OREGON-Binger Hermann-1. RHODE ISLAND-Oscar Lapham, Charles H. SOUTH CAROLINA— William H. Brawley, TENNESSEE-Alfred A. Taylor, John C. Houk, Buckley Kilgore, David B. Culberson, Joseph VIRGINIA-William A. Jones, John W. Law- WISCONSIN-Clinton Babbitt, Charles Barwig, List of Delegates. ARIZONA-Marcus A. Smith—I. Changes from the Previous Session. CALIFORNIA-Mr. Hilborn succeeded Mr. McKenna, appointed U. S. Circuit Judge. NEW YORK-Vacancy caused by the resignation November 10, 1892, of Hon. Alfred C. Chapin. SOUTH CAROLINA—Mr. McLaurin succeeded Hon. Eli T. Stackhouse, died June 14, 1892. PRESIDENT HARRISON'S CABINET. Secretary of State-JOHN W. FOSTER, of Indiana.* * He retired from office February 23, 1893, to take part in the international tribunal at Paris to arbitrate the Bering Sea dispute between the United States and Great Britain, II. PRESIDENT HARRISON'S FOURTH ANNUAL MESSAGE, DECEMBER 6, 1892. To the Senate and House of Representatives: In submitting my annual message to Congress, I have great satisfaction in being able to say that the general conditions affecting the commercial and industrial interests of the United States are in the highest degree favorable. A comparison of the existing conditions with those of the most favored period in the history of the country will, I believe, show that so high a degree of prosperity and so general a diffusion of the comforts of life were never before enjoyed by our people. The total wealth of the country in 1860 was $16,159,616,068. In 1890 it amounted to $62,610,000,000, an increase of 287 per cent. The total mileage of railways in the United States in 1860 was 30,626; in 1890 it was 167,741, an increase of 448 per cent.; and it is esti mated that there will be about 4,000 miles of track added by the close of the year 1892. The official returns of the Eleventh Census and those of the Tenth Census for seventy-five leading cities furnish the basis for the following comparisons : In 1880 the capital invested in manufacturing was $1,232,839,670. In 1890 the capital invested in manufacturing was $2,900,735,884. In 1880 the number of employés was 1,301,388. In 1890 the number of employés was 2,251,134. In 1880 the wages earned were $501,965,778. In 1890 the wages earned were $1,221,170,454. In 1880 the value of the product was $2,711,579,899. In 1890 the value of the product was $4,860,286, 837. I am informed by the Superintendent of the Census that the omission of certain industries in 1880, which were included in 1890, account in part for the remarkable increase thus shown. But, after making full allowance for differences of method and deducting the returns for all industries not included in the census of 1880, there remains in the reports from these seventyfive cities an increase in the capital employed of $1,522,745,604; in the value of the product of $2,024,236,166; in wages earned of $677,943,929, and in the number of wage-earners employed of 856,029. The wage earnings not only show an increased aggregate, but an increase per capita from $386 in 1880 to $547 in 1890, or 41.71 per cent. The new industrial plants established since October 6, 1890, and up to October 22, 1892, as partially reported in the American Economist, number 345, and the extension of existing plants, 108; the new capital invested amounts to $40,449,050, and the number of additional employés to 37,285. The Textile World for July, 1892, states that during the first six months of the present calendar year 135 new factories were built, of which 40 are cotton mills, 48 knitting mills, 26 woolen mills, 15 silk mills, 4 plush mills and 2 linen mills. Of the 40 cotton mills 21 have been built in the Southern States. Mr. A. B. Shepperson, of the New York Cotton Exchange, estimates the number of working spindles in the United States on September 1, 1892, at 15,200,ooo, an increase of 660,000 over the year 1891. The consumption of cotton by American mills in 1891 was 2,396,000 bales. and in 1892 2,584,000 bales, an increase of 188,000 bales. From the year 1869 to 1892 inclusive, there has been an increase in the consumption of cotton in Europe of 92 per cent, while during the same period the increased consumption in the United States has been about 150 per cent. The report of Ira Ayer, special agent of the Treasury Department, shows that at the date of September 30, 1892, there were 32 companies manufacturing tin and terne plate in the United States and 14 companies building new works for such manufacture. The estimated investment in buildings and plants at the close of the fiscal year, June 30, 1893, if existing conditions were to be continued, was $5,000,000, and the estimated rate of production 200,000,000 pounds per annum. The actual production for the quarter ending September 30, 1892, was 10,952,725 pounds. The report of Labor Commissioner Peck, of New York, shows that during the year 1891, in about 6,000 manufacturing establishments in that State embraced within the special inquiry made by him, and representing 67 different