op WAGES AND JHE TARIFF 
 
 
 
 I AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED IN JOINT DEBATE WITH HON. 
 BENJAMIN BUTTERWORTH, 
 
 BOSTON, MARCH 24, 1888, 
 
 BY 
 
 EVERETT P. WHEELER. 
 
 TVITH 
 
 AN APPENDIX OF STATISTICS, REPLY TO CRITICISMS, ETC, 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 THE REFORM CLUB, 
 
 12 EAST 33n STREET. 
 1888.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 MY address in the joint debate with Representative Benjamin Butterworth, 
 at Tremont Temple, Boston, March 24, 1888, has been severely criticised. I 
 am much obliged to my critics, and have learned a great deal from their articles. 
 I have omitted from the body of the speech as published, or have indicated Jt>y 
 a footnote, every statement in the original speech which has been contradicted; 
 and I request every candid reader to consider whether the omission has impaired 
 in the slightest degree the force of the argument. I print in an appendix the 
 portions which have been contradicted, with some additional statistics which 
 throw light upon the subject, and which will, I hope, convince those who take 
 pains to examine them, that my original statements were substantially correct. 
 I will add that the statements which have been challenged were made as the 
 result of careful examination of the subject for many years ; and that I solicit 
 the most thorough investigation of them, only requesting my readers to remem- 
 ber that the contradiction of a single statement, even if sustained, does not 
 involve necessarily the validity of the argument which the statement was meant 
 to illustrate. 
 
 EVERETT P. WHEELER.
 
 ME. WHEELER'S OPENING SPEECH. 
 
 STATEMENTS NOT CONTRADICTED (AS YET) BY 
 THE PROTECTIONISTS. 
 
 THE question we are to discuss, my friends, is this : Is the wage-earner bene- 
 fited by the protective policy as embodied in the present tariff? It is not a 
 theoretical question to be discussed as were those we handled, when we were 
 boys, in our debating societies. It is a question of the utmost importance to 
 every one of you, indeed, to every man, woman, and child in America. The 
 time has come when the taxes are much more than we need each year to sup- 
 port the government and pay the interest on the debt, and all of the principal 
 that we are able to pay. To allow this money to accumulate in the treasury is 
 wasteful. It ought to be in the pockets of the people, where it will do the most 
 good ; and the question that Congress must decide is whether the taxes shall be 
 reduced on imported articles or on whiskey. These are the two great sources 
 of revenue, and one or the other must be diminished. If the protective system, 
 as embodied in the present tariff, is beneficial to the wage-earner, then certainly 
 it ought to be continued. In this matter, the interest of those who earn their 
 living by day's wages is of the very first importance. But who are the wage- 
 earners ? Not alone the workers in our great factories, who are the persons 
 the protectionists claim are benefited by the tariff. The man who labors on the 
 farm; the clerk who toils in an office; the engineer, the conductor, the brake- 
 man, who run the railway-train, these are all wage-earners. They and their 
 families constitute the large majority of the people of this country; and, as Mr. 
 Webster said, " The great interests of this country are so united and insepa- 
 rable, that agriculture, commerce, and manufactures will prosper together, or 
 languish together. All legislation is dangerous which proposes to benefit one 
 of these without looking to the consequences which may fall on the others." 
 For myself, I am thoroughly persuaded, not as the result of theory, but of prac- 
 tical observation, that the protective system, as embodied in the present tariff, 
 does not benefit but 
 
 INJURES THE WAGE-EARNER; 
 
 and not only the wage-earner on the farm, or in the counting-house, or on the 
 sea, but the wage-earner in the factory, in short, every one of you who hears 
 
 3
 
 my voice; and therefore it is that I ask you to listen to what I have to say, to 
 cast aside all prejudice, and to look at the facts just as they really are. 
 
 What does the wage-earner want ? That is the real question. Whatever else 
 he may or may not want, certain it is that he needs a comfortable home for 
 himself and his wife and children, clothing to protect them from the cold, fuel 
 to heat their rooms and cook their food, and good, wholesome food, and enough 
 of it. The question is not, how many hours he shall work, or how many bank- 
 notes he gets for his work, but what will his wages buy ? 
 
 The first thing I ask you to consider is this: That no man in our climate can, 
 with his own hands, make enough of the articles he needs for his own wants, 
 much less for those of his family. He can make clothing enough for them; but 
 if he spends his time in making clothing, he cannot be building a house; he 
 cannot be digging coal, or chopping wood; he cannot be cultivating the earth, 
 and producing food. The first requisite to the comfort of the wage-earner is 
 sufficient production, that there should be enough clothing and food and fuel 
 produced in the world to make all the people in it comfortable. But it is 
 equally important that the wage-earners should be able to exchange with each 
 other the fruits of their labor, so that each man who has more than he wants of 
 one thing, more fuel, or more food, or more clothing, may exchange it for 
 that which another has produced, and of which he in his turn has more than 
 he wants. If this were possible, all would be well, and all the world would be 
 happy. The great aim of modern civilization is to increase the facility for 
 exchanging the products of human skill and human industry. Why did you 
 build a railroad from Boston to Albany, and help to build another across the 
 continent to San Francisco ? Why, indeed, have you extended from Boston 
 a network of railroads, so that it may be truly said of your great city, as it was 
 of Nuremberg, that your hand goes through every land ? Why but that you 
 might have in your furnaces and in your stoves the coal of Pennsylvania ? 
 that you might eat bread made from the wheat of Illinois and Nebraska ? that 
 you might wear clothing made from the wool of Ohio and Texas and the cotton 
 of Alabama, and sleep under blankets that grew on a California sheep ? that you 
 might sweeten your coffee with sugar from the cane of Louisiana? And in re- 
 turn for these, you give to the farmer, to the wool-grower, to the cotton-planter, 
 the products of your own industry. There is not a country-store throughout 
 the Union that has not on its shelves the fabrics of Lowell and Lawrence, 
 and the boots and shoes of Natick and of Lynn. 
 
 We speak of the wonderful growth of our country. The first element of 
 that growth is the prohibition in the federal Constitution of any tax upon the 
 exchange of products between different States of the Union. Does anybody 
 doubt that the wage-earner in Massachusetts is better off than he was before 
 these railroads were built, when the expense of transportation was such that 
 
 HE COULD NOT TRADE TO ADVANTAGE 
 
 in the products of the inland States ? Does anybody contend that the great 
 iron-roads that lead from your prosperous city, as in the old times all roads led 
 to Rome, have not enriched every wage-earner in Massachusetts, as well as the 
 engineers who projected, and the capitalists who furnished the money to build, 
 them ? All this nobody does deny, nobody can deny. When, two weeks ago,
 
 a great storm cut off your communication with the other States, it came as a 
 calamity. Every man in Boston knew that, if that blockade continued, it 
 meant ruin, not only to your railroads, but to your wage-earners, to the clerks 
 and the spinners alike. The storm protected you from the wheat of the West 
 and the cotton of the South. But you do not want to be protected from the 
 wheat of the West and the cotton of the South : you want to have them come 
 into your State freely, and to pay for them in what you yourselves, with your 
 ingenuity and industry, are able to make, and with your enterprise are able to 
 transport to other States. The monstrous absurdity of the protective system is 
 simply this: that it really asserts that scarcity is better than abundance; that 
 it is an injury to you to trade with other countries; that the benefits which flow 
 from the free exchange of merchandise with Pennsylvania and Illinois would 
 not flow from the exchange of commodities with England and with France. Who 
 can tell me why it is not as good for a man who earns his living in Massachu- 
 setts, to be able to buy English goods or French goods, if he likes, and to be 
 able in return to sell American goods to the people of France and England, if 
 he likes ? If we trade with them, it is because they have goods that we want, 
 and we have goods that they want, and thus the trade is a benefit to us both. 
 The protectionists themselves admit that trade with foreign countries is a bene- 
 fit to America. For they deplore the decay of American shipping, and are pro- 
 posing to give a bounty to American ships for carrying the products of other 
 countries to this country, and for taking ours back in return. What monstrous 
 inconsistency ! They enact a high tariff, far in excess of the needs of revenue, 
 not for the purpose of taxation, but for the purpose of excluding the goods of 
 other countries; and then, having crippled commerce with one hand, they pro- 
 pose to nurse it with the other. 
 
 Thus I have stated to you in brief the principle that underlies this whole 
 question of the tariff. If it is good to exchange what we can make with what 
 other countries can make, then a high protective tariff, which hinders us from 
 doing this, is an evil. If it is not good to exchange and trade with other coun- 
 tries, then a high protective tariff, which hinders that exchange, and prevents 
 that commerce, is a benefit. There is the whole question in a nut-shell. But 
 my friend will say, as so many before him have said, " All this is theory, very 
 good in theory, but not good in practice." Well, what is theory ? A theory is 
 only a convenient mode of stating facts. A thing cannot be right in theory, and 
 wrong in practice, any more than it can be wrong in theory to lie, but right in 
 practice to deceive. But as my knowledge of the tariff has come, not from 
 theory, but from actual 
 
 OBSERVATION AND EXPERIENCE, 
 
 I am only too glad to join with any one in discussing the tariff from a practical 
 stand-point; and at this stage of the discussion let me tell you what first led me 
 to study the present tariff. 
 
