our ships will plow every sea in successful competition with the ships of the world. [Loud applause on the Republican side.]

Experience has demonstrated that for us and ours and for the present and the future the protective system meets our wants, our conditions, promotes the national design, and will work out our destiny better than any other.

With me this position is a deep conviction, not a theory. I believe in it and thus warmly advocate it because enveloped in it are my country's highest development and greatest prosperity; out of it come the greatest gains to the people, the greatest comforts to the masses, the widest encouragement for manly aspirations, with the largest rewards, dignifying and elevating our citizenship, upon which the safety, and purity, and permanency of our political system depend. [Long continued applause on the Republican side and cries of "Vote!" "Vote!"]

Roger Q. Mills [Tex.], of the Committee on Ways and Means, replied to Mr. McKinley. He dwelt at length on the injustice of putting sugar and hides on the free list and increasing the duties on woolens, cottons, iron and steel. He continued:

Now, I do not believe in protecting hides or anything else against competition. I am for free raw material, and I am for putting a low revenue duty on the finished product that goes to the consumer, for that is the cheapest taxation you can impose upon him. But you increase the duty on wool, and you take camel's hair off the free list and put it upon the dutiable list, and you do that because you say it displaces a certain amount of wool, and you put the duty on to check its importation. You increase the duty on wool in order to develop the shoddy industries of the country, and judging from the price you put upon wool and woolen goods in the judgment of the Republican party to wear a piece of woolen goods is a crime in this country. [Laughter.]

Now the committee are greatly alarmed about our wheat growers. That great industry is imperiled by "a most damaging competition." They have increased the duty on wheat and that great product is safe. How many bushels of wheat are imported into this country? Last year we exported 90,000,000 bushels and imported the inconsiderable amount of 1,946 bushels of wheat. [Laughter and applause.] And that duty has been put on to protect American farmers against the damaging foreign competition.

And what do you suppose that wheat was imported for? It was seed wheat, imported by the wheat grower of the West to improve his seed. And you have made it cost him that much more to improve his agricultural product so that he can raise a better character of wheat and better compete in the markets of the world, where he has to meet all comers in free competition.

We exported 69,000,000 bushels of corn last year and we imported into this country 2,388 bushels, an amount, we are told, that imperils the market of those who raise 2,000,000,000 bushels. [Laughter.]

How much rye did we import last year? Sixteen bushels! [Laughter and applause on the Democratic side.] It could all have been raised on a turnip patch. [Renewed laughter.]

Mr. Chairman, why have we not the prices of 1881? Because we have cut off importation from our European customers, and they have cut off importation from us. Our surplus is increasing with our population, and we have no markets to consume it. What ought we to do?

We should reduce the duties on imports, put all raw materials on the free list, increase our importation four or five hundred millions or more if we could, and thus increase our exports to that extent. That would raise the prices of agricultural products and the aggregate value of our annual crops $1,500,000,000 or $2,000,000,000 per year. That would distribute a large amount of wealth that would be expended in the employment of labor, and thus unbounded prosperity would be brought to the whole country.

Instead of this the committee have prepared a bill increasing taxes, raising duties, restricting importations, shutting in our farm products and decreasing prices. They are going in the opposite direction and struggling to intensify the distress of the country.

My friend from Ohio [Mr. McKinley] is alarmed at the importations from Canada. He showed the rapid increase of imports from Canada during the reciprocity treaty [1854-1856]. But it escaped his mind that exports also increased during that time, and when the treaty expired and imports fell off the exports fell off, too. If his bill shall check imports from Canada, he will also check the exports of many of our people.

Now, Mr. Chairman, my friends on the other side have discovered something new to tell to the manufacturers and to the working people. They say "We propose to give you a drawback on everything, except to the extent of 1 per cent., which

will cover the cost to the Government; we will let you make your importations of materials, and when you send out your manufactured articles you can withdraw from the treasury the duty that you advanced on the materials." That looks all right, but let us see whether it is so or not.

A few months ago, while in the State of Massachusetts, I went into one of the largest manufacturing mills, I suppose, in that old commonwealth; it was located at Lawrence. I saw there a hall larger, I think, than this, containing a large number of mills which had been imported from England. I asked the gentleman in charge what those mills had cost. My recollection is that he said $800 apiece. I asked him what was the life of one of those mills. I think he said eight or nine years. The duty was 45 per cent. on every mill.

