROGRESS. Chap. 1. The current theory of human progress—its insufficiency. 2. Differences in civilization—to what due. 3. The law of human progress. 4. How modern civilization may decline. 5. The central truth. Conclusion.—THE PROBLEM OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.

The new Land and labor library paper edition of “Progress and Poverty” is now ready, price thirty-five cents. This is printed on better paper, in larger type, is better bound and a considerably larger book than the previous twenty cent edition.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS.

BY HENRY GEORGE.

342 pages.

CONTENTS:

1. The increasing importance of social questions.
2. Political dangers.
3. Coming increase of social pressure.
4. Two opposing tendencies.
5. The march of concentration.
6. The wrong in existing social conditions.
7. Is it the best of all possible worlds?
8. That we all might be rich.
9. First principles.
10. The rights of man.
11. Dumping garbage.
12. Over-production.
13. Unemployed labor.
14. The effects of machinery.
15. Slavery and slavery.
16. Public debts and indirect taxation.
17. The functions of government.
18. What we must do.
19. The great reform.
20. The American farmer.
21. City and country.
22. Conclusion.

PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE?

An Examination of the Tariff Question with Especial Regard to the Interests of Labor.

BY HENRY GEORGE.

CONTENTS:

I. Introductory. II. Clearing ground. III. Of method. IV. Protection as a universal need. V. The protective unit. VI. Trade. VII. Production and producers. VIII. Tariffs for revenue. IX. Tariffs for protection. X. The encouragement of industry. XI. The home market and home trade. XII. Exports and imports. XIII. Confusions arising from the use of money. XIV. Do high wages necessitate protection^sic XV. Of advantages and disadvantages as reasons for protection. XVI. The Development of manufactures. XVII. Protection and producers. XVIII. Effect of protection on American industry. XIX. Protection and wages. XX. The abolition of protection. XXI. Inadequacy of the free trade argument. XXII. The Real Weakness of Free Trade. XXIII. The Real Strength of Protection. XXIV. The Paradox. XXV. The Robber that Takes All that is Left. XXVI. True Free Trade. XXVII. The Lion in the Way. XXVIII. Free Trade and Socialism. XXIX. Practical Politics. XXX. Conclusion.

THE LAND QUESTION.

What It Involves, and How Alone It Can Be Settled.

BY HENRY GEORGE.

87 pages.

PROPERTY IN LAND.

A Passage-at-Arms Between the Duke of Argyll and Henry George.

77 pages.

FORTSCHRITT AND ARMUTH.

(Progress and Poverty in German.) TRANSLATION OF C. D. F. GUTSCHOW.

430 pages.

PRICE LIST.

Progress and Poverty, paper……………………$ 35 ” ” cloth…………………… 1 00 ” ” half calf or half morocco…. 2 50 Social Problems, paper………………………… 20 ” ” cloth………………………….. 1 00 ” ” half calf or half morocco………. 2 50 Protection or Free Trade? paper……………….. 35 ” ” cloth……………….. 1 50 ” ” half calf or half morocco 3 00 Property in Land, paper………………………… 15 The Land Question, paper………………………. 10 Progress and Poverty, German, paper………….. 35

For sale by all booksellers, or sent postpaid on receipt of price. Foreign editions of these books imported on order.

HENRY GEORGE, 12 Union square, New York.

p. 7, col. 5

THE TRUTH ABOUT TRISTREM VARICK.

By Edgar Saltus, author of “Mr. Incoul’s Misadventure,” etc.

12mo., Cloth, $1. Paper Covers, 50 cents.

In this novel Mr. Saltus has treated a subject hitherto unexploited in fiction. The scene is Fifth avenue, the action emotional, the plot a surprise. “There is,” some one has said, “as much mud in the upper classes as in the lower; only in the former it is gilded.” This aphorism might serve as epigraph to “Tristrem Varick.”

Thirteenth thousand ready April 1.

THE TARIFF ON IMPORTS INTO THE UNITED STATES AND THE FREE LIST,

As contained in act of March 3, 1883, also the Hawaiian Reciprocity Treaty, and extracts from the Navigation and Oleomargarine acts.