 A German steamer ran down a bark that had been built in Nova Scotia, cut a 
 hole in her side, knocked her over on her beam-ends, and left her floating in 
 the ocean off Nantucket. Some enterprising skipper found her and towed 
 her into port; she was condemned for salvage, and brought to East Boston to be 
 repaired. I was retained to bring a suit against the German steamer; and when
 
 6 
 
 I came to prove my damages, I found that, as the vessel had not been destroyed, 
 it was necessary to prove what it cost to repair her. You will understand that 
 the owners had given her up entirely. She was lost to them, and had become 
 the property of the salvors under a decree of the United States court. But I 
 found out who had repaired her, and what those repairs cost; and, to my aston- 
 ishment, I learned that it cost more to repair her in Boston than it cost to build 
 the entire bark in Nova Scotia. Now, I remembered very well, when a boy, to 
 have gone to the ship-yards, and seen ships launched in the East River, as some 
 of you, perhaps, have seen ships launched in the harbor of Boston; and I 
 said to myself, Why is it that ships can no longer be built in New York or 
 Boston, and that the British are taking away all the ship-building trade ? My 
 evidence in the collision case answered this question very quickly, for I found 
 that they could build ships cheaper. Then I inquired, Are their ship-builders 
 any better than ours? No. Does it cost any more for wages to build a ship in 
 Nova Scotia than in Boston? No. For although our men get higher wages, 
 yet they are better workmen, and the cost for wages on the ship is no more than 
 it is in the British Possessions. Then I looked into the tariff, and found that 
 every article that went into the construction of a ship was taxed thirty, forty, 
 fifty, a hundred per cent, the ropes, the timber, every thing from the truck to 
 the keelson, paid a tax to the United States Government. Ostensibly this was 
 for the benefit of American industry, but really it was to enable the iron-mas- 
 ters of Pennsylvania to get more for their iron than it was worth. Ostensibly 
 it was to benefit the wage-earner, but really it had destroyed or crippled the 
 business of every shipwright along the Atlantic coast. 1 This set me to inquir- 
 ing into other branches of industry; and I studied the census, and the reports 
 from the different manufacturers, and talked with men engaged in manufactur- 
 ing, and I came to see clearly this great practical truth that I want you to 
 remember, to think over, and to test the tariff by. The wages of a wage- 
 earner depend upon three things : 
 
 First, Demand and supply. 
 
 Second, The cost of material. 
 
 Third, The efficiency of the labor. 
 
 The first is supply and demand. If there are more laborers to do a particular 
 kind of work than there is work for them to do, their wages go down. If there 
 is more work to be done than there are men to do it, their wages go up. This is 
 the first thing. 
 
 The second is the cost of the material on which the men are working. If 
 a tailor has a hundred coats to make, and the cloth and trimmings cost him a 
 thousand dollars, he can afford to pay, and will pay, 
 
 1 By the Act of June 6, 1872, re-enacted in the United States Rev. Stat. sect. 2513, " All lumber, 
 timber, hemp, manila, wire rope, and iron and steel rods, bars, spikes, nails and bolts, and cop- 
 per and composition metal, which may be necessary for the construction and equipment of ves- 
 sels built in the United States for foreign account and ownership, or for the purpose of being 
 employed in the foreign trade," may be imported in bond. " Upon proof that such materials have 
 been used for such purpose, no duties shall be paid thereon." It will be observed that this Act 
 does not exempt the iron forging.*, plates, and beams which form the principal part of an iron ves- 
 sel. These are subject to duties varying from one and a half to two cents a pound. But still, 
 this Act was undoubtedly a step in the rjght direction; and if the policy thus enacted, which is in 
 the main the policy of the Mills Bill now pending in Congress, should be followed, it would 
 undoubtedly be a great benefit to American industry.
 
 HIGHER WAGES FOR MAKING THEM 
 
 than if the same cloth and trimmings cost him two thousand dollars. Observe, I 
 do not say that tailors are paid more for working on inferior goods. But what 
 I do say is, that, if the cloth be the same, the cheaper the material, the better the 
 wages, and that for two reasons. In the first place, the price of the material 
 being reduced, the manufacturer is able to pay better wages, and yet sell his 
 goods at a lesser price; and second, the goods when sold being cheaper, the 
 demand for them at once increases, and this increases the demand for labor to 
 work upon them. I read the other day a very remarkable telegram which 
 illustrates this, which I will now read to you. 
 
 WOONSOCKET, R.I., March 6, 1888. 
 
 The operatives in the Social Mill were surprised to-day, when they received 
 their pay, to find that their wages had been advanced five per cent. The 
 employees of the Nourse and Globe Mills, owned by the Social Company, will 
 receive the same advance to-morrow. This affects two thousand hands. There 
 has been no request for an advance from the employees, the action being taken 
 by the company on account of the favorable state of the market and the low 
 prices of cotton. The New-York Times, March 7. 
 
 The third element in determining the rate of wages is the productiveness of 
 labor. A man who is energetic and industrious and thorough in his work will 
 almost always get better wages than a man who is not. I know that in some 
 trades an endeavor has been made to compel employers to pay all workmen of 
 the same grade the same wages, irrespective of their skill and effectiveness. 
 But these are exceptions, brought about by interference with the freedom of 
 contract between the workman and his employers, and the number is exceed- 
 ingly small. In all trades the journeyman is paid more than the laborer, the 
 skilled mechanic more than the unskilled laborer, and he is paid more because 
 he earns more. A mason who can lay twice as many bricks in a day as another 
 is worth twice as much, and he ought to be paid twice as much; and, unless 
 somebody steps in to prevent it, he always will be paid more. 
 
 To repeat. The three elements that practically influence the rate of wages 
 are, 
 
 First, Demand and supply. 
 
 Second, Cheapness of material. 
 
 Third, Productiveness of the labor. 
 
 The protective system, as embodied in the existing tariff, reduces the wages 
 of the wage-earner in every one of these particulars. And the errors of this 
 system, so far as they are honest errors, are due to a failure to appreciate this 
 important practical truth to which I have called your attention. 
 
 DEMAND FOR LABOR DIMINISHED. 
 
 In the first place it diminishes the demand for his labor. We make good 
 carpets in this country. The Bigelow Carpet Company, and others that might 
 be named, are beginning to make as good carpets as are made anywhere in the 
 world; but we cannot export them, because of the tariff on wool. We make 
 as good tinware as is made anywhere in the world. We cannot export it, 
 because of the tax on tin plates. We make the best brass goods in the world;
 
 8 
 
 but we cannot export them, because of the duty on copper. 1 We make excellent 
 paints; but we cannot export them, because of the duty on the lead out of which 
 they are made. Take the whole tariff list from beginning to end. There is no 
 tax in it which does not diminish the demand for American labor by imposing 
 burdens upon the materials out of which American goods are made. 2 
 
 Thus it is that the protective system, as embodied in the present tariff, dimin- 
 ishes the wages of the wage-earner by diminishing the demand for his labor. 
 
 DEAR MATERIALS A DISADVANTAGE. 
 
 In the second place, the protective system, as embodied in the existing tariff, 
 diminishes the wages of the American wage-earner, and injures instead of 
 benefiting him, by increasing the price of the material on which he labors. The 
 wool out of which our carpets are made pays a tax when it enters the country. 
 Every yard of carpet costs the buyer and consumer fifteen cents more, because 
 of the duty on wool; and, in this climate, the buyer and consumer of woollen 
 carpets is a very important person. Every tin pan costs the economical house- 
 keeper more, every tin roof increases the rent of the victims that are under it, 
 every can of tomatoes or oysters costs more to the eater of those tomatoes or 
 oysters, because of the tax on tin plates. Every yard of calico costs the woman 
 that wears it more, because of the tax on dye-stuffs; every pound of paint costs 
 more, because of the tax on lead; every house costs more, because of the tax 
 that is levied on the materials of which it is composed. The result of this is, 
 that the wages of the workman are diminished, and he must either pay more 
 for his food, his clothes, and his rent, or live in a poorer home, and get along 
 with less food and clothing. 
 
 Some years ago, I had occasion to build four houses. I found, that, if it had 
 not been for the tax upon the materials of which those houses were built, I could 
 have built five with the same money. The saving in the cost of material would 
 have gone for wages. This would have increased the demand for carpenters and 
 bricklayers, and would have diminished the rents they would pay for apartments 
 in the houses when finished. Instead of this, their wages did not increase, their 
 rents were higher, and the money that would have gone into their pockets 
 enriched the Michigan lumber-barons and the Providence Screw Company. 3 
 
 While I am on the subject of houses, let me tell you one extraordinary fact 
 that I would like every citizen of Boston to lay to heart. Since Prince Bismarck 
 compelled Hamburg to submit to a high protective tariff, there has not been a 
 house built in that city. Before that time it was a free port, and one of the 
 most thriving cities in Europe. 
 
 One more fact in support of my proposition, and I pass to another branch of 
 the subject. I have spoken of the tax on iron and other materials for building 
 ships, and of its effect in crippling the ship-building trade. The result has been, 
 that, in the few ship-yards that remain, the wages of the workmen are actually 
 less than they were before the war, although the cost of living has so largely 
 increased. 
 
 1 While this was going through the press, " The New- York Tribune " attacked this statement. 
 My answer is in Appendix I., p. 19. 
 
 2 A discussion here ensued in reference to the tax on nickel and screws, which has given rise to 
 criticism, and which, with the criticism and the reply, will be found in Appendix II., pp. 21-26. 
 
 3 The facts thus stated have not been denied ; but an attempt has been made to refute the argu- 
 ment, which is noticed in Appendix III., p. 26.
 
 9 
 
 The injustice of the present tariff is increasing every year. Every year the 
 cost of material bears a larger proportion to the cost of the finished product. 
 Every year the amount of wages paid bears a smaller proportion to the cost of 
 the finished product. In 1850 the materials used in American industry were 
 forty-five per cent of the value of the finished product. In 1880 so great had 
 been the progress in the effectiveness of our machinery, that the percentage of 
 the cost of material had increased to sixty-three per cent; that is to say, for 
 every one hundred dollars' worth of finished goods, the materials out of which 
 they were made cost sixty-three dollars. On the other hand, during all this 
 time the proportion of wages to the finished product was continually becoming 
 less. In 1850 the proportion of the wages paid for producing the various 
 products of American industry was twenty-three per cent ; in 1880 it was only 
 seventeen per cent. That is to say, to make one hundred dollars' worth of 
 goods, cost on the average for wages only seventeen dollars, whereas in 1850 it 
 cost twenty-three dollars. 
 
