business well-being upon the maintenance and expansion of our export trade." This is not true; for the statistics of our last census show that our total of manufactured exports constitute in value not more than 5.15 per cent of the net domestic production; and when we compare the value of our entire export trade, covering natural and manufactured products, with what we sell and consume at home, the former cuts but a small figure. While we concede the relative importance of our export trade, and favor getting more of it if it can be obtained by sound economic methods and without sacrificing any domestic interest, there is no sufficient reason for giving it undue prominence; for it is a fact, as has often been proved, that foreign trade is no real test of a nation's prosperity and that the home market is, and must continue to be, the chief reliance of the vastly greater number of our producers. There is the further fact that only a fraction of our 76,000,000 people are directly or vitally interested in export trade in manufactures; and of our 512,585 manufacturing establishments (only those having an annual product in excess of $500 being included in this total) it is safe to say that only a comparatively limited number are so interested.

Again, the Herald says that "the prohibitory schedules of the tariff prevent foreign competition in the home market except in extreme cases." This statement is as untrue as the other; for in the last fiscal

year we imported manufactured goods from Europe to the value of $267,594,471, while the value of manufactured goods we exported to Europe was $31,000,000 less. Certain it is that Europe has little reason to complain of our "onerous tariff restrictions," when she has so much the best of the trade exchange in manufactures. We do not doubt that foreign producers would be duly grateful for greater privileges in our home market, but this favor would not deter them from continuing their efforts to supply their own markets. Every concession we should make to them would only serve to strengthen their industrial position and to weaken our own.

The most pernicious of the schemes that threatens the integrity of the protective policy is that formulated by certain producing interests that need no protection, or think they don't, to extend their trade abroad at the expense of other interests that have and still need protection. It requires little reflection to realize that this scheme is grossly unfair, not to say iniquitous. No person can be so mentally obtuse as not to see that a proposition to injure or destroy your neighbor's industry to benefit your own is immoral and indefensible. If by building up industries for ourselves we diminish the prosperity of similar industries in other countries our course is perfectly justifiable on ethical grounds, for no nation has a right to sacrifice the welfare of its own people to benefit another; but the case is essentially

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different with industries within the country, where all are entitled to an equal measure of protection from spoliation. No sound reasons be urged in behalf of the scheme to promote export interests by withdrawing protection from other interests; and it is an indisputable fact that it is to the protective policy that the nation owes its present ability to export manufactures. The exporting interests appear to be doing well enough under present conditions; and their notion that our export trade would be greatly increased under a lower tariff is controverted by all the former experience of this country under low tariffs, and also by the experience of other protective nations which have tried the experiment with unfavorable results. They should further consider that the outcome of their efforts to break down other people's prosperity may be to endanger their own as well.

There are some lessons that we have learned from our national experience under a protective policy that should never be forgotten, and though they seem familiar enough they need to be often repeated: That home production and consumption are the primal sources of prosperity; that the home market is the most valuable market that any country can possess; that exports of raw materials to be manufactured abroad and returned as finished products, or the large importation of articles that we can manufacture ourselves, involve an unnecessary expenditure of money and energy; that to diversify

industry is to increase employment and enhance wages; that it is labor, more than all else, that needs continued protection, that it may not be reduced to the lowest level of any civilized country-a level incompatible with a standard of comfortable living; that the interests of all classes of people are promoted by maintaining through steady and well-paid employment the purchasing power of the masses; and that the greatest industrial and commercial progress has been made under high or adequate tariff duties, while, as all must know, industrial growth and prosperity have been seriously retarded by making the tariff wall too low. These results are striking proofs of the economic value and soundness of the protective principle, and we should not abandon it for a policy that has proved wholly inexpedient in this country.

That there may be some need of tariff revision is generally admitted; but if there is any real urgency for a partial readjustment of tariff rates at this time this can best and more safely be accomplished through the agency of a competent tariff commission, which, by giving its entire time to the subject and by diligent investigation of the details involved, can arrive at a result more satisfactory to the general industrial interests of the country, and with much less of disturbance to business, than can be gained by special measures like that of Mr. Babcock or by commercial treaties like those negotiated by Mr. Kasson, or by precipitating a general

tariff upheaval in Congress when no extended or radical changes are demanded. An old-time protection writer forcibly said, and it is as pertinent to-day: "The principle of protection is a broad and general one, applicable to all American products, and its proper application to each product and industry requires, not piecemeal haphazard action, such as comes from bills for special interests, but comprehensive consideration of the entire industrial field, so that the operation of the beneficent system may be fairly and wisely adjusted."