industries, there was a net increase over the year 1890 of $31,315,130.68 in the value of the product, and of $6,377,925.09 in the amount of wages paid. The report of the commissioner of labor for the State of Massachusetts shows that 3,745 industries in that State_paid $129,416,248 in wages during the year 1891, against $126,030,303 in 1890, an increase of $3,335,945, and that there was an increase of $9,932,490 in the amount of capital and of 7,346 in the number of persons employed in the same period. During the last six months of the year 1891 and the first six months of 1892 the total production of pig iron was 9,710,819 tons, as against 9,202,703 tons in the year 1890, which was the largest annual production ever attained. For the same twelve months of 1891-92 the production of Bessemer ingots was 3,878,581 tons, an increase of 189.710 gross tons over the previously unprecedented yearly production of 3,688.871 gross tons in 1890. The production of Bessemer steel rails for the first six months of 1892 was 772,436 gross tons, as against 702,080 gross tons during the last six months of the year 1891. The total value of our foreign trade (exports and imports of merchandise) during the last fiscal year was $1,857,680,610. an increase of $128,283,604 over the previous fiscal year. The average annual value of our imports and exports of merchandise for the ten fiscal years prior to 1891 was $1,457,322,019. It will be observed that our foreign trade for 1892 exceeded this annual average by $400,358,591, an increase of 27.47 per cent The significance and value of this increase are shown by the fact that the excess in the trade of 1892 over 1891 was wholly in the value of exports, for there was a a decrease in the value of imports of $17,513,754. 1890, an increase of 921 per cent. In 1891 the amount of deposits in savings banks was $1,623,079,749. It is estimated that 90 per cent of these deposits represent the savings of wageearners. The bank clearances for nine months ending September 30, 1891, amounted to $41,049,390,808. For the same months in 1892 they amounted to $45,189,601,947, an excess for the nine months of $4,140,211,139. There never has been a time in our history when work was so abunciant or when wages were as high, whether measured by the currency in which they were paid or by their power to supply the necessaries and comforts of life. It is true The value of our exports during the fiscal year 1892 reached the highest figure in the his-that the market prices of cotton and wheat have tory of the Government, amounting to $1,030,278,148, exceeding by $145,797,338 the exports of 1891 and exceeding the value of the imporis by $202,875,686. A comparison of the value of our exports for 1892 with the annual average for the ten years prior to 1891 shows an excess of $265,142,651 or of 34 65 per cent. The value of our imports of merchandise for 1892, which was $829,402,462, also exceeded the annual average value of the ten years prior to 1891 by $135,215.940. During the fiscal year 1892 the value of imports free of duty amounted to $457,999,658, the largest aggregate in the history of our commerce. The value of the imports of merchandise entered free of duty in 1892 was 55.35 per cent of the total value of imports, as compared with 43.35 per cent in 1891 and 33.66 per cent. in 1890. A In our coastwise trade a most encouraging development is in progress, there having been in the last four years an increase of 16 per cent. In internal commerce the statistics show that no such period of prosperity has ever before existed. The freight carried in the coastwise trade of the Great Lakes in 1890 aggregated 28,295,959 tons. On the Mississippi, Missouri and Ohio Rivers and tributaries in the same year the traffic aggregated 29,405,046 tons, and the total vessel tonnage passing through the Detroit River during that year was 21,684,000 tons. The vessel tonnage entered and cleared in the foreign trade of London during 1890 amounted to 13,480,767 tons, and of Liverpool 10,941,800 tons, a total for these two great shipping ports of 24,422,568 tons, only slightly in excess of the vessel tonnage passing through the Detroit River. And it should be said that the season for the Detroit River was but 228 days, while, of course, in London and Liverpool the season was for the entire year The vessel tonnage passing through the St. Mary's Canal for the fiscal year 1892 amounted to 9,828,874 tons, and the freight tonnage of the Detroit River is estimated for that year at 25,000,000 tons, against 23,209,619 tons in 1891. The aggregate traffic on our railroads for the year 1891 amounted to 704,398,609 tons of freight, compared with 691,344,437 tons in 1890, an increase of 13,054,172 tons. Another indication of the general prosperity of the country is found in the fact that the number of depositors in savings banks increased from 693,870 in 1860 to 4,258,893 in 1890, an increase of 513 per cent., and the amount of deposits from $149,277,504 in 1860 to $1.524,844.506 in been low. It