 In the face of these facts the protectionist has the effrontery to tell us that it 
 is necessary to keep up an average tariff tax of forty-seven per cent upon 
 imported articles, when the percentage of wages in the finished product of 
 American industry is only seventeen per cent. That is to say, the tariff tax is 
 more than twice as much as the entire cost of wages paid for the production of 
 American goods. 1 It is evident, my friends, from this simple statement, that it 
 is not necessary to keep the tariff tax at an average of forty-seven per cent in 
 order to increase the wages of American workmen. 
 
 EFFECTIVENESS OF LABOR. 
 
 My third point is, that the tariff tends to limit the benefit that we ought to 
 derive from the effectiveness of American labor. That labor is the most 
 productive in the world. All the students of manufacturing industries agree 
 in this. Mr. Blaine and Mr. Evarts, when each was secretary of state, asserted 
 this most positively. An American mason lays more bricks in a day than an 
 English mason. An American cotton-spinner spins more yards of cloth in a 
 day than an English cotton-spinner. The English mason and cotton-spinner, 
 in their turn, do more work in a day than the masons and spinners of France 
 and Germany. The average number of pounds of cotton worked up by each 
 American spinner in a year is 4,350; in England, 2,914; in Germany, 1,200. 
 The average number of pounds of wool worked up by each weaver in America 
 in a year is 1,640; in England, 1,275; in Germany, 975. 
 
 Mr. Porter, the secretary of the tariff commission, told a pitiful tale of the 
 wretched nail-makers in England, who still make nails by hand, a few pounds 
 
 1 Mr. AlauBon W. Beard, while not denying the accuracy of these figures, has tried to refute 
 the argument drawn from them by calling attention to the fact that the material of one industry 
 is the product of another. This in true, but it does not affect the validity of the argument. In 
 the census-tables from which the computations in the text are made, the wages that entered into 
 the production of the cruder product, as, for example, leather, are stated in the wages column 
 as well as those which entered into the production of the more finished product, as, for example, 
 boots and shoes. The wages that entered into the production of pigs and ingots are included in 
 the wages column as well as those which were paid for making rails and hardware. The per- 
 centage la arrived at by comparing the totals of both columns, so that allowance is made for the 
 fact stated by Mr. Beard. Attention is called more particularly to this matter in Appendix VI.,
 
 10 
 
 a day. In Harrisburg, Perm., there is a factory, where, by the aid of nail- 
 machines, each man makes over two kegs of nails a day. His wages are more, 
 but the cost per pound of nails is less. Depend upon it, it always pays to get 
 a good article. An efficient laborer is cheaper than an inefficient one, though 
 you pay him twice as much. 
 
 The American workman is better fed, better housed, better clothed, than the 
 English workman, and therefore he does more work in a day, and therefore 
 earns more money. The English workman is better fed, better clothed, better 
 housed, than the workman of France and Germany, and therefore he does more 
 work in a day, and therefore earns more money. Physical conditions affect a 
 man just as they do a horse. Qive a horse a good stable, feed him well, treat 
 him well, and he will do more work in a day than a horse who is badly fed and 
 badly treated, and therefore he is a cheaper horse to hire, though he cost you 
 twice as much for his hay and oats. The protectionist reasoning begins at the 
 wrong end. The horse does not eat more because he is paid more. He is 
 paid more because he does more work. 
 
 More important than these physical conditions are the opportunities that we 
 give to every man to better his condition. We have no great standing army to 
 support. No man is obliged to spend four or five of the best years of his life 
 in an army. In short, American freedom gives a courage and energy and 
 effectiveness to the American laborer that no other laborer in the world can 
 claim. It is a remarkable fact, that, just before the Franco-Prussian war, 
 Napoleon III. sent a commission of the first surgeons of France to this coun- 
 try to investigate the reason why, during the war with the South, so many 
 more men recovered from amputations than there were who recovered in the 
 French army in the Crimean and Italian wars. These eminent men examined 
 the subject thoroughly, and reported that the reason was the energy and self- 
 reliance of the American character; that the American soldiers knew how to 
 take care of themselves better, were more persevering and more enduring than 
 French soldiers, and the result was natural. Examine every branch of our 
 industry, and you will find that these American qualities increase the effective- 
 ness of the workmen; and when I say the American workman, I mean not 
 only the American-born, but the Irishmen and Germans who have been 
 
 WELCOMED TO THE LAND OF LIBERTY, 
 
 and whose pulses are quickened with American freedom. If our trade with 
 foreign countries were not crippled by a heavy, and in many instances a pro- 
 hibitory, tax, this free American industry would have fair play, and would fill 
 American ships with the products of American factories. But this trade is now 
 so heavily taxed that we are deprived of all our natural advantages, and left far 
 behind in the race. Our horse is the best, but no horse can win when he carries 
 the weight of a forty-seven per cent tariff tax. England, to-day, with half our 
 population, sells to other countries more manufactured goods of her own pro- 
 duction than the entire product of this tax-ridden country. 
 
 My friend will, no doubt, insist that the present high protective tariff is the 
 reason why the American workman is better off than the foreign workman. 
 But this is mere theory, without any facts to support it. These facts are all the 
 other way, and this I will prove to you immediately.
 
 11 
 
 1. If a protective tariff increases wages, and improves the condition of work- 
 ingmen, it ought to do so in all countries in which there are high protective 
 tariffs. In point of fact, the English workman in a free-trade country has 
 higher wages and lives better than a workman in Germany, where a high 
 protective tariff prevails. 
 
 2. If a high protective tariff increases the wages of the workingmen, then 
 the repeal of this tariff and the substitution of a low revenue tariff would injure 
 him. In point of fact, the contrary has been the case, both in England and 
 this country. 
 
 From 1842 to 1846 we had in this country a high protective tariff. In 1840 
 this was repealed, and the Walker tariff was enacted. The manufacturers 
 groaned, and declared that they would be ruined. But the result showed that 
 they were mistaken. The country never prospefed as it did from 1850 to 1860. 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 Capital engaged in manufactures increased 90 
 
 Wages of workmen engaged in manufacturing increased 60 
 
 The miles of railroad built increased 220 
 
 The value of farms increased 103 
 
 And of live-stock 100 
 
 Our national wealth as a whole increased 126 
 
 During the war the internal-revenue taxes on our domestic productions were 
 almost as high as the tariff taxes, so that the ten years from 1860 to 1870 form 
 no fair basis for comparison. But most of the internal-revenue taxes on manu- 
 factures were repealed about the year 1870, and during the ten years from 1870 
 we felt the full effects of a high protective tariff. What were the gains then ? 
 
 Capital engaged in manufacturing increased only thirty-two percent, only 
 one-third; wages increased twenty-two per cent, only one-third; railroads in- 
 creased sixty-six percent, only one-quarter; total wealth increased forty per 
 cent, only one-third. 
 
 In other words, under a revenue tariff, capital engaged in manufacturing, and 
 wages and national wealth all increased three times as much as under a high pro- 
 tective tariff; and railroad building increased four times as much. 1 
 
 Who, in the face of these facts, can say that the present tariff benefits the 
 wage-earner ? 
 
 1 " The Boston Journal " (protectionist) has published an article in which, while admitting 
 the percentages thus stated, it takes exception to the mode of comparison by percentages, and 
 claims that the amount of increase would be a fairer lest. The error of this assumption will be 
 made plain by the following illustration : 
 
 Suppose the question were, which of two investments was the most productive? Jones invests 
 a thousand dollars, and receives as income from it sixty dollars in a year. Smith invests four 
 thousand dollars, and receives as income one hundred and twenty dollars in a year. Jones's in- 
 terest on his investment would be six per cent. Smith's, on his, would be only three per cent. 
 Plainly, Jones's investment is twice as productive as Smith's, although, owing to the larger 
 amount of his capital, Smith received twice as much money as Jones. 
 
 The national wealth in 1850 was $7,135,780,228. In 1860 it had increased to $16,159,616,008. 
 (Preliminary Report of Eighth Census, p. 195.) Now, this would certainly indicate a much more 
 favorable condition of American industry in general, than would be indicated by the increase 
 from $30,068,518,507 in 1870 to $43,642,000,000 in 1880; and after making an allowance of one-sixth 
 (Tribune Almanac, 1886, p. 55) for the depreciated currency of 1870, the percentage of increase 
 from 1850 to 1860 will still be nearly double that from 1870 to 1880.
 
 12 
 
 PROSPERITY UNDER LOW TARIFFS. 
 
 In a word, our experience shows that the most rapid growth of this country 
 in prosperity has not been under a protective tariff. There never was what 
 we would now call a protective tariff in this country till 1824. All the tariffs 
 before that time were much lower than any that the most radical revenue re- 
 former now proposes. There was a high protective tariff from 1824 till 1832; 
 and its results were so disastrous that the very author of it, Mr. Clay, intro- 
 duced a bill for its gradual reduction. 1 Our second high protective tariff in this 
 country was passed in 1842. It continued in operation only four years; and then 
 the country was so disgusted with it that a revenue tariff was adopted, which 
 continued in force from 1846 to 1861. So beneficial were its results, that in 1850, 
 Henry Clay, the author of the protective system in this country, from his place 
 in the Senate made this remarkable admission : 
 
 " For one, I should be extremely delighted if the subject of the tariff of 1846 
 could be taken up in a liberal, kind, and national spirit; not with any purpose of 
 reviving those high rates of protection, which, at former periods of our country, 
 were establishedfor various causes, sometimes for sinister causes, but to look 
 deliberately at the operation of the tariff of 1846; and, without disturbing its 
 essential provisions, I should like a consideration to be given to the question of 
 the prevention of fraiids and great abuses, of the existence of which there is no 
 earthly doubt." 
 
 So great was the benefit which accrued to New England from this reduction 
 of the tariff, that in 1857 a majority of the representatives in Congress from New 
 England voted for a still further reduction. The price of wool was higher under 
 this tariff than it has been under a high protective tariff, for the simple reason 
 that the manufacturers were more prosperous, and the demand for wool was 
 greater. The experience of England teaches the same lesson. Down to 1849 
 England had tried the experiment of a high protective tariff. Distress and suf- 
 fering among the people continually increased. At last the populace were on 
 the verge of rebellion. Famine stared them in the face. Factories were shut, 
 and poorhouses were crowded. The repeal of the corn-laws took effect in 1849, 
 and immediate prosperity began to return. Now mark the result. 
 