Indexed. 12mo., Paper Covers, 25 cents.

ASHES OF THE FUTURE.

By Edward Heron-Allen.

Beautifully printed in the best French style, with an illustrated cover, 50 cents.

“The story is of absorbing interest.”—Chicago Journal.

“The work of a very vigorous and cultivated pen, as well as of a deep thinking and fervid brain. It is the story of a restless lover of too many things, and of too many good women whose hearts he breaks and whose lives he shatters.”—Brooklyn Eagle.

“MES AMOURS.”

Confessions: Passionate and Playful.

Written to me by people, celebrated and obscure, and my answers to some of them. With an Introduction and notes. Illustrated, small 4to, with portrait, $1.25. Selina Dolaro, author of the play, “In the Fashion.”

“It is seldom that the English reader happens upon a book of verses so full of French humor as this pretty volume. ‘Ma Belle [Amie?],’ the opening selection . . . is edited with a running fire of comments that renders it delightful. The ‘afterthoughts’ affixed to all the verses are often very clever and womanish.”—New York Herald.

PRINCE COASTWIND’S VICTORY; OR, The Fairy Bride of Croton Lake.

By Mrs. Miles B. McNamara.

With illustrations. Small 4to, cloth, illustrated cover, $1,00.

“A pretty fairy story, which will delight while it taxes the credulity of young readers. The book is tastefully printed and in handsome covers, and inclosed in a box ready for mailing.”—Chicago Inter Ocean.

THE ROMANCE OF A QUIET WATERING PLACE.

12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents.

Thirty French illustrations by Graves. By a New York Society Lady.

A SLAVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES.

By E. DeLancey Pierson.

12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents.

A Novel of Incident, Plot and Action. Scene, Fifth Avenue, New York.

IN PRESS: A DREAM AND A FORGETTING.

By Julian Hawthorne.

12mo. Cloth, $1.00. Paper, 50 cents.

Mr. Hawthorne’s latest and most interesting novel.

HIS WAY AND HER WILL.

Author unknown.

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SOPHIA-ADELAIDE.

Illustrated with Portraits of the Princess.

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CHESTNUTS NEW AND OLD.

By Bill Nye.

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His Last and Funniest Book.

THE POLITICS OF LABOR.

By Phillips Thompson.

Cloth, gilt top, $1.25.

“An original and masterly work on the great question of the hour, the relations between capital and labor.” Written for workingmen in a clear, plain and forcible style. Competent critics predict that it will be the hand book for laboring men wherever the English language is spoken.

PECK’S IRISH FRIEND, PHELAN GEOGHEAGAN.

By George W. Peck, jr.

Illustrated by True Williams.

12mo, cloth, $1; paper, 25 cents.

“Mr. Peck has made quite a reputation as a dialect writer, and his Geogheagan Sketches have been well received.”—Milwaukee News.

THE QUESTION OF THE DAY. ANTI-POVERTY AND PROGRESS.

By Sister M. Frances Clare (The Nun of Kenmare.)

12mo, paper, 50 cents.

“Discusses some of the questions recently brought to public notice by Henry George and Father McGlynn.” She is opposed to the land theory of the former on the ground that it is not in accord with the Christian religion. . . . She criticises somewhat severely several of the clergy of her own church.”—New York Sun.

THE LAND OF THE NIHILIST RUSSIA^sic.

By W. E. Curtis.

12mo, cloth, $1.

Over one hundred engravings. A guide book.

Send for complete catalogue.

BELFORD, CLARKE & CO., PUBLISHERS, Chicago and New York.

p. 7, col. 6

From a Scottish Business Man.

GLASGOW.—Herewith you have a subscription list for THE STANDARD, and from Dumfries and elsewhere you will receive similar lists. Every place to which I have sent your paper (and l always use my read copy by sending it somewhere) I have requests for information as to where it can be got regularly. If I could only get away from my business for a while I believe I could soon make it necessary for an edition of THE STANDARD to be printed on this side.

