obtain my earnest advocacy if it had nothing else in it than free raw wool.

Here Mr. Breckinridge discussed the general need of free trade. He said in conclusion:

I hope to live to see the day when the continent will be one for freedom, and in that day our children will look back upon these discussions as we look back upon some of the old discussions about the relations of the union of church and state, or the question of slavery. We have free speech, free thought, free locomotion, and, beyond that, we will have free trade. We will recognize that the primal curse, "by the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread," is the primary right of mankind; that the right to labor, the right to work, the right to support his family, carries with it the right to spend the fruits of his labor wherever he wants to, for whatever he pleases, according to his own will. This is freedom; that he who works has the freedom to work for whom he pleases without burden, to spend its recompense where he pleases, for what he pleases. And this is the mission of the Democratic party. We are the friends of the laboring men; aye, we are the artisans of toil, in whose name we have taken possession of sovereignty, for whose benefit we labor, whose freedom we will secure, and, when the end shall come, in humble homes that name will be the sweetest that can be uttered. [Loud applause on the Democratic side.]

Nelson Dingley [Me.] opposed the bill.

The free-trade theorists say that we should not undertake to carry on industries in which foreign producers or manufacturers have an advantage over us, but should confine ourselves to industries in which we have advantage over other countries. This is the free-trade contention of the gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wilson] and the contention of the majority report.

Now, if this free-trade contention referred simply to a natural advantage; if the argument of the majority report, insisting that we should not attempt to extend our industries and business to "artificial channels," referred to disadvantages of climate, soil, or other natural conditions, it would be accepted as sound. No protectionist holds that the protective policy should be applied to any industry which must be carried on

here under natural disadvantages, that is, where a larger amount of labor is permanently required to make or produce a given article here than is required elsewhere, except as there may be cases where national defence demands it.

What is meant by opponents of protection, however, is not this. It is that we should not carry on any industry here in which our higher wages of labor make the product cost more in money, although no more in labor or service than elsewhere where the laborer receives less pay-this, the gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wilson] tells us, would be an "artificial channel"-but should confine ourselves to "natural channels,' or such crude industries, mainly agriculture, in which we have sufficient natural advantage to offset the difference of wages.

Indeed, the free-trade contention-and it is noticeable that nearly all the speeches for this bill on the other side have adopted free-trade arguments to their logical conclusion, and as such have been most enthusiastically applauded by nearly all our Democratic friends, thus showing that the Democratic party no longer disguises its free-trade policy-the free-trade contention is that where we find industries in which our higher wages of labor make the product cost more in money (although not more in labor or service) than they cost abroad because we pay higher wages for a certain amount of labor, we should drop such industries, notwithstanding they comprise nearly all our manufacturing industries, and import such goods instead of making them here, and turn the labor which has been employed in such manufacturing industries into agriculture or the production of crude materials in which we have natural advantages. This is the policy which has been again and again enthusiastically applauded on the Democratic side. And it is seriously contended by the free-trade theorist that this policy -which in fact would be going back where we were a hundred years ago—would give us the largest production of wealth, highest wages, and greatest consuming capacity. Perhaps the gentlemen who advocate this theory will be able to tell us what any of our farm products would be worth with such a multiplication of farmers and such an annihilation of nonagricultural

consumers.

It is sufficient to say in reply that any economic theory which, put into practice, would prevent a diversification of industries, and especially the establishment of advanced manufactures, is fundamentally wrong. For nothing is clearer in the light of reason or in the teachings of experience than that people who so far multiply their pursuits as to give an oppor

tunity for every variety of talent, and especially the highest skill, to do most effective work, take the lead in agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce. A nation with advanced industries, placed alongside the farm, produces far more per inhabitant than one which confines its industries to what freetraders call "natural channels." [Applause.]

On January 12 Sereno E. Payne [N. Y.] spoke in opposition to the bill.

I have studied this bill to see if I could find any theory upon which it was constructed. It is not a protective bill, although the committee have left some protective features in it. They have even seen fit to adopt a number of the rates contained in the McKinley bill. The title of the bill says that it is "to raise revenue, yet it proves to be a bill to reduce revenue by $76,000,000 a year.