 In 1840 the population of Great Britain and Ireland was 26,487,026; in 1880 
 it had increased to 34,505,043, an increase of about twenty-five per cent. The 
 number of able-bodied paupers, which in 1849, the last year of the English high 
 protective tariff, was 201,644, had decreased under the operation of a tariff for 
 revenue, and the consequent prosperity which it had brought with it, to 126,228. 
 In other words, while the population had increased twenty-five per cent, the 
 number of those who were not able to earn a living for themselves and their 
 families had decreased seventy-five per cent. But more than this, the prosperity 
 of a country, like the prosperity of an individual, can be measured most 
 accurately by the amount which it is 
 
 ABLE TO PRODUCE AND SELL, 
 
 above what it needs for its own wants. In 1840 the entire produce of the 
 British Islands which the English were able to export, amounted to 51,000,000 
 
 1 See Appendix IV., p. 27.
 
 13 
 
 or about $9.50 for every inhabitant. In 1880, tinder the beneficent opera- 
 tion of a tariff for revenue, these exports had increased to the enormous 
 amount of 223,000,000, or over $1,000,000,000, and amounted to about thirty- 
 two dollars for every inhabitant of the British Islands. Measured by this 
 unfailing test, the prosperity of England has been quadrupled by a low tariff, 
 and this notwithstanding the fact that the prosperity of Ireland has not 
 increased in a like proportion, owing to the suffering and poverty which years 
 of misgovernment had brought upon the Irish people. The most flagrant 
 instance of this misgovernment was the selfish protective tariff which the 
 English imposed in order to exclude the manufactures of Ireland from com- 
 petition with those of England. This tariff continued for over a century ; and 
 every Irishman should remember that the great leaders in the cause of Irish 
 emancipation, Curran and Grattan, both distinctly recognized the fact that the 
 only hope for prosperity to Irish manufactures was in a repeal of the British 
 protective tariff. If there be an Irishman within the sound of my voice, I 
 should like to ask him two questions : 
 
 First, Are you prepared to continue in America that high protective system 
 which, according to the testimony of both Curran and Grattan, destroyed the 
 prosperity of your own island? Second, Do you think it necessary to the welfare 
 of this great nation, with 60,000,000 of prosperous people, that a heavy tax 
 should be imposed on every yard of Irish linen imported into this country, or 
 are you not prepared to say that America can assist the Irish industries that still 
 survive by putting Irish linen on the free list? 
 
 I have shown you that the exports of English goods under a revenue tariff quad- 
 rupled in forty years. With the goods thus exported, the English workingman 
 was able to buy, and did buy, a far greater quantity of the comforts of life than 
 ever he could under the protective system. They bought and used in 1880 four 
 times as much tea, currants, raisins, and sugar, and eight times as much rice, as 
 they did in 1840. In the former year, they were not permitted to buy a pound 
 of foreign beef, mutton, or fish. In the latter year they were able to buy, and 
 did buy, beef, mutton, and fish to the amount of $60,000,000. Now, when a 
 man sells four times as much as he did, and buys four times as much as he did, 
 you say at once his condition is greatly improved. This is what a tariff for 
 revenue has done for England. It will do the same for America. The same 
 remarkable contrast is presented by the rate of wages. This increased in Eng- 
 land five per cent from 1872 to 1880, while during the same time it diminished 
 in Massachusetts five and a half per cent. 
 
 In view of all these facts, why should we hesitate longer, and " linger trembling 
 on the brink"? You 
 
 NEEDED NO PROTECTIVE TARIFF 
 
 to enable the " Puritan " or the " Volunteer" to beat the English yachts. You 
 needed no protective tariff to enable your recruits to defeat at New Orleans the 
 veterans of the Peninsula, nor was it a protective tariff that made the " Guer- 
 riere " haul down her flag to old " Ironsides." You needed no protective tariff 
 to enable the genius of Morse to furnish mankind with the telegraph. In 
 courage, in industry, in enterprise, in effectiveness of labor, we lead the world, 
 and need fear no competition from any quarter. Protection is a monstrous
 
 14 
 
 misnomer. The best proof of our skill is, that we have borne this burden so 
 long without the destruction of all our industries. Some of them have been 
 already destroyed. 
 
 The building of ships for foreign trade is practically extinct. We only build 
 ships for the coastwise trade, because foreign-built ships are prohibited from 
 engaging in the latter. The copper-smelting industry formerly furnished 
 employment to great numbers of people in Boston and New York, but has been 
 destroyed by the duty on copper ore, the only result of which has been to 
 increase the dividends of the owners of the mines of Michigan. Base and mon- 
 strous ingratitude they have shown, in entering into a combination with a French 
 syndicate to increase the price of copper, and thus levy a tax on every manufac- 
 turer of brass or copper goods in America, to swell their already enormous 
 dividends. Will the citizens of Boston, the children of the men who rebelled 
 against a tax on tea, submit any longer to this shameful injustice ? Or will you 
 say to every Massachusetts Congressman, Vote to reduce our tariff taxes, or 
 " never more be officer of mine " ? 
 
 I have shown you how the greed of the owners of iron and copper mines, 
 short-sighted as greed always is, has destroyed two important branches of trade. 
 And this same greed has, wherever it could, prevented us from competing suc- 
 cessfully in foreign markets, and reaping there the reward to which American 
 industry and skill are justly entitled. I asked the largest hardware manufac- 
 turer in this country to send specimens of his goods to a foreign exposition. 
 He answered, " The tariff prevents me from selling my goods abroad, and why 
 should I send them my patterns. But give me free raw materials, and I fear no 
 European competition." And he added, "If I could get my materials free of 
 tax, I would increase my wages, increase my production, and diminish the cost 
 of my goods." Your own manufacturer of bicycles would tell you the same 
 thing. Of this, indeed, illustrations are innumerable. When we can get our 
 materials free of tax, we export the goods made of those materials, and make 
 money on them. Wherever our materials are taxed, we cannot compete with 
 other nations who do not tax materials. In other words, the reason we cannot 
 compete with other nations is not that wages are high, but 
 
 BECAUSE MATERIALS ABE DEAR. 
 
 We raise our own cotton, and we export $12,000,000 worth of manufactured 
 cotton goods. We produce our own petroleum, and we export $38,000,000 worth 
 of illuminating-oil. Hides are admitted free of duty, and we export $9,000,000 
 worth of leather and leather goods. But there is a tax on wool ; and although 
 we produced in 1880 $22,000,000 worth of carpets, we exported the insignificant 
 amount of $10,750. There is a duty on tin plates, on copper and on iron ; and 
 although we produced in 1880 over $20,000,000 worth of tin ware, copper ware, 
 and sheet-iron ware, our entire exports of all these goods, in the manufacture 
 of which we are surpassed by no nation in the world, was only $452,000. We 
 manufactured in 1880 $17,000,000 worth of paints and varnish, and we exported 
 only $443,000. 
 
 But I can produce a still more striking proof of the truth of my assertion 
 that it is not high wages, but high taxes, that keep us back in the race for the 
 markets of the world. The one thing that has preserved the prosperity of this
 
 15 
 
 country, and enabled us to hold our own under the existing protective tariff, is 
 our export of grain and provisions. 1 Our farmers have to compete with the 
 worst-paid labor in the world, with the Russian peasant and the Indian ryot; 
 and yet they compete successfully in the markets of Liverpool and Paris, with 
 the grain of Odessa and Calcutta. If you give our manufacturers of iron, 
 copper, nickel, tin, wool, and wood the same free raw materials that the manu- 
 facturers of cotton, petroleum, and leather enjoy, they will need no other 
 protection. 
 
 The time is at hand, when, if we wish to continue our prosperity, we must 
 shake off the shackles that have bound us so long, and realize the truth that it 
 is freedom, American freedom, equality before the law, freedom from burden- 
 some restrictions upon trade, freedom from the grant of privileges to one class 
 at the expense of another, this freedom for which our fathers fought, for which 
 they perilled their lives and their fortunes, and to the support of which they 
 pledged their sacred honor, that "has lifted us out of the dust, and made us 
 whatever we are." 
 
 1 See Appendix V., p. 27.
 
 STATEMENT OF MR. BUTTERWORTH'S 
 ARGUMENT. 
 
 The essential point of Mr. Butterworth's argument in reply was this: It is 
 the duty of the government to equalize differences of production between this 
 country and foreign countries. This it does by a protective tariff. The essen- 
 tial difference in the conditions of production lies in. the fact that wages are 
 higher in this country than they are in Europe. In support of the proposition 
 that wages are higher here than there, Mr. Butterworth cited a large number 
 of tables of wages compiled by various persons. He also showed that the 
 prices of grain, clothing, and of sugar had decreased since 1860, and that the 
 number of patents granted had very largely increased ; and he ascribed these 
 results to the beneficial influence of the tariff. He further showed the extreme 
 severity of the tariff laws of England prior to the reduction of its tariff in 1846. 
 
 16
 
 MR. WHEELER'S REPLY. 
 
 A considerable portion of the speech before printed was delivered at the 
 debate as a reply to Mr. Butterworth's argument, and to this the reader is 
 referred. In addition to that, Mr. Wheeler spoke as follows: 
 
 My friend has asked me if I can name any thing that is not lower than it 
 was before the war. I know that in New York the same apartments that the 
 laboring-man could then hire for $8 a month, cost him now $14 and $16. And 
 I know the cause of that is the tariff on the materials of which that house is 
 built. The increased price of those materials went into the cost of screw-man- 
 ufacture, and into the pockets of the owners of the forests which produced the 
 wood, of the owners of the lead-mines from which came the pipe, and into 
 the treasury, which levies a worse than useless tax on the tin plates out of 
 which the roofs were made. But for this increase, the money would have gone 
 into the pockets of the mason, the bricklayer, and the workmen who built the 
 house. I know this also: it is not a question of what a tariff might be; it is 
 the present tariff that is the question. What we want, is to put raw materials 
 on the free list. The inequalities in condition that my friend complains of 
 are inequalities chiefly caused by the tax on raw materials. 
 