The present attacks on our protective system, though they may be ineffective to secure immediate tariff changes, may nevertheless result in serious disturbance to business and a consequent decline in the present universal prosperity; but if, in the course of the next three or four years, the free traders and "tariff reformers" are allowed to carry out their plans the country may be subjected once more to a repetition of the destructive experiences that followed the tariff agitation and legislation of 1894. If this should be the outcome, it is certain that after paying the inevitable penalty for this folly the country would as surely return to the policy of protection as it has done several times before. This has likewise been the experience of all other countries that have a protective system: protectionist reactions have invariably succeeded periods of low tariffs. The fixed purpose of the leading nations of continental Europe to maintain and

strengthen their protective system makes it all the more necessary for the United States to pursue the same course unless we are to take a secondary place among the industrial nations of the world. As the commerce and industry of the country have become well adjusted to the present tariff, to abandon it now for a fiscal policy that is radically different, if not altogether experimental, would be to exchange a haven of security for a "sea of troubles."

IN 1899 Mr. Bayard Cutting published a statement showing that the beet sugar manufacturers could succeed even without protection. He based his whole calculations upon the price of sugar under the McKinley law. Even with sugar on the free list, the price was over 4 cents a pound. Of course he did not foresee that in 1902, under possible free trade, with improved methods of production and the European bounty, sugar would be less than 3 cents a pound, which would necessarily destroy the whole basis of the calculation. Notwithstanding that the conditions had so changed as to destroy the basis of the entire calculation and make it obvious that what

Mr. Cutting showed would be profitable in 1899 would be ruinous in 1902, the New York Evening Post published the article as having full reference to conditions to-day, and that has been printed and reprinted and circulated by the millions, when it has no more relation to present conditions than the price of cotton cloth has to-day to the price of raw cotton in 1865.-Gunton's Magazine.

WHENEVER Americans have struggled too eagerly for foreign trade they have sacrificed a profitable home trade, and at the same time have failed to increase their external trade.-Colorado Springs Gazette.

Great Britain, after half a century of experience with what is generally denominated as free trade, shows a strong inclination to return to some degree of protectionism.

A brief review of the experience of foreign countries under a protect ive policy will show that those nations which have encouraged domestic production by protective laws and diversified their industries have become the most prosperous commercial nations. Even England is not to be accounted an exception, for she maintained a protective policy for nearly three hundred years before she adopted free trade, and she would not then have abandoned this system if protection had been as strongly intrenched in other countries as it is to-day.

Prior to 1868 Germany had sustained an inadequate system of protection for a long period. From

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1868 to 1877 she had practically a free trade policy; frequent tariff changes being made in the intervening years and always in the direction of lower duties. It is said that there not the slightest occasion for this change of economic policy, and that "it was pressed to a successful issue by men inexperienced in business and dogmatic and speculative reasoners." But a protectionist reaction set in which swept away every vestige of free trade and gave the German people a more vigorous protection than they had ever enjoyed. It is obvious that this return to the protective policy would not have been accomplished if the country had been thriving under a revenue tariff. On the contrary, when this tariff was in force there was the same industrial and commercial depression as was experienced in this country under the Wilson tariff. In 1885 Bismarck was able to point to definite results which had followed the return to protection, in the revival of business and the expansion of industries. However, protection has been successful in Germany to a less extent than in the United States, because she has found it necessary to import so large a proportion of her raw materials for manufacturing purposes, and also because of her inability to produce all of the food sup

plies required for domestic consumption. But we can readily see that the material condition of the German people would have been incomparably worse under a free trade policy, and that the industrial and commercial advantages which Germany now enjoys are due to the policy of protection. We have seen that under this policy Germany has not only been able to supply the needs of her home market in most kinds of manufactured goods, but has been able to force into foreign markets many articles of the same description she formerly purchased from other countries.

Protection in France made little progress until after the Napoleonic wars. It has been said that the development of France since that time has been without parallel in any continental country. Her manufacturing has been extended to every branch of production. The agricultural resources of the country have been so fully developed that every foot of arable soil is cultivated like a garden. Under a favorable trade balance there has been a vast accumulation of treasure, so that today we find the wealth of France es timated at $50,000,000,000-eight billions more than Germany and only ten billions less than the United Kingdom. It is beyond all controversy that these results could never have been accomplished under a free trade policy.

In Italy the development of industries has been most difficult, as may be inferred from the fact that

the tariff of that country is only nominally protective and is chiefly imposed for the specific purpose of raising revenue. The inefficiency of a tariff to promote industrial development when it is only incidentally protective is well illustrated in Italy, but considering the adverse circumstances her productive capacity shows steady improvement and her labor conditions are much better than formerly.

Although Austria had maintained protective customs laws since 1780, she was induced in 1853 to enter into a commercial treaty with Prussia (through British influence, it is said), with the usual detrimental results to her trade and industries. By the terms of this treaty Great Britain shared with Prussia in the benefits. In 1882 all protective duties were restored, and since that time whatever tariff changes have been made are on the line of increased duties. Under protection Austria-Hungary now produce nearly one hundred important manufactured articles, and in some parts of the empire wages have doubled in the last thirty years.

Until 1844 Belgium was a free trade country. At that time her industries had been almost ruined by the ever-increasing influx of British goods. Then she adopted protection; and in 1861 a Belgian writer said: "As a consequence, production, except of articles of food, has outrun the needs of population, although it has increased in numbers and wealth, and we are obliged to seek foreign outlets." Now it is said that Bel