When we stood here, even in 1884, upon the “land for the people” platform, we were pariahs to the official liberalism of the day. Now we are their oracles whom they consult when they want to go to the people for their suffrages. Just at present we have an impending parliamentary vacancy in Mid Lanark, which includes nearly all mining centers. It has been wooed by many suitors. Captains in the army, retired merchants, and so on, and the man just selected by the liberal organizations (who condemned you and me four years ago) is the man who goes furthest on our lines. Our questions to candidates are no longer treated with indifference. “Tax the land?” “Yes, four shillings in the pound or more.” “Abolish deer forests?” “Yes, and the deer with them, likewise Winans.” “Mining royalties?” “These are the property of the people.” “Payment of members?” “Certainly, the people’s servants should be paid by the people.” In very truth, the stone which the builders refused has become the headstone of the corner. More power to you.

WILLIAM SIMPSON.

Signing the Single Tax Memorial in Texas.

HOUSTON, Tex.—I saw some of our friends in Galveston last week. They report that six men out of seven sign the petition with pleasure, and they, too, are very confident of getting the signatures of a majority of the voters in that county. Mr. Thomas [Flarin?], who, with Mr. Herman Kuhn, was for years almost the only George man in the city, says that the great majority of people whom he meets with are now in favor of tax reform as expressed in that memorial, and that he himself is no longer regarded as an incorrigible crank by all his friends and acquaintances.

H. F. RING.

A May Day Song.

New York World.

’Tis the voice of the tenant, I hear him complain: The landlord is raising My rental again.

How Federal Taxes Have Been Reduced.

From Congressman Mills’s Speech.

After congress had so largely increased the duties on imports, and thus bestowed most liberal and generous bounties on our manufacturers, a light internal revenue tax was imposed on the products of domestic manufacture to help the government meet the heavy demands of war. The internal tax imposed on home manufactures was but a tithe of the heavy burden imposed on the people by the increased duties on foreign goods. It brought to the treasury in 1866 $127,000,000—a sum which was less than five per cent upon the value of the manufactured product of that year. It was thought not to be unreasonable to require this small contribution from those whose bounty congress had increased from eighteen to forty per cent in the price of their products. But that tax is gone. As soon as the war was ended complaint was made that this was a war tax, that it was no longer necessary, and it was repealed. . . . Was the tax of three per cent on the domestic blanket paid by the manufacturer more oppressive then than the tax of seventy-nine per cent on both foreign and domestic blankets paid by the people? Was the tax of three per cent on a wool hat paid by the manufacturer more oppressive than the tax of seventy-three per cent on both paid by the consumer? Was the tax of three per cent on women’s and children’s clothing paid by the manufacturer more oppressive than the tax of eighty-two per cent on both foreign and domestic goods of the same kind paid by the consumer? Was a tax of three per cent on railroad companies, banking companies, insurance companies, express and telegraph companies more oppressive than an eighty-eight per cent tax on woolen shawls? Was a three per cent tax on incomes more oppressive than an eighty per cent tax on a woolen shirt? The party then in power certainly thought so, for the taxes on wealth are gone, but the war tax on clothing, the war tax on food, the war tax on the implements of labor still remain with us, and the war against our prosperity, our labor and our commerce is still being vigorously prosecuted.

Truth and Humbug Mingled.

Boston Globe.

The Cunard steamer Cephalonia, which arrived in this port yesterday, brought a human freight of 1,099 souls! All but seventy-four of these were steerage passengers, most of them seeking labor and liberty in this land of the free.

Think of it! A single steamer bringing to Boston more than a thousand recruits for the great army of labor!

Well, thank fortune, there is room enough in this boundless land of fertility for all the good, honest, industrious men and women that may come. For each of them adds more to the total production of the country than he or she consumes.

But with ship loads of European labor coming in upon us, what effect can any tariff have in “protecting” American labor against European labor?

Why the “Tribune” Expects to Carry Kentucky.

New York Tribune.