 The present high protective tariff is an injury to the wage-earner, and keeps 
 his wages down. Mark my words, and listen, citizens of Boston, every one of 
 you! Every man that lives twenty years from now, will live to see raw mate- 
 rials on the free list, and American manufacturers leading the manufacturers 
 of the world. You will live to see American ships thronging the harbor of 
 Boston, and carrying the products of your mills and your industries all over the 
 world. They would now, but that the present tariff has been like a millstone 
 about our necks for twenty years. 1 Who can tell me that it is not an injury to 
 your woollen-manufacturers to pay the tax on wool ? The woollen-manufac- 
 turers know it is; and the day that tax is repealed, it will increase the demand 
 for their goods, and increase the wages of their workmen. 
 
 FURTHER REMARKS BY MR. WHEELER. 
 
 The following considerations are presented by Mr. Wheeler as supplementary 
 to what was said in the debate : 
 
 There is a difference in the conditions of production between those in 
 America and in foreign countries. But some of those conditions are favor- 
 
 1 See Appendix VI., p. 28. 
 
 17
 
 18 
 
 able to this country. Attention has been called before to the greater produc- 
 tiveness of American labor. Another condition is the great extent and cheapness 
 of land in this country. Another condition is the greater accessibility of most 
 of our mineral deposits, and the consequent increased cheapness involved in 
 getting them to market. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that the higher 
 price of material in this country is a great detriment to our manufacturing 
 industries. Nor can it be denied that the tariffs imposed by the protectionist 
 countries of Europe admit raw material free of duty. 1 The statement by Mr. 
 Butterworth, that the question is a question between free trade, in the literal 
 sense, and a protective tariff, is a perversion of the real issue. The tariff 
 reformers do not advocate free trade in the literal sense. They do advocate the 
 removal of what they consider unjust and unequal burdens placed upon the great 
 majority of the people for the benefit of a few. If freedom means equality and 
 the removal of unjust discriminations, then they advocate freedom of trade. If 
 freedom means the abolition of all taxation on trade, they do not advocate it. 
 In a concrete form, what they do actually advocate is a repeal of taxes upon 
 the materials which enter into American industry, and upon the actual neces- 
 saries of life. They believe, that, while the repeal of these taxes might possibly 
 operate as a temporary injury to a few, it would produce a far greater benefit 
 to the many. No doubt, the home-market is important; but no one can contend 
 that the market of sixty millions of people would be injured, if, in addition to 
 this market, we could secure the market of three hundred millions. 
 
 The charge that we are seeking to introduce English ideas, and to break down 
 American manufactures in order to benefit those of England, is simply untrue. 
 The United States was the first country in the world to introduce absolute free- 
 dom of trade between the different States composing a federal union. The 
 United States, even in their weakness, when their population was hardly more 
 than three millions scattered along the seacoast, enacted what was then the 
 most liberal tariff in the world. The present protective tariff is copied from 
 English laws. All the arguments that are now advanced in its favor were argu- 
 ments used in opposition to the repeal of the corn-laws. The same gloomy 
 predictions, which were then made by Croker and the rest, are now made by 
 the protectionist advocates.. They predicted ruin to the manufacturer and the 
 farmer. The result has been increased prosperity. Mr. Butterworth closed his 
 argument by an expression in which I heartily concur: " I am first, last, and 
 all the time, for my country." But I am proud of my country's strength and 
 unequalled national resources. With them, and with free raw materials, we 
 need fear no competition in the production of staple articles, whether made of 
 wool, of cotton, or of leather; and it is because I have faith in the skill and 
 enterprise of my countrymen that I favor the removal of the burdensome taxes 
 that obstruct our trade with foreign countries, and injure us as well as them. 
 
 1 A table of these tariffs will be found in the appendix to Schoenhof on the " Destructive 
 Influence of the Tariff."
 
 APPENDIX, 
 
 STATEMENTS WHICH PROTECTIONISTS HAVE CONTRADICTED, 
 
 I. BRASS AND THE TARIFF (p. 8). 
 
 Mr. Wheeler says, 
 
 "An article in 'The New- York Tribune,' from Charles Durand, Ansonia, 
 Conn., on the above subject, is too good to be lost. He quotes from my address 
 that ' the Americans make the best brass goods in the world, but cannot export 
 them because of the duty on copper,' and proceeds to say, ' In this narrow 
 valley of the Naugatuck, thirty miles long and five miles wide, we use 
 about one hundred million pounds of copper annually in brass and copper 
 manufactures, and Mr. Wheeler can put the entire duty on this vast amount in 
 his vest pocket in pennies, and not feel the burden.' 
 
 " This is undoubtedly true, and simply shows the well-known fact that the 
 duty on copper is so high as to be prohibitory. But if there had been no duty 
 on copper for the last ten years, the cost to the manufacturers who used this 
 one hundred million pounds of copper would have been vastly less, for the 
 simple reason that the price of copper in Europe during most of that time was 
 much less than the American price. In fact, during most of this time, the 
 owners of the copper-mines on Lake Superior have produced more copper than 
 would supply the American market, and have sold it abroad for much less 
 than the price at which they sold it in this country. Probably a fair average of 
 the difference in the price of copper produced by the tariff during the last twenty 
 years would be at least two cents a pound, which makes a total of two million 
 dollars a year paid by the Xaugatuck manufacturers to the mine owners of the 
 Lake-Superior copper-district. 
 
 " The difference in price during the last census year, as shown by the official 
 returns of the two countries, was three cents and a half a pound. Since then it 
 has varied, the difference being sometimes more and sometimes less than this. 
 At present a syndicate has forced up the European price; but in the interest 
 of the public, it is to be hoped that this will break down as the tin syndicate 
 has. Tariffs, trusts, and syndicates all aim to increase the price of natural 
 products, and levy a tax on the many consumers to benefit a few producers. 
 On this branch of the subject I will only add, that the duty on copper in the 
 form of ores was three cents a pound until the last revision, in 1883, when it 
 was reduced to two cents and a half. The duty on copper in bars and ingots 
 was five cents, then reduced to four. 
 
 19
 
 20 
 
 "The claim is sometimes made with a serious face, that the tariff does not 
 increase the American price of goods. If this were true, the tariff would be 
 useless ; but it is not true, and this every person who has studied the subject 
 knows very well. As Mr. Rosengarten, the quinine manufacturer, said before 
 the Tariff Commission in 1882, ' As I understand it, the object of the tariff is 
 to make the article higher; otherwise, there would be no advantage in having a 
 tariff, which I can see.' 
 
 "Mr. Durand adds: 'During the Russian and Turkish war, we loaded steam- 
 ships at New Haven with the products of our brass and copper mills direct for 
 Mediterranean ports, and are now shipping more or less of the products of our 
 mills to foreign markets.' 
 
 " This statement simply shows that, in spite of the increase in the American 
 price of copper caused by the tariff, the ingenuity of our manufacturers and 
 the skill of our workmen is such that, to a limited extent, we are able to export 
 manufactures of copper. This is a wonderful tribute to the efficiency of the 
 American workman, and shows conclusively that if the bounty of two million 
 dollars a year which the Naugatuck manufacturers pay to the owners of the 
 copper-mines were removed, the export of copper goods would be quadrupled, 
 as the export of leather has been since the repeal of the duty on hides. But 
 our export of copper and its manufactures now, bears a very small proportion 
 to our total product. In 1880 the production of copper in this country was 
 
 valued at 9,458,434 
 
 From this we manufactured goods worth 15,578,919 
 
 Beside what are enumerated in the census in combina- 
 tion with tin and sheet-iron ware, worth at least . 5,000,000 
 
 $30,037,353 
 Our entire exports of copper and copper-ware in the corresponding 
 
 fiscal year were only $876,395 
 
 and in 1887, including copper, which we exported largely, the 
 
 total exports were only $3,727,447 
 
 We export copper because American copper is more ductile, and is really the 
 best. 
 
 " A repeal of the duty of two and one-half cents a pound on copper in the ore, 
 and four cents a pound on copper bars and ingots, would make a market abroad 
 for the product of every brass-factory in Connecticut. No other State in 
 America is so much injured by the existing tariff as that State. Nowhere has 
 labor-saving machinery been brought to a greater perfection. Mr. Sargent, the 
 hardware manufacturer of New Haven, has repeatedly said hi public, that if he 
 could get the material for his hardware free of tax, he would spend one-third 
 of the saving in increasing his works, one-third in increasing the wages of his 
 workmen, and the other third in reducing the price of the product. If the work- 
 men of Connecticut understood their real interest, they would be unanimous for 
 the repeal of the duty on raw materials, which diminishes wages, increases the 
 cost of the finished product, and almost entirely prevents the export of American 
 manufactured goods."
 
 21 
 
 II. -NICKEL AND SCREWS (p. 8). 
 
 Mr. Wheeler said, 
 
 " There is the great Meriden Britannia Company. They make plated goods 
 of the best quality. In making these goods they need nickel. Years ago, when 
 this metal was discovered in the mines of Austria, the miners called it nickel, 
 because they could make nothing of it. But our friend, Mr. Wharton of Penn- 
 sylvania, who happens to own the only important nickel-mine in the United 
 States, has found out a way to make a very good thing out of it. If Congress 
 had passed a law making him Duke of Lancaster, and giving him a pension of 
 twenty thousand dollars a year, you would all have called it a wicked waste 
 of the tax-payers' money, a heavy burden upon industry, a setting up of a 
 privileged class opposed to the genius of American institutions. But in all 
 except the name, Congress does this very thing when it puts so heavy a duty 
 upon nickel that manufacturers are compelled to pay Mr. Wharton what he 
 chooses to ask for the product of his mines. Now mark the result. The Meri- 
 den Britannia Company has been obliged to build a factory in Canada, where 
 it can get nickel free of tax; and, with the products of this factory, it supplies 
 the demand for plated goods in Canada and in England. All this might just as 
 well have been done in the United States, if it were not for the pension of 
 twenty thousand dollars, more or less, that a protective tariff compels you to 
 pay to Mr. Wharton of Pennsylvania. Now I assert, without fear of contradic- 
 tion, that, if the manufacturers of plated goods in this country could get their 
 nickel free of tax, they could supply the markets of the world. The demand 
 for labor would be increased, and, of necessity, the wages of the laborer would 
 go up. But no: our industry may suffer, our laborers be deprived of work, 
 our people lose the fruits of their skill and enterprise; all these may perish, but 
 let Mr. Wharton levy his annual tax, and mislead the people by calling it 
 protection to American industry. 
 
