resources, and intelligence, and energy of its people have counted for little. 2d. "The effect of this competition," he continues, “has been to reduce the world's prices in the product of those industries according to the well-known laws of competition." Here again I fail to find any warrant for this assertion. Whatever of influence the United States has exerted in reducing the world's prices—and it has not been inconsiderable - has been mainly through the invention and application of machinery and processes, like the sewing-machine, agricultural implements, vulcanization of India rubber, discovery and utilization of petroleum, and the like, none of which can be fairly attributable in any degree to tariff influence. On the contrary the influence of the protective policy from the first has been to locally counteract and neutralize world-wide influences tending to a reduction of prices. Take in illustration a single example. What did Bessemer effect through his invention? He did not make any better steel than was made before; but he found out a way of making a great economic material cheap, which was before dear; and the protective policy of the United States has been from the very first to neutralize its one great accruing benefit, namely, cheapness; and has been so successful that Bessemer steel, from the day of its discovery and introduction, has cost more in the United States than in any other country of the world, allowance being made for differences in the cost of transportation. That the protective policy has benefited certain industries and greatly enriched many individuals is not disputed; but there is a good deal of evidence that its general influence has been in a high degree destructive. One illustration again may be cited. For many years the Federal Government has levied and collected a tax on the import of crude or partially manufactured materials imported solely for use in American manufactures, of about $40,000,000 per annum. Forty millions is ten per cent. on four hundred millions of product into which these imported materials enter, and burdened with such an increase of cost, not one dollar's worth of this larger product can be sold in the world's markets in competition with the similar products of foreign manufactures, which are not burdened with such taxation.

In his more specific arguments in defence of the protective policy, Mr. Lodge has been no more fortunate. For the

purpose of disproving the assertion "made by the advocates of free trade" that the effect of an increase of the tariff is to increase the prices of the products affected, and of demonstrating the truth of what has almost come to be a protectionist axiom, "the higher the tax the lower the price,' he prints a long list of "well-known American cotton fabrics to which the McKinley tariff gave additional protection by materially advancing the duties on the importation of similar competing (foreign) products; and which domestic fabrics have nevertheless been regularly afforded to American consumers at a considerably lower price than before the additional protection was granted. Among the staple fabrics thus enumerated, and which serve as a sample of the whole, were the following: "Our Reliance," "Pride of the West, "Pocahontas," "Sagamore C," "Utica Steam Nonpareil, "Wauregan, 1003," "Wauregan Combine." That all of these goods have fallen in price since the passage of the McKinley tariff is not to be disputed. But Mr. Lodge apparently does not know, or if he did, does not tell his readers, that while these cotton fabrics have fallen during the past year an average of 6.4 per cent., the price of the raw material (cotton) which makes up an average of about half their cost, has fallen twenty-seven per cent.; and furthermore that not a piece of goods similar to those he specifies has been imported into the country for at least ten years; but on the contrary, the very brands mentioned have been largely exported, not only to Asiatic but also to European markets. The decline in the price of sugar is also referred to by Mr. Lodge as evidence that the McKinley tariff has not increased domestic prices when everybody knows that the reduction we question was due to the removal of the cause that had previously made sugar high, namely protective duties.

The further presentation by Mr. Lodge of a lengthy list of new industrial establishments that have come into existence since the enactment of the McKinley tariff, as an evidence of its marked beneficial influence, seems almost puerile. For what are the facts. The population of the United States is increasing at the rate of a million and a half every year. To provide this additional number with the mere necessities of life, to say nothing of their luxuries, requires that many new establishments should come into existence each and every year, in all parts of the country; and if Mr. Lodge's

list did not admit of being multiplied by fifty the fair deduction would be that the country industrially was retrograding rather than advancing. Furthermore, I assert, that neither Mr. Lodge, or any other person, can name one industry, or one industrial establishment that has come into existence in this country in consequence of the enactment of the McKinley tariff, in which the expectation of obtaining, through increased taxes or trade restrictions, a higher range of prices on the things to be produced, was not the sole reason prompting to such action. In fact it needs but very little thinking to make this conclusion evident to the most dull of comprehension.