is one of the unfavorable incidents of agriculture that the farmer can not produce upon orders. He must sow and reap in ignorance of the aggregate production of the year, and is peculiarly subject to the depreciation which follows overproduction. But, while the fact I have stated is true as to the crops mentioned, the general average of prices has been such as as to give agriculture a fair participation in the general prosperity. The value of our total farm products has increased from $1,363,646,866 in 1860 to $4,500,000,000 in 1891, as estimated by statisticians, an increase of 230 per cent. The number of hogs January 1st, 1891, was 50,625,106 and their value $210,193,925; on January 1, 1892, the number was 52,398,019 and the value $241.031,415. On January 1, 1891, the number of cattle was 36,875,648 and the value $544,127,908; on January 1, 1892, the number was 37,651,239 and the value $570,749.155. If any are discontented with their state here; if any believe that wages or prices, the returns for honest toil, are inadequate, they should not fail to remember that there is no other country in the world where the conditions that seem to them hard would not be accepted as highly prosperous. The English agriculturist would be glad to exchange the returns of his labor for those of the American farmer, and the Manchester workmen their wages for those of their fellows at Fall River. I believe that the protective system, which has now for something more than thirty years continuously prevailed in our legislation, has been a mighty instrument for the development of our national wealth and a most powerful agency in protecting the homes of our workingmen from the invasion of want. I have felt a most solicitous interest to preserve to our working people rates of wages that would not only give daily bread, but supply a comfortable margin for those home attractions and family comforts and enjoyments without which life is neither hopeful nor sweet. They are American citizens-a part of the great people for whom our Constitution and Government were framed and instituted--and it can not be a perversion of that Constitution to so legislate as to preserve in their homes the comfort, independence, loyalty, and sense of interest in the Government which are essential to good citizenship in peace, and which will bring this stalwart throng, as in 1861, to the defense of the flag when it is assailed. It is not my purpose to renew here the argu ment in favor of a protective tariff. The result | diminished confidence in the principles they of the recent election must be accepted as having have advocated, will await the results of the new introduced a new policy. We must assume, that experiment. the present tariff, constructed upon the lines of The strained and too often disturbed relations protection, is to be repealed, and that there is to existing between the employés and the employbe substituted for it a tariff law constructed ers in our great manufacturing establishments solely with reference to revenue; that no duty have not been favorable to a calm consideration is to be higher because the increase will keep by the wage-earner of the effect upon wages of open an American mill or keep up the wages the protective system. The facts that his wages of an American workman, but that in every case were the highest paid in like callings in the such a rate of duty is to be imposed as will world and that a maintenance of this rate of bring to the Treasury of the United States the wages, in the absence of protective duties upon largest returns of revenue. The contention has the product of his labor, was impossible, were not been between schedules, but between prin- obscured by the passion evoked by these conciples, and it would be offensive to suggest that tests. He may now be able to review the questhe prevailing party will not carry into legislation in the light of his personal experience tion the principles advocated by it and the under the operation of a tariff for revenue only. pledges given to the people The tariff bills If that experience shall demonstrate that prespassed by the House of Representatives at the ent rates of wages are thereby maintained or inlast session were, as I suppose-even in the creased, either absolutely or in their purchasing opinion of their promoters - inadequate, and jus-power, and that the aggregate volume of work tified only by the fact that the Senate and to be done in this country is increased, or even House of Representatives were not in accord, maintained, so that there are more or as many and that a general revision could not, therefore, į be undertaken. I recommend that the whole subject of tariff revision be left to the incoming Congress. It is matter of regret that this work must be delayed for at least three months; for the threat of great tariff changes introduces so much uncertainty that an amount, not easily estimated, of business inaction and of diminished production will necessarily result. It is possible also that this