 " ' Let art and learning, trade and commerce, die, 
 But leave us still our old nobility.' 
 
 " Take another illustration. The American Screw Company succeeded in 
 getting a paternal Congress to levy a tax upon screws, so heavy as to be pro- 
 hibitory. For many years it was prohibitory, but at last the skill and ingenuity 
 of English manufacturers enabled them to make their screws so much cheaper 
 that Mr. Chamberlain began to export screws to this country; and thereupon 
 the Screw Company, in order to prevent this interference with its monopoly, 
 found it profitable to pay Mr. Chamberlain's company a large sum of money in 
 consideration of his omitting to ship screws to this country, and thus prevented 
 the manufacturers of Lowell and Lawrence from exchanging their goods for 
 the products of his manufacture. And yet, astonishing as the fact may seem, 
 this same Providence Screw Company has recently established in Canada a 
 manufactory of screws. The tax on iron in Canada is less than it is in this 
 country, and it is consequently able to make screws there cheaper than it can 
 here. Thus, in a country where iron is cheap, it makes cheap screws to supply 
 the builders of England and Canada, while every builder in America is taxed to
 
 22 
 
 increase the profits of its Khode Island factories; and the wages of its 
 workmen are reduced by the fact that the demand for the screws which they 
 make in this country is limited to the American market." 
 These remarks led to the f ollowing correspondence : 
 
 BOSTON, MASS., March 29, 1888. 
 MERIDEN BRITANNIA Co., MERIDEN, CONN. 
 
 Gentlemen, I enclose herewith a report of the debate between Mr. Wheeler and 
 Mr. Butterworth. The report is that of a Democratic paper in this city, and Mr. 
 Wheeler revised the speech. It is therefore authentic. You will see that I have 
 marked a portion of it, and by reading you will quickly see the reason. Mr. 
 Wheeler makes statements there about your business, and I want to know if they 
 are correct. 
 
 I will add that my purpose in addressing you is to use whatever reply you may 
 make against the free-traders, and I hope that you will furnish a vigorous and 
 powerful statement if your interests havT been misrepresented. 
 
 Why did you establish a factory in Canada ? Was it for your export trade, or 
 was it to capture the Canadian market from which you were excluded, owing to 
 the protective duties enforced there ? 
 
 Are wages in your Canadian factory as high as in your American factory ? 
 
 Do you get raw materials cheaper in Canada than you can in the United States ? 
 Is that the reason that you established a factory in Canada ? 
 
 If all raw materials were placed upon the free list, allowing that that term 
 could be applied to such products as coal, iron, nickel, lumber, salt, and flax, 
 would you be enabled to secure an export trade from the factory in the United 
 States ? 
 
 Would not the higher wages in this country prevent you from securing an 
 export trade ? 
 
 Have you not already an export trade from the United States in spite of the 
 high cost of raw materials and labor ? 
 
 Has not that export trade been secured owing to the superiority and reliability 
 of your products, in which you doubtless take great pride ? 
 
 Are Mr. Wheeler's assertions true, or false ? If the latter, please give me spe- 
 cifically the facts, and greatly oblige, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 HERBERT RADCLYFFE, 
 
 Secretary Home Market Club. 
 
 MERIDEN, CONN., April 3, 1888. 
 HERBERT RADCLYFFE, Esq., Secretary Home Market Club, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Dear Sir, Your favor of the 29th ult. at hand. Yours is not the first inquiry 
 we have had about the statement made by Mr. E. P. Wheeler in regard to our 
 Canada factory. He must have been making the same statement for some time 
 and at several places. We now tell you as we have before told those inquiring 
 about it, that it is wholly untrue. As you are probably aware, some years ago the 
 Canadian Government placed quite a large duty on all plated ware brought into 
 the country, in order to protect her own manufacturers. We were practically 
 excluded, and were obliged to do one of two things, either give up our Canadian
 
 23 
 
 trade, or start a factory there. We did the latter, and with very good results; for 
 we not only held the trade which we then had, but have increased the same from 
 three to four fold, at the same time furnishing employment to quite a large num- 
 ber of people. 
 
 Not one cent's worth of goods manufactured there are exported. They are all 
 used in Canada and the Provinces. The question of nickel did not enter into the 
 problem at all. 
 
 As to wages paid there, they do not differ materially from what we pay here. 
 All of the materials used by our Canada factory are furnished to them from Meri- 
 den; and, of course, this would show that the reason for starting there cculd not 
 have been on account of getting raw materials cheaper in Canada. 
 
 The only articles you mention in the list of raw materials which would affect 
 us at all, are nickel and coal. As the amount paid for this latter item is such a 
 small sum, we ignore it entirely, and only take up the question of nickel. Not 
 many years ago all the nickel which we used was imported from Europe at a 
 cost of from a dollar and a half to two dollars a pound. 
 
 When the nickel-mine, owned by Mr. Joseph Wharton, was discovered, the 
 United States Government, in order to induce him to work it, placed on nickel a 
 duty of twenty-five cents per pound. In 1883, under the Arthur administration, 
 this was reduced to fifteen cents a pound; and the cost of nickel to-day is about 
 sixty-five cents per pound, of which fifteen cents is protective duty. We use no 
 nickel in its primitive state, but it forms from ten to twenty-one per cent of all 
 the German and nickel silver which we use; and for every pound we pay two and a 
 quarter cents more than if there was no duty. When we contrast this small amount 
 with the price which nickel has been reduced by reason of the protective tariff, say 
 eighty-five cents to a dollar and thirty-five cents per pound, we are perfectly satis- 
 fied to let the duty remain as it is. If the removal of the duty on nickel would 
 enable us to get nickel fifteen cents a pound cheaper, it would make comparatively 
 little difference in the cost to us of our siver-plated goods, the principal element 
 of cost being the amount which we pay for labor. If, on the other hand, the 
 removal of the duty should, as it might, result in stopping the production of 
 nickel by Mr. Wharton, the price of the article would, we think, be increased, as 
 the few foreign producers could easily combine to enhance it. 
 
 We do not know how profitable the business is to Mr. Wharton, but feel sure 
 that a tariff which will enable him to continue the business at a fair profit is for 
 the advantage of the manufacturer, the laborer, and the consumer alike. 
 
 We now export goods to almost every civilized country on the globe, with one 
 notable exception, France, where the protective duty on plated ware is so high 
 that we are practically excluded from their markets. Our principal points of 
 export are Australia and South America; and the principal competitor we have in 
 these markets (outside of the manufacturers in the United States) is England, 
 who, owing to cheaper paid labor, is enabled to sell goods very low, and we 
 believe the success we have attained is almost wholly due to the superiority in the 
 design and finish of our goods, which is the direct result of the sharp competition 
 among the manufacturers of the United States, and is directly traceable to the 
 principle of protection, in which we all most thoroughly believe. We are much 
 obliged to Mr. Wheeler for his free advertisement, but are sorry that he has so 
 little regard for the truth as far as it pertains to us. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 MERIDEN BRITANNIA CO. 
 HORACE C. WILCOX, Pres.
 
 24 
 
 PROVIDENCE, March 30, 1888. 
 HERBERT RADCLYFFE, Esq., Secretary Home Market Club, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Dear Sir, Acknowledging receipt of, and replying to, your favor of 29th 
 inst., beg to say, with reference to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's statement quoted 
 by Mr. Everett P. "Wheeler in his recent Boston speech, that Mr. Chamberlain was 
 very careful to omit saying any thing about the circumstances under which his 
 firm demanded a subsidy from our company. 
 
 Nearly thirty years ago, his firm (Nettlefolds & Chamberlain, Birmingham, 
 England) was enabled, through the adoption of automatic machinery for produ- 
 cing gimlet-pointed screws, to break down every competitor in England, and obtain 
 a monopoly in the foreign manufacture of that product. Then, with free raw 
 material, cheap labor, supplies, etc., Mr. Chamberlain turned his attention to the 
 American market; and, to save our business, we were compelled to submit to his 
 demands, although not to such an extent as is popularly supposed. All this was 
 prior to the adoption of the tariff in 1861, and, if at that time there had been such 
 a tariff on wood-screws as is usually represented, Mr. Chamberlain would not 
 have had the advantage over us that he did. Although we owned the United 
 States patents for the kind of machinery employed by Nettlefolds & Chamberlain 
 in England, these patents did not protect against the importation into this country 
 of their product manufactured in England. 
 
 We made money during the war, as most manufacturers did, but of late our 
 business has been very unremunerative. Out of nearly forty companies, most of 
 which have come into existence since our patents expired, only ten continue in 
 operation; and our own company, with its large accumulations, and with other 
 lines of manufacture to aid us beside the wood-screw business, we were unable to 
 pay any dividends in 1885, 1886, and 1887. The screw-business is one requiring 
 the investment of large capital and intricate machinery, and the value of the 
 product is so small that we cannot turn our capital oftener than once in two years. 
 All the iron we consume is imported, and, under the existing tariff, pays a duty 
 of about fifty per cent ad valorem. "We are advised that the Mills Bill proposes 
 to increase this duty to eighty per cent, while very inconsistently reducing the 
 tariff on screws to thirty-five per cent ad valorem. For many years we have 
 been threatened with this kind of legislation; and, anticipating its effect on our 
 business if adopted, we, some years since, started a branch establishment in 
 Canada, to enable us, in case of necessity, to remove our machinery from Provi- 
 dence, and manufacture in Canada for this market. The Canadian Government 
 has treated us with fairness, recently imposing a duty on our product sufficient 
 to give us full benefit of the Canadian market, and has removed all duty upon 
 our iron. 
 
