work is largely done by the same labor on both sides of the line and I presume at practically the same rates. Here, again, we are a large exporter. Our export of dressed and finished lumber is one of the growing, as it is to-day one of the largest, items in our export trade. If we can send our lumber to Europe, to the West Indies, to South America, we can certainly compete, we can certainly hold our home market without the aid of a tariff.

Mr. Chairman, the question of wages is, in my judgment, the vital question of tariff reform. If protection makes or increases wages, if it improves the well-being of the American worker, I am a protectionist from this time forward. But, sir, neither reason nor experience gives countenance to any such idea. The wages of labor are paid from the products of labor. The general productiveness of every country determines the wages of the laboring people of that country. The skill and intelligence of its labor, the character of its institutions, and the abundance of its resources determine that general productiveness. We have higher wages in the United States than are attainable elsewhere, first, because we are a great, new country with all the elements of production and of industrial supremacy in unsurpassed abundance, for whose development we command all the resources of art and skill, of science and invention; and, secondly, because we have the most intelligent and the freest laboring men in all the world.

Mr. Chairman, while this bill will, at first, effect some reduction, some substantial reduction of revenue, the experience of the past justifies us in believing that this reduction will soon be compensated for by an increase of revenue under the lower duties.

The Committee on Ways and Means expect to follow this bill with an internal-revenue bill that will provide for the temporary deficiency in the revenue, or with an amendment to the present bill making such provision. Their plan contemplates an income tax of 2 per cent. on the net earnings of the corporations of the country, a tax of 2 per cent. on personal incomes in excess of $4,000, an internal-revenue tax of $1.50 a thousand in place of the present tax of 50 cents on cigarettes; and also an internal-revenue tax of 2 cents a pack on playing cards, and an increase of 10 cents a gallon on whisky.

Now, Mr. Chairman, in closing these remarks I want to say that if the economic objections to protection are so great, if it unbalances trade, if it causes fluctuations and gross inequalities in the industries of the country, if it robs labor of employment,

if it lessens the wages of the toiler, if it throws crushing bur dens upon the American farmer, if it makes the support of government an onerous burden upon every man or woman who works for a living, a still stronger condemnation of the protective system is that its inevitable effect when persisted in is to undermine free institutions in this country and all just sense of equal citizenship.

So I say to my friends on this side of the House, let us go forward until we make this a country in which every man shall see the gateway of opportunity opening before him, in which the great avenues of industry shall no longer be the private possession of the wealth of the country, but every youth in its borders shall be inspired to rise by his own merits and his own efforts not born to labor for others, not beaten back in contempt by those who speak of him as rebel when he seeks his own rights. Let this be a country free to all, equal for all, with the golden ladder of opportunity planted in every cabin, in every home, and at every humble fireside in the land. [Longcontinued applause.]

Julius C. Burrows [Mich.] of the minority of the Ways and Means Committee, replied to Mr. Wilson.

I desire to say that this measure as a whole stands without a parallel in the history of proposed tariff legislation in this country. It was framed with the evident intention of carrying out that portion of the Democratic platform and policy which declared for a "tariff for revenue only," and is the boldest step yet taken by any party in the United States in the direction of free trade a step which, if it shall find popular following in this country, will certainly lead to individual disaster and national bankruptcy.

The first proposition arresting attention in this bill is the proposed transfer of one hundred and thirty-one articles from the dutiable to the free list.

It will not escape notice in this connection that upon examination of the list of articles thus transferred from the dutiable to the free list the interests of the farmer seem to have been selected for special assault and destruction, as nearly onehalf of the items embraced in this proposed transfer are the fruits of domestic husbandry. Even the duty of 20 per cent. ad valorem accorded the American farmer on his wheat, corn, rye, oats, buckwheat, and their manufactures is to be removed, and all these products admitted free of duty from any country

extending like privileges to us. The way is thus open to the Canadian farmer to invade our markets at will.