Anxious to Trade Behind the Wall of Protection, but Not Willing to Deal with the Rest of the World

Cartoon by D. McCarthy in the "New York Herald"

Now, I want somebody to tell me whether a manufacturer in Massachusetts, if he had everything else free, could import his mills from England, paying 45 per cent. duty, and then manufacture goods in competition with anybody outside of the United States? Do not gentlemen know-of course they do that in the markets of the world a difference of half a cent on the unit of quantity is sufficient to turn the scales? A man who can offer goods at half cent less on a pound or a yard or a dozen of anything than his competitor takes the market and holds it. If we import coal we must pay a tax upon it, while the Englishman, the Frenchman, and the German get their coal free. There cannot be any rebate on the coal; the coal is consumed in generating the steam that drives the machinery, and, like the tax on the machinery, cannot be reëxported; and the cost must be charged up to the consumer in the product.

The case is the same with the oil that lubricates the machinery. And thousands of gallons are used in manufacture.

Now, what about this sugar-bounty plan? Why have you started this demoralizing and vicious policy?

You are going to give bounties on steamships, too. My friend from Ohio spoke most eloquently in advocacy of this plan. He said we ought to check importations, obstruct foreign trade; that it is demoralizing our labor; that we ought to build up home markets and home trade; and yet he maintains that we ought to have a bounty on American ships, so as to put our flag on the sea and increase our foreign commerce. [Applause on the Democratic side.] Mr. Chairman, I do not want to bribe anybody to put an old hulk on the ocean. [Laughter.] I do not want to hire anybody to display our flag somewhere in the world. [Applause on the Democratic side.] When that proud emblem of our country goes to the uttermost parts of the earth, on all the seas and among all the nationalities and tongues of the globe, I want to see it riding as free as the air and as fearless as the eagle that nestles in its folds, the symbol of the proudest and the freest people in the world, a people whose liberty and genius and spirit have enabled them to carry their commerce wherever they please. [Applause.]

Mr. Chairman, we promise our friends that we will examine their bill; we will discuss some of its provisions, for they intend to cut off our debate and prevent us from discussing all of them. It needs discussion, and will get whatever we are permitted to give it; and then when we have done that you will pass it. We will content ourselves by giving our votes against it, and, when you leave this House and Senate with this enor

mous load of guilt upon your heads and appear before the great tribunal for trial, may "the Lord have mercy on your souls.” [Great applause and cries of "Vote!" "Vote!" on the Democratic side.]

On May 8 Julius C. Burrows [Mich.], of the Committee on Ways and Means, spoke in favor of the bill. Reversing the famous epigram of President Cleveland in his tariff message of 1887, he said: "It is a theory and not a condition that confronts us."

In addition to the specific criticisms of the various provisions of this measure we shall be confronted with the usual objections to the whole theory upon which it is framed and there will be no end of denunciation of the protective system as a whole, and all the ills flesh is heir to will be charged to this policy.

It will be reasserted with increased emphasis that the imposition of a duty on imports is a tax paid by the consumer and that the effect of such imposition is not only to raise the price of the foreign article, but to advance the price of the domestic article in an equal degree. While this is true of a strictly revenue tariff raised on articles not produced in this country, yet it is not true when the duty is levied on articles the like of which are manufactured at home in sufficient quantities to meet the home demand.

Without entering into particulars I challenge any man to name a single article on which a duty is imposed, under which the production of such article has grown to the extent, or nearly so, of the home demand, that the price of such article, if competition is not interfered with, has not been materially reduced to the consumer. This results from the inexorable law of supply and demand.

Benton McMillin [Tenn.], of the Committee on Ways and Means, replied to Mr. Burrows.

The gentleman began his speech with the announcement that "It is a theory, and not a condition, that confronts us." He seems to be anxious to put himself in antagonism to one of the greatest men of this country, and has done it in that way. I invite him to call in his eloquence and bestow a little of his thought to home affairs. What is the condition there? There are 47,720 farms in Michigan on which are mortgages, and only