 There is not much difference in the cost of manufacture of screws in the United 
 States and Canada. With the encouragement given our Canadian enterprise, the 
 people there now obtain screws ortnuch better quality than heretofore, and at 
 lower prices than when imported, with all the benefits of home manufacture. 
 On that side of the line we are prosperous, but on this side we have had a hard 
 struggle to hold our own. 
 
 As to exporting screws, we can do nothing as against English manufacturers, 
 as they can command all the markets where they are not shut out by a tariff. 
 
 Trusting that this letter will answer your purposes, we remain, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 AMERICAN SCREW COMPANY. 
 
 EDWIN G. ANGELL, Pres.
 
 25 
 
 To the Editor of " The Boston Post." 
 
 The tariff reformers should be much obliged to Mr. Radclyffe for obtaining from 
 the Meriden Britannia Company and the American Screw Company their letters 
 on nickel, screws, and the tariff. I may be permitted to add that the statement as 
 to the Meriden Britannia Company that I made in the joint debate, was first made 
 by me before the tariff commission July 26, 1882, and is printed on p. 220 of their 
 report. Mr. Wharton was present when I made the statement; and another 
 gentleman interested in the Meriden Britannia Company was, if memory serve me, 
 also present. Neither of them denied it at the time, nor, so far as I know, has its 
 essential truth ever been publicly denied. Nor, as I read the letter of Mr. Wilcox, 
 does he deny it now in substance, though he denies the motive that I imputed to 
 his company. As to this, I can only judge of its motives from its acts, and my 
 statement respecting them he admits. Nor can I believe it possible that any one 
 would seriously contend that it would not be a benefit to a manufacturing com- 
 pany to have the price of the material which it uses, reduced fifteen cents a 
 pound. 
 
 Both companies, furthermore, admit the truth of my statement that they have 
 established factories in Canada, in order to supply a market which, under the 
 existing tariff, they were unable to supply from their factories in this country. 
 The Britannia Company also admits that the wages in Canada do not differ 
 materially from what they pay here. It goes on to say that the principal element 
 of cost in its goods is the amount which is paid for labor. It adds, " "We now 
 export goods to almost every civilized country on the globe." 
 
 Now, if it be true that the wages paid by the Meriden Company in Connecticut 
 are higher than the wages paid by the English manufacturers of plated goods, 
 this simply shows that the Meriden Britannia Company is able to make goods and 
 sell them in England in competition with the English product, in spite of its pay- 
 ing a higher rate of wages. What other possible cause can there be for this, 
 except the greater efficiency of its labor, which is precisely what I contended for. 
 The Britannia Company says, "All the materials used by our Canada factory are 
 furnished from Meriden." Does it mean to say that the nickel used in Canada 
 costs it sixty-five cents a pound net, which it states is the American price? 
 Further information on this subject would be desirable. If the fact be so, it 
 would only re-enforce my argument as to the efficiency of American labor. If the 
 Meriden Company is able to stand an addition of fifteen cents in the pound to 
 every pound of nickel it uses, to pay higher wages than are paid in England, and 
 still to compete in the English market, no reasonable man could deny that this 
 particular infant industry has reached a point where it has come to manhood, and 
 needs protection no longer. 
 
 The claim that the protective tariff has reduced the cost of nickel is about as 
 absurd as the claim that the protective tariff has reduced the cost of steel rails. 
 It is true that the price of nickel has fallen, just as the price of steel rails has 
 fallen; but each reduction has been caused by improved methods of manufacture, 
 and has been accompanied by an increase of wages. It might as well be claimed 
 that the protective tariff has enabled us to use buildings eight stories high, when 
 everybody knows that it is the improvements in elevators that have made this 
 possible. 
 
 Thus, every fact brought forward in answer to rny argument supports the truth 
 of my assertion that the cheaper the material, and the greater the efficiency of 
 labor, the higher the rate of wages ; and that American high wages are caused by 
 the latter, and not by the tariff. 
 
 As for the Screw Company, it admits that the iron it consumes is imported, and
 
 26 
 
 it does not deny that the duty on this iron is much less in Canada than in this 
 country; and it admits that it manufactures there more profitably than here, 
 which is precisely what I say. It is very clear, therefore, that the Screw Com- 
 pany and the consumers of screws would he benefited by getting its iron in this 
 country at a lower rate than it now does. 
 
 If the advice which the Screw Company has received is correct, viz., that the 
 Mills Bill proposes to increase the duty on the iron which it consumes to eighty 
 per cent, a reduction of the duty on screws to thirty-five per cent would, of course, 
 be an inconsistency which ought to be corrected. This, however, is a feature 
 copied from many like ones in the present tariff. There are numerous instances 
 in which, in order to give a fancied benefit to the American producers of material, 
 a tax is imposed upon it greater than the tax upon the finished product, to the 
 great detriment of our general manufactures. If the Screw Company should now 
 suffer from such a course, it would only have to suffer for the bad example set by 
 its high protective friends. 
 
 EVERETT P. WHEELER. 
 NEW YORK, April 5. 
 
 Mr. Wheeler says further, 
 
 " The changes in the Canadian tariff, which we may naturally suppose to have 
 been promoted by the manufacturers of plated goods, are instructive. In 1879, 
 nickel was put on the free list; in 1882, ' Britannia metal in pigs and bars' was 
 added to the free list; in 1885, 'silver and German-silver in sheets for manufact- 
 uring purposes ' were also put on the free list. If, as Mr. Wilcox intimates in 
 his letter, free raw material is of no benefit to the manufacturers, why these 
 changes in the Canadian tariff ? 
 
 " Since this speech was delivered, I have learned of a Philadelphia woollen- 
 company that has leased a woollen-mill in Bradford, England, in order to buy 
 wool free of duty, and exports the goods there made to the United States, but 
 which would be glad to return to this country if the tax on wool should be 
 repealed. 
 
 " A very curious illustration of the fact stated in the argument, and by the 
 Meriden Company, that American labor, by the use of superior machinery, is, in 
 many branches of industry, superior to that of foreign countries, is given in 'The 
 Engineering News ' of March 17, 1888. It is there shown that the American 
 locomotive is a superior machine to the German, and will draw more tons of 
 freight. For example, on a grade of one foot in a hundred, the American 
 locomotive will draw 644 tons; the German, only 348." 
 
 III. HOUSE-BUILDING (p. 8). 
 
 Since the debate, "The Boston Advertiser" (protectionist) has furnished 
 some tables which illustrate the subject of house-building. Mr. Wheeler says 
 of them, 
 
 " According to these tables the average cost of building materials has in- 
 creased fourteen per cent since 1859, while the average wages in the trades 
 most concerned in the building of a house have increased forty-eight per cent. 
 They illustrate very well two of the statements in the speech. There can be no 
 doubt that the increase in the cost of living since 1859 has been much more 
 than the increase in the cost of these materials. Relatively, therefore, to the
 
 27 
 
 general increase in the cost of living, the cost of the materials of our houses 
 has diminished. We should therefore expect to find a large relative increase 
 in the wages of the persons employed in the use of these materials, not simply 
 because of the relative cheapness of the material, but also because of the greater 
 demand for houses, caused by the rapid growth of our cities. This ' The Adver- 
 tiser' shows to be what has actually taken place. On the other hand, no one 
 can pretend that the wages of those who work on houses are increased by a 
 protective tariff. Now, if it were true that the increase of wages is caused by 
 a protective tariff, 'we should expect that this increase would not exist in those 
 trades which are not, so to speak, protected. As the contrary is shown by ' The 
 Advertiser ' to be the fact, the inference follows that this increase is not due 
 to the tariff, but to the other causes stated in the argument. 
 
 "'The Advertiser' also argues that if wages were less, more houses could be 
 built for the same money, and that therefore a diminution in wages would be 
 as much a benefit to the builder as a diminution in the cost of material. This 
 would be true but for one important consideration which 'The Advertiser' 
 appears to overlook. The reduction of wages would diminish the ability of the 
 wage-earner to pay rent. It follows, therefore, that it is much better, both for 
 the owner of the building and for the tenant, that the diminution should take 
 place, not in the wages, but in the price of material, which is precisely the 
 argument of the speech. The argument was also advanced in this connection, 
 as well as in reference to the statement in the letter from the Meriden Britannia 
 Company, previously quoted, that the reduction in the cost of many materials 
 was due to the operation of the tariff. The fact that it is not a high tariff that 
 has reduced the prices of material, is shown conclusively by the fact that in 
 England prices generally have fallen much more during the last thirty years 
 than they have in this country. For instance, the price of steel rails in Eng- 
 land in 1869 was 11 5s. per ton, or about $55. Rails as good have been sold 
 there within two years for 3 14s., or about $18.75 per ton, and the price now 
 is from $19 to $21." 
 
 IV. HENRY CLAY'S OPINIONS (p. 12). 
 
 The statement that " there was a high protective tariff from 1824 till 1832, 
 and its results were so disastrous that the very author of it, Mr. Clay, introduced 
 a bill for its gradual reduction," has been criticised on the ground that Mr. 
 Clay's object in introducing the compromise bill for a reduction of the tariff 
 was to remove the irritation which the existing high tariff had produced at the 
 South. This was undoubtedly one of its motives; but it is also true that Mr. 
 Clay, and almost all the protectionists of his school, maintained that a high 
 tariff was only a temporary measure, and that it ought to be reduced as soon as 
 the industries of the country had become established. The theory now advanced, 
 that a high protective tariff is a permanent blessing, and ought never to be 
 reduced, is the growth of a later generation. 
 
 V. FARM- WAGES (p. 15). 
 
 It was said at this point, 
 
 "The average wages of farm-laborers in this country, including board, are 
 very much higher than the average wages of persons engaged in manufacturing 
 industries."
 