There is a unison of sentiment among all true Americans of the desirabilty of fostering and of protecting our own industries. But the trouble with Mr. Lodge, Mr. McKinley, and the other advocates of a restrictive trade or commercial policy, is that they seem to have no clear idea of what industry is. Industry consists of two factors, or there are two essential elements in it. One is production in the sense of drawing out (pro duce, to lead forth) materials or products from natural resources, and the other is exchanging or selling the things produced or drawn out. And industry can no more get along without both factors, than a man can get along with only one leg. For example, if a farmer grows (draws out from the soil and air) 10,000 bushels of corn, and only needs 1,000 bushels for himself, family, and animals, and cannot exchange or sell the other 9,000, the surplus really represents no industrial result, and he might as well have not raised it. He can eat corn, burn it for fuel, convert it into pork or beef, and make whiskey of it. But he cannot clothe himself with corn husks, plow with a corn stalk, wear corn shoes, and the like. To get these other things -to prevent an over-production of naturally useful things - he must sell or exchange his surplus 9,000 bushels; and he must be stupid who does not see that the greater facilities afforded him for exchange, such as good roads, bridges, horses and wagons, cheap and swift railroads and steamships, low tolls, freight and taxes, the greater will be the opportunity for exchange and trade to advantage. On the other hand, poor roads, unbridged streams, few or no railroads and steamships, and high tolls, freights, and taxes, all tend to restrict or destroy trade, and the opportunity for the farmer to

-

sell his 9,000 bushels of corn to advantage. A twenty per cent. tariff tax may be fairly considered as the representative of a bad road; a fifty per cent. of a broad river without proper facilities for crossing; a seventy-five per cent. of a swamp bordering such river on both sides; a hundred per cent. duty, such as is levied on blankets, window glass, cotton-ties, and the like, can only be properly compared to a band of robbers, who strip the producer of nearly all he takes to market and make him thankful that he has escaped with his life. In short, there has never been a case in all human experience when the removal of restrictions- natural or legislative on trade did not result in the extension of trade to the mutual advantage of the great majority of the people concerned; and on the other hand there has never been a case where trade has been restricted by mountains, seas, bad roads, tolls, or tariff taxes, in which trade has not decreased, or not developed, to the great disadvantage of the great majority. The man who can get a law passed that will enable him to tax trade or exchange always sees an advantage to himself in the restrictive trade that will result. So also does his brother-in-law who sits behind a bush on the road, with a gun, and says to the farmer who has sold his 9,000 bushels of corn, "You can't pass unless you give me a big part of what me a big part of what you received for it in exchange.' Carry out logically and to the fullest extent the views of Messrs. Lodge and McKinley about industry, and you would have every man trying to produce a good deal and sell as little as possible.

THE WOES OF THE NEW YORK WORKING-GIRL.

BY EDGAR FAWCETT.

IT is not long ago since I stood within the reception-room of a well-known lodging-house for working-girls, only a few hundred yards from what one might call the ugly sanctity of Cooper Union. I had brought a letter to the lady in charge of the establishment, and a sweet-mannered proprietress I found her, with a smile that some sculptor might profitably have stolen for a statue of Benevolence, and with eyes that must have beamed like stars of hope to many a wayfarer whose feet had paused at her threshold. She treated me almost as hospitably as I am sure she always treats the poor waifs that seek her welcome. She scarcely glanced at the letter I had brought her; it was enough that I had come to see and learn about the lodging-house, dear and tender home of mercy which it is. I was shown the clean though plain chambers where the girls ate and slept, the laundry where they washed and ironed, the dressmaking department where they did their hand-sewing, machine-sewing, and (if capable of labor in this line, more skilled than that of certain less apt sisters) their cutting out and fitting on of garments for the feminine customers who patronized them. I learned that the "home" was nearly always crowded, and could not accommodate more than fifty girls; that many had to be turned away from lack of room in the dormitories and dining-halls; that order and discipline prevailed here as the sane and wholesome consorts of compassion and help; that a chance for securing some sort of employment was held out to all who could be received, but that no recommendations were ever given except after a very long trial; and that while expulsion would only result from a defiance of rules, those rules meant in all cases a faithful adherence to work.

I went away from this peaceful and thrifty asylum with the sense that it was indeed a charming protest against that reckless and wholesale cynicism through which the professional pessimist would too often attack society; and I was