uncertainty may result in decreased revenues from customs duties, for our merchants will make cautious orders for foreign goods in view of the prospect of tariff reductions and the uncertainty as to when they will take effect. Those who have advocated a protective tariff can well afford to have their disastrous forecasts of a change of policy disappointed. days' work in a year at as good or better wages for the American workman as has been the case under the protective system, every one will rejoice. A general process of wage reduction can not be contemplated by any patriotic citizen without the gravest apprehension. It may be, indeed I believe is, possible for the American manufacturer to compete successfully with his foreign rival in many branches of production without the defense of protective duties, if the pay rolls are equalized; but the conflict that stands between the producer and that result and the distress of our working people when it is attained are not pleasant to contemplate. The Society of the Unemployed, now holding its frequent and threatening parades in the streets of foreign cities, should not be allowed to acquire an American domicile. The reports of the heads of the several Executive Departments, which are herewith submitted, have very naturally included a résumé of the whole work of the administration with the transactions of the last fiscal year. * Public revenues amounting to $1,414,079,292.28 have been collected and disbursed without loss from misappropriation, without a single defalcation of such importance as to attract the public attention, and at a diminished per cent. of cost for collection. * * If a system of customs duties can be framed that will set the idle wheels and looms of Europe in motion and crowd our warehouses with foreign-made goods, and at the same time keep our own mills busy; that will give us an increased participation in the "markets of the world" of greater value than the home market we surrender; that will give increased work to foreign workmen upon products to be consumed by our people without diminishing the amount of work to be done here; that will enable the American manufacturer to pay to his workmen from fifty to a hundred per cent. more in wages There have been negotiated and concluded, than is paid in the foreign mill and yet to com- under section 3 of the tariff law, commercial pete in our market and in foreign markets with agreements relating to reciprocal trade with the the foreign producer; that will further reduce following countries: Brazil, Dominican Repubthe cost of articles of wear and food without re-lic, Spain for Cuba and Puerto Rico, Guatemala, ducing the wages of those who produce them; that can be celebrated, after its effects have been realized, as its expectation has been, in European as well as in American cities, the authors and promoters of it will be entitled to the highest praise. We have had in our history several experiences of the contrasted effects of a revenue and of a protective tariff; but this generation has not felt them, and the experience of one generation is not highly instructive to the next. The friends of the protective system, with un Salvador, the German Empire, Great Britain for certain West Indian colonies and British Guiana, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Austria-Hungary. Of these, those with Guatemala, Salvador, the German Empire, Great Britain, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Austria-Hungary have been concluded since my last annual message. Under these trade arrangements a free or favored admission has been secured in every case for an important list of American products. Especial care has been taken to secure markets for farm products in order to relieve that great underlying | ures were made, and it is believed that the catch ́ industry of the depression which the lack of an in the Bering Sea by poachers amounted to less adequate foreign market for our surplus often than five hundred seals. It is true, however, brings. An opening has also been made for that in the North Pacific, while the seal herds manufactured products that will undoubtedly, if were on their way to the passes between the this policy is maintained, greatly augment our Aleutian Islands, a very large number, probably export trade. The full benefits of these arrange- 35,000, were taken. The existing statutes of the ments can not be realized instantly. New lines United States do not restrain our citizens from of trade are to be opened. The commercial taking seals in the Pacific Ocean, and perhaps traveler must survey the field. The manufac- should not, unless the prohibition can be exturer must adapt his goods to the new markets tended to the citizens of other nations. I recomand facilities for exchange must be established. mend that power be given to the President, by This work has been well begun, our merchants proclamation, to prohibit the taking of seals in and manufacturers having entered the new fields the North Pacific by American