 28 
 
 Mr. Wheeler adds: " ' The Boston Advertiser' denies the truth of this state- 
 ment, and quotes from the report of the Statistician of the National Bureau of 
 Agriculture the statement that the average rate of wages paid farm-laborers in 
 Massachusetts was in 1882 $30.66. It then quotes from the report of the Massa- 
 chusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics a statement that the average weekly wages 
 paid to men in the twenty-four principal manufacturing industries in the State 
 were $11.85 per week, which, per month of four weeks, would be $47.40. It claims 
 that the wages of agricultural labor in Massachusetts are higher than they are in 
 any other State in the Union. The very table it quotes shows the contrary. The 
 wages in California, of farm-laborers, without board, in 1882, are stated at 
 $38.25; in Kansas and Oregon at $33.50; and in Colorado at $36.50. In Illinois 
 the nominal amount is somewhat smaller. But it is really larger when the rela- 
 tive cost of living there, and in Massachusetts, is considered. Assuming that the 
 amount stated, $30.66 a month, is correct, this monthly wage is more than 
 the monthly wages of operatives in factories, on an average, throughout the 
 United States. The census of 1880 shows this average to be $346 a year, which 
 is equal to $28.83 a month, or $6.65 a week. If the reader will compare the 
 monthly wage of farm-laborers in Massachusetts with that of operatives in the 
 manufacturing industries, in which they are supposed to derive the greatest 
 benefit from the protective system, the contrast is equally striking. Mr. Carroll 
 D. Wright's report, from which 'The Advertiser' quotes, states the average 
 weekly wages in Massachusetts, of operatives in carpet-mills, to be $6.08; in 
 hosiery factories, $6.49; and in woollen-mills, $6.90. 
 
 " The high average which Mr. Wright gives in the table to which ' The Adver- 
 tiser ' refers, arises from the fact that in other industries not specially benefited 
 by the tariff, the rate of wages is much higher than in those which are. For 
 example, he states that the average weekly wages of persons employed in build- 
 ing industries in Massachusetts, in 1882, were $14.99, which is over twice the 
 average wages of operatives in woollen-mills. 
 
 " However, I feel bound to add that the returns of the Statistician of the Agri- 
 cultural Department vary very much from the result of my own observation, 
 unless it is intended, in the table given by the Agricultural Statistician, to in- 
 clude boys on farms, who are paid a lower price than men. My own obser- 
 vation, both in the States of Vermont and New York, is that the average rate of 
 wages for men working on farms, is much higher than that stated in the table. 
 For example, I think it would surprise a Vermont farmer to be told that he 
 could engage a man by the month, with board, for $18.25 a month. I should 
 say that $25 was much nearer the mark." 
 
 VI. ENGLISH EXPORTS AND AMERICAN PRODUCTIONS (p. 17) 
 
 Mr. Wheeler says, 
 
 "In the reply to Mr. Butterworth as actually delivered, a statement was 
 made, not included in the speech as prepared, which has given rise to a great 
 deal of comment. It involved a comparison between the English export of 
 manufactured goods and American products of similar goods. The purpose 
 was to make the comparison a fair one, and to confine it to such articles as 
 might properly be called exportable. The time limited by the rules of the 
 debate was so short that I was not able to explain this as fully as I might. As
 
 29 
 
 the facts are indisputable, and support the argument, they are here briefly 
 stated. 
 
 " The argument is, that England, in spite of many disadvantages caused by her 
 class distinctions, by the crowded condition of her population, and her limited 
 amount of land, has prospered since 1849 under a tariff strictly for revenue, and 
 that there is every reason to believe that we in this country, with far greater 
 advantages, would prosper still more under a similar tariff, the revision to be 
 made gradually, and with due regard to vested interests. In other words, even 
 if it be claimed that a protective tariff in the beginning was an advantage to 
 American industry, the experience of England has shown that, after these 
 industries have attained maturity, the tariff can be removed or reduced to great 
 advantage. 
 
 " A fair test of a nation's prosperity is the amount of the surplus which it is 
 able to export. A fair test of the prosperity of its manufactures is the surplus 
 of its manufactured products which it is able to export. The following com- 
 parative tables will illustrate the point; the census year, 1880, being selected, 
 because official statistics are available for that year : 
 
 British exports of American 
 
 British products. products. 
 
 Cotton goods $377,820,280 $210,950,383 
 
 Woollen goods 103,049,585 160,606,721 
 
 Linen goods 35,236,805 602,451 
 
 Jute goods 11,277,515 696,982 
 
 Iron and steel 141,951,580 296,557,685 
 
 Hardware and cutlery 17,604,390 11,661,370 
 
 Fire-arms 5,426,840 6,736,936 
 
 Tools 1,892,065 4,384,109 
 
 $694,259,060 $693,196,637 
 
 This, with the correction of a clerical error, is a table that was published in 
 ' The Boston Advertiser.' 
 
 " ' The Advertiser ' criticised this table on several grounds. One was, that a 
 separate item for hardware, $22,653,693, was omitted. If this be added to the 
 American side, certain deductions must be made from the item of 'iron and 
 steel,' out of which this hardware was manufactured; for it would not be fair 
 to count the iron twice, the first as iron, and second as hardware, tools, 
 rails, etc. The allowance for this leads to a consideration of the necessity for 
 other deductions from the same item, and to certain additions which ' The 
 Advertiser' did not mention. The pig-iron, blooms, etc., included in the item 
 ' iron and steel ' in the census table, were made into steel, into hardware, or 
 other advanced forms of manufacture. The steel ingots included were made 
 into rails, tools, or other advanced forms of manufacture. Thus, the amount 
 of the iron pigs and steel ingots was duplicated in the total given in the census 
 table. Pig-iron and steel ingots are of no use in themselves. Their only use 
 is to be made into something else. 
 
 " The details of the item of $296,557,885 for iron and steel are given in Vol. II. 
 of the quarto edition, Census Reports, 1880, pp. 737-708, by James M. Swank. 
 This article shows the aggregate value of pig-iron and iron blooms used in the
 
 24199 
 
 30 
 
 United States in 1880 to have been $65,081,601, and of steel ingots (taking 
 the value given for Bessemer ingots under the head of material, 1,145,711 tons), 
 $62,097,536, making a total of $128,179,137. 
 
 " These materials were made into the other articles included in this general 
 item, or into those included in cutlery, tools, fire-arms, and hardware. It should, 
 therefore, to avoid duplication, be deducted from the aggregate after ' The 
 Advertiser's' item of hardware is added. The result of the addition and 
 subtraction thus indicated is, 
 
 Total table of American products $693,196,637 
 
 Add for hardware 22,653,693 
 
 Add for other items made of iron not mentioned by ' The Advertiser,' 39,391,906 
 
 $755,242,236 
 Deduct for pigs, blooms, and ingots, included in other items . . . 128,179,137 
 
 Net result $627,063,099 
 
 which is $67,195,961 less than the English export of corresponding articles. 
 
 " The necessity of making such deductions in order to institute a fair compari- 
 son will be apparent when it is remembered that the English exports are net. 
 There is no duplication of material and of the manufactured product made from 
 that material. And the comparison would be still more striking if it were 
 corrected, either by reducing the American valuation to that of England, or 
 vice versa. 
 
 " The reason why other items of American production, such as houses and 
 the various industries which enter into their construction, bread-baking and the 
 preparation of food for immediate use, clothing and the like, ought not fairly 
 to be included in such a comparison, is that, from the necessity of the case, such 
 articles must in both countries be chiefly consumed at home. They constitute 
 necessaries of life which in their final forms are not exportable. Yet even 
 in stating them, there is constant duplication in the census table. The leather 
 appears as such, and again is added in the form of boots and shoes. The sawed 
 lumber appears as such, and again under the head of carpentering and kindling- 
 wood. In short, this census table is useful as an aggregate statement of the 
 entire product of our industries and a consequent indication of our business 
 enterprise. But to add these items together as an illustration of our national 
 wealth, is as absurd as it was to add on the credit side of the ledger the num- 
 ber of the year, in order to get at the profits of the business, or as it would be 
 to add together the exchanges of the Boston banks for a year in order to get 
 at the amount of Boston banking capital. Indeed, the fact to which attention 
 is thus called, and which has been mentioned by the protectionists as well as 
 the tariff reformers, to wit, that the material of one business is the product 
 of another, is a very important consideration, and ought always to be borne 
 in mind in any plan for the revision of the tariff. No one can deny that cheap 
 material is a benefit; and the question always is, whether a reduction of the 
 tariff upon the materials of one business will not so cheapen its product as to 
 benefit the business which uses those materials more than the first is injured, 
 assuming that it would be injured at all, which generally, owing to increased 
 demand, it would not be."
 
 000 9 
 
 OFFICERS FOR 1888. 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 ANSON PHELPS STOKES. 
 
 VICE-PRESIDENTS. 
 
 ROBERT B. ROOSEVELT. 
 JACKSON S. SCHULTZ. 
 
 EVERETT P. WHEELER. 
 CHARLES H. MARSHALL. 
 
 RECORDING SECRETARY. 
 RUSSELL STURGIS. 
 
 CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. 
 EDWARD P. DOYLE. 
 
 TREASURER. 
 CONSTANT A. ANDREWS. 
 
 THE MEMBERS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES FOR 1888. 
 
 ANSON PHELPS STOKES. 
 
 EVERETT P. WHEELER. 
 
 RUSSELL STURGIS. 
 
 E. L. GODKIN. 
 
 DANIEL H. CHAMBERLAIN. 
 
 CONSTANT A. ANDREWS. 
 
 R. R. BOWKER. 
 
 IRA BURSLEY. 
 E. J. DONNELL. 
 WILLIAM M. IVINS. 
 EUGENE G. BLACKFORD. 
 JOHN C. LLOYD. 
 GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM. 
 HENRY B. B. STAPLER. 
 
 ROBERT B. ROOSEVELT.
 
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