Kentucky has over twenty pauper counties, an empty treasury, a common school system that would be a disgrace to any northern or western state, on account of a want of funds to carry it on properly. The democratic majority has been falling off steadily for several years. The republicans have gained three members of congress and five or six districts are doubtful; the workingmen are justly indignant at the disgraceful ending of the Thoebe-Carlisle contested election case, and the people generally are crying for a change. Taking all this into consideration, would anybody be surprised to see Kentucky break away from the solid south and give a republican majority this fall?

Ask Any Man Who Visits Europe How Much Clothing He Takes There, and How Much He Swears Through the Custom House When He Comes Back.

New York Press.

It will take a good many pages of the Congressional Record to sustain Mr. Mills’s grotesque position that clothing worn by the masses in this country is one hundred per cent higher than it is in England. The Press has pricked this free trade bubble long ago and not a free trade organ dare dispute our position. We have the facts and figures and we’ve got the clothing too. And upon this one point binged the whole free trade argument against the tariff.

p. 8, col. 4

What the Young Man Who Follows Horace Greeley’s Advice Must Now Expect.

The Union Pacific Employes’ Magazine, in its last issue, says:

There is a movement on foot among real estate owners of Colorado to get up a grand immigration boom. It is the intention to flood eastern and European cities with circulars advertising Colorado. Every inducement will be given to encourage people to pack up and come west. While the principle^sic object of this is to get persons to settle on land, it is also to bring thousands of laboring men west to seek employment. Grand statements will be made regarding the demand for labor and the high rate of wages paid. This will cause many who do not stop to investigate to move with their families. This causes a demand for houses, for you cannot live out of doors here any more than in the east. This will give the real estate holders a chance to reap a harvest out of the high rents they can demand and get, for they will be forced up to enormous rates. They’re high now.

We wish to inform our eastern friends that there are thousands of men in Colorado and other western states now out of work; that most of the land is held by speculators who are desirous of realizing. This boom is being aided by large employers of labor to force wages that now are far too low, considering the cost of living, still lower.

The only thought in rushing immigration is gain to those who are booming it. They never have a thought of the suffering and misery they too often cause. They unload their holdings and reap a harvest. When the reaction comes, and it always does come, they reap another harvest from the disaster they have caused. Let no flaming advertisement throw you off your guard; plenty of those who have been can be seen on the streets of Denver and other western cities every day, disappointed in not finding remunerative employment, having spent all the money they had, they offer their services for a crust of bread to eat.

Remember that wages are not high in the west, that places do not go begging, that there are thousands of men seeking work, and that what they receive is below that paid in the east, when the cost of living is taken into consideration. A word to the wise is sufficient.

Four young men of Taunton ask the Boston Globe if Colorado or California would be good places for young men willing to work for a living to go to. To which the Globe replies:

In either California or Colorado there are good opportunities for energetic and careful young men who have learned useful trades, or who are possessed of capital; but we are of the opinion that even these chances are not more numerous in proportion to the population, nor more promising in any way, than similar opportunities in the east.

As for young men who have only their labor to sell, without capital, we believe their chances in Massachusetts are better than in either Colorado or California. The chief money making business in the far western states is the business, if such it can be called, of owning land. In every community it is the land owners who are the rich men, and in most cases it is the ownership of land that has made them wealthy. Some years ago land could be acquired without much outlay, but there is very little desirable land to be had now except by paying a good round price for it. Thus the business of getting rich out of a rise of land values is closed except to those who possess capital.

Government land may still be taken up in theory, by actual settlers, without charge; but it is very difficult to find land worth anything that is not already reduced to private ownership. And when agricultural land has been secured it is doubtful if the advantages to the actual farmer are great enough to compensate him for the expense of getting it, and his far removal from markets.

Reasons For It Given by Its Texas Advocates.

The memorial to the Texas legislature urging the submission of a constitutional amendment exempting personal property and improvements from taxation and declaring that taxes shall be levied on land values only, gives the following reasons for the amendment:

First.—That its adoption, while increasing the tax on vacant lands held for speculative purposes, would result in reducing taxes on farms and homesteads from twenty-five to seventy-five per cent, without in any way increasing the burden of indirect taxation.