The one hundred and thirty-one articles proposed to be transferred to the free list are not exclusively of foreign origin. They are of domestic production, built up and sustained by the investment of American capital and the employment of American labor. They are the products of our factories, our mines, our forests, our mills, our flocks and our fields, which you propose thus to expose to the merciless and unrestrained assault of our foreign rivals. And to what end? That the manufacturers, forsooth, may have the advantage of "free raw material."

I notice every "tariff reformer" urges free raw material as an indispensable adjunct to the consummation of his theory. "There is method in his madness. No one understands better than he that free raw material will be swiftly followed by free manufactured goods. It will be protection for all or protection for none. [Applause.] When you force the producers of raw material into unrestrained competition with the world. the manufacturers of this raw material into the finished fabric will speedily share the same fate.

Yet I confess that in the light of this measure it is somewhat difficult to understand the Democratic idea of raw material.

For example, you put one class of clays on the free list, while another, adapted to the use of the same industry, is made dutiable. One would suppose that clay was about as "raw" a material as could be imagined. Yet, while putting the clays of New Jersey on the free list, you impose a duty of $2 a ton on the clays of Florida, Georgia, and other Southern States. One would surmise what was raw material in New Jersey would be "raw material" in Florida. But it seems not. One would suppose that hoop iron would be the same, regardless of the uses to which it is applied. Not so. On the farmer's bucket it is taxed, around the planter's cotton it is free.

Passing from the consideration of the free list to the dutiable schedules, we find here the same spirit of hostility manifested in every provision. There is not a schedule in which there are not some industries which will be imperiled by the passage of its bill-many will be utterly destroyed. On the other hand, if there is any provision in this bill which will stimulate a single domestic industry or give increased employment to labor it has not been pointed out. The measure as a whole looks only to lessened industries and lower wages.

I would call attention to the many incongruities in this bill.

The committee may be able to explain why pig iron is taxed, and cotton ties are free. Why the Northern farmer, with harvest labor at $2 a day, is allowed 20 per cent. on his wheat,

and the rice producer of the South, with 75 cents day labor, secures 71 per cent.

Why tallow, wool grease, and degras are made free as tanners' materials, while the sumac of Virginia and North Carolina, used for the same purpose, is protected. Why the farmers'

potatoes secure only 10 per cent. consideration, while peanuts of Virginia grow in security behind a Chinese wall of 35 per cent. Why in many instances the duty on the finished article is less, or no more, than on the articles entering into its manufacture.

But the most startling feature connected with and running through the entire dutiable schedules is the general substitution of ad valorem for specific rates. It is urged as an objection to specific rates that they operate unequally on the consumers of cheaper goods. But it must be remembered that on all the cheaper class of fabrics it is a matter of comparative indifference whether the rate is specific or ad valorem, as domestic competition has reduced the price of such articles in many cases to the consumer even below the duty itself.

Furthermore, specific duties serve to keep out of our markets cheap adulterated fabrics which are practically worthless to the purchaser, and insure a better grade of goods for the poor and rich alike.

Against the opinions of the mere theorists of to-day I interpose the substantial judgment of practical business men, experienced officials, and the practice of the most enlightened nations on the globe. In all continental nations excepting the Netherlands ad valorem tariffs have been substantially discarded.

It is not surprising, however, that the party of free trade in the United States should make this method of levying duties the leading feature of its policy. It is a fit accompaniment to this bill. It removes the last safeguard to American industries and strikes down the last hope for our protective system. If there was nothing else in this measure deserving public condemnation, this alone ought to be sufficient to insure its overwhelming defeat.

I implore you to abandon this suicidal policy. Have you not pursued it far enough to become convinced of its disastrous consequences? It is no longer an experiment-it has become a public crime. You have it within your power to instantly relieve this appalling situation. You have only to substitute for the pending measure a joint resolution declaratory of your purpose to maintain existing law in full force and effect during the continuance of this Administration, and business activity would instantly take the place of business depression. It would arrest the slaughter of our flocks, open our mines, relight the fires of our furnaces, unchain the wheels of our industries, start every spindle and loom; while whistles and factory bells would call