vessels, in case, with courage and enterprise. In the case of food either as the result of the findings of the tribunal products, and especially with Cuba, the trade of arbitration or otherwise, the restraints can be did not need to wait and the immediate results applied to the vessels of other countries. The have been most gratifying. If this policy and case of the United States for the tribunal of arthese trade arrangements can be continued in bitration has been prepared with great care and force and aided by the establishment of Ameri- industry by the Hon. John W. Foster, and the can steamship lines, I do not doubt that we shall, counsel who represent this Government express within a short period, secure fully one-third of confidence that a result substantially establishing the total trade of the countries of Central and our claims and preserving this great industry for South America, which now amounts to about the benefit of all nations will be attained. $600,000,000 annually. In 1885 we had only 8 per cent of this trade. The following statistics show the increase in our trade with the countries with which we have reciprocal trade agreements from the date when such agreements went into effect up to September 30, 1892, the increase being in some almost wholly and in others in an important degree the result of these agreements. The domestic exports to Germany and AustriaHungary have increased in value from $47,673,- | 756 to $57,993.064, an increase of $10,319,308, or 21.63 per cent. With American countries, the value of our exports has increased from $44,160,285 to $54,613,598, an increase of $10,453,313, or 23.67 per cent. The total increase in the value of exports to all the countries with which we have reciprocity agreements has been $20,772,621. This increase is chiefly in wheat, flour, meat and dairy products, and in manufactures of iron and steel and lumber. There has been a large increase in the value of imports from all these countries since the commercial agreements went into effect, amounting to $74,294,525, but it has been entirely in imports from the American countries, consisting mostly of sugar, coffee, India rubber and crude drugs. The alarmed attention of our European competitors for the South American market has been attracted to this new American policy, and to our acquisition, and their loss, of South American trade. A treaty providing for the arbitration of the dispute between Great Britain and the United States as to the killing of seals in the Bering Sea was concluded on the 29th of February last. This treaty was accompanied by an agreement prohibiting pelagic sealing pending the arbitration, and a vigorous effort was made during this season to drive out all poaching sealers from the Bering Sea. Six naval vessels, three revenue cutters, and one vessel from the Fish Commission, all under the command of Commander Evans of the Navy, were sent into the sea, which was systematically patrolled. Some seiz During the past year, a suggestion was received through the British minister that the Canadian Government would like to confer as to the possibility of enlarging, upon terms of mutual advantage, the commercial exchanges of Canada and of the United States, and a conference was held at Washington, with Mr. Blaine acting for this Government, and the British minister at this capital and three members of the Dominion cabinet acting as commissioners on the part of Great Britain. The conference developed the fact that the Canadian Government was only prepared to offer to the United States, in exchange for the concessions asked, the admission of natural products. The statement was frankly made that favored rates could not be given to the United States as against the mother country. 1 his admission, which was foreseen, necessarily terminated the conference upon this question.. The benefits of an exchange of natural products. would be almost wholly with the people of Canada. Some other topics of interest were considered in the conference, and have resulted in the making of a convention for examining the Alaskan boundary and the waters of Passamaquoddy Bay adjacent to Eastport, Me., and in the initiation of an arrangement for the protection of fish life in the coterminous and neighboring waters of our northern border. The controversy as to tolls upon the Welland Canal, which was presented to Congress at the last session by special message, having failed of adjustment, I felt constrained to exercise the authority conferred by the act of July 26, 1892, and to proclaim a suspension of the free use of St. Mary's Falls Canal to cargoes in transit to ports in Canada. The Secretary of the Treasury established such tolls as were thought to be equivalent to the exactions unjustly levied upon our commerce in the Canadian canals. If, as we must suppose, the political relations of Canada and the disposition of the Canadian government are to remain unchanged, a somewhat radical revision of our trade relations should, I think, be made. Our relations must |