Second.—It is claimed that farmers, merchants, mechanics and manufacturers ought not to be compelled to pay for the privilege of using land and thereby enhancing the prosperity of a community, from two to five times as much in taxes as land speculators and monopolists are required to pay for the privilege of withholding land of equal value from us, and thereby retarding the progress of a community. It is urged in this connection that the farmer, merchant, mechanic or manufacturer, by placing a house or a factory on land or by otherwise improving it, adds greatly to the value of the vacant land adjoining, held for speculative purposes; but who gets the benefit of this unearned increment, the worker or the idler? Does the owner of the land hurt any one by improving it and giving employment to labor upon it? If not, why should he be fined for it by having his taxes increased? If any one is to be fined by an increase of taxation, why should it not be the dog in the manger, who will neither use his land nor let others use it?

Third.—It is claimed that he who is willing to create a demand for labor by opening up a farm, a coal bed, a mineral deposit, or by putting a residence or factory on land, ought not to be fined for his enterprise by the levying of a tax exceeding in amount that paid by the speculator and forestaller, who is holding adjoining vacant lands and lots, and unused mineral deposits of equal value in idleness for the purpose of drawing to himself an unearned increment produced by the common energy and enterprise of the entire community.

Fourth.—It is claimed that the value which land has, exclusive of improvements on it, results from the presence of population, that it increases with the increase of population and is produced by the common energy and enterprise of all, and that hence a tax on these values simply enables the community to appropriate for the good of all a portion of the values which have been produced by all.

Fifth.—It is claimed that the adoption of this amendment would render investments in the bounties of nature for the purpose of forestalling capital and labor LESS inviting and LESS profitable, while the exemption from taxation of buildings, tools, machinery and all product of industry, would make investments in productive enterprises giving employment to capital and labor, MORE inviting and MORE profitable, whereby business would be stimulated, a greater demand for labor induced, and the general prosperity and happiness of all the people vastly enhanced.

To Lessen the Dangers of the Sea.

A German sailor has invented an oil rocket, to be used at sea. The invention consists of the rocket proper and an oil cylinder with an exploding chamber. The cylinder is of thin tin, soldered at bottom and top, and the exploding chamber is also made of tin and has a hollow tube, reaching into the center of the oil cylinder, filled with powder. The rocket may be exploded under water and the oil will rise to the surface.

Interesting experiments have been made proving the practical value of the invention. In November last, on a voyage of the Werra from this port to Bremen, a rocket with an oil cylinder four inches high, was fired at an angle of thirty degrees. It went 1,000 feet in front of the vessel and the cylinder exploded at a height of twenty feet above the water. The oil was distributed over an area of about two thousand square feet. Another rocket, a five-inch cylinder, was fired at an elevation of fifteen degrees in order to make it explode

p. 8, col. 5 under water. The oil rose promptly to the surface and was distributed over a wide area. The rolling of the sea quieted down.

Figure This Out.

From Congressman Mills’s Speech.

Suppose a laborer who is earning a dollar a day by his work finds a suit of woolen clothes that he can buy for $10 without the tariff tax, then the suit of clothes can be procured for ten days’ work; but the manufacturer comes to congress and says, “I must be protected against the man buying this cheap suit of clothes,” and congress protects him by putting a duty of 100 per cent, or $10 more. Now it will require the laborer to work twenty days to get his suit of clothes. Now tell me if ten days of his labor have not been annihilated? Has he not been required to work twice as long under the tariff as he would have done without to obtain his suit of clothes?

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made.

Springfield Republican.

A boy in a city near Boston, in an oral examination, was asked to tell what he could about the human body, and this is what he said:

“The human body is composed of three parts—the head, which contains the brains; the thorax, which contains the heart, lungs and stomach, and the abdomen, which contains the bowels, and these are a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w and y.”

Standing Up to Be Counted.

Birmingham, Ala., Age.

It is very easy for a man to be brave when it comes to nominating himself for office.