As I have gone through its provisions, and examined its paragraphs, and studied its relations to the different industries of the country, I have come to the conclusion that the committee have gone back to the year 1880, and with their candidate for the presidency in that year [General Winfield S. Hancock] have agreed that "the tariff is a local issue." [Laughter.]

The committee have reduced the duty on hops from 15 to 18 cents. Now we shall be compelled to enter into competition. with Canada, Germany, and England, and with any other country that raises hops; and why? To save 2 cents a barrel to the brewers of the country. It is time that the farmers of this country had a little consideration from the Democratic party as well as the brewers of the United States. [Applause.]

Mr. Chairman, the more we examine this bill the more we are convinced of the astuteness of that Canadian member of Parliament who stated that Canada got more out of the Wilson bill, without giving anything up in return, than she could have hoped to obtain by the most favorable reciprocity treaty.

The bill should read, for the encouragement of the Canadian farmer and the Canadian mechanic, the Algerian grape grower, the Bermuda onion grower, and the foreign mechanics the world over. That would be its most appropriate title.

The committee put salt on the free list. We paid $4 a barrel when we did not make enough salt to meet the demand in this country; but now it has gone down under a high rate of duty to 40 cents a barrel at the factory.

Every pound of salt shipped from Liverpool to the United

States and to Canada pays a profit to a single agent at New York City to-day. Give them free salt-what then? Why, they would cut down just enough below our prices to get into the country from Canada. But what gentleman is so credulous as to believe that a single individual consumer of the United States would get his salt a hundredth part of a cent lower than he gets it to-day. Then when they have got into our trade, when they have closed our factories (and when a salt factory is closed

it deteriorates very fast and soon loses its usefulness) we shall have to pay tribute to this English subject in the city of New York for every pound of salt that comes into the United States from across the water.

I might speak of flax and hemp. I might speak of the peculiar consideration and the love that this committee have for the rags that fall from the paupers of foreign countries, that they should put rags and shoddy, unmanufactured, on the free list in this bill.

The committee has put lower duties on wire rods, wire, and wire cloth. If the manufacturers continue to make wire cloth in this country under this bill they must cut wages right in two in the middle.

There are some things about this bill that I cannot under

stand at all, unless the rates were put into one basket and the subjects into another, and one man drew out the rates and anocher the subjects, and the clerk wrote them down as they thus came out. [Laughter.]

The chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means wants to go out after the markets of the twelve hundred millions of people who buy only 10 per cent. of the consumption of the world. Better keep the market of those who, though they be but seventy millions of people, buy more than 30 per cent. of the consumption of the world. [Applause on the Republican

side.]

With what would the native of Africa, whose sole possession is the necklace around his neck, pay for the railroad iron which the chairman is going to send to that market? [Laughter.] Oh, this ignis fatuus of a foreign market! Let us keep our own market, pay our own wages, keep our own consumers what they are, the best consumers in the world. Do not cut off the very life-blood of the prosperity of this great nation. [Applause on the Republican side.]

I want you gentlemen to amend this bill only as suits your own sweet wills. Put all the direct and war taxes upon it you choose; fix it even to suit the Ohio free-trader, who was so vociferously applauded by you, then when you have perfected it I shall stand ready to vote to strike out its enacting clause that it may remain as a monument to your folly.

I shall do this to save the present law, which gave us the three most prosperous years of our national life. I shall do this because this bill will encourage fraud and perjury; will drive the honest importer from the business; will put a direct, offensive, and inquisitorial tax upon our people; will give a gratuity to the sugar producer, without a farthing of benefit to the country; will foster the interests of sections at the expense of others; will impoverish our farmer, destroy his wool industry, leave him defenceless against the tobacco of Sumatra, give his market for barley to Canada, for hops to Germany; cripple by a reduction of their purchasing power the consumer of his vegetables, his poultry, his dairy products, his small fruits, ruin his home market, and because it will tend to reduce labor to the level of its foreign impoverished rival; will stop many a wheel, put out many a forge, bring poverty and want to American homes, sap the manhood of American citizens, and continue the blight of poverty and want, and hunger and cold, which has so recently overtaken the people of a country one year ago the busiest, the most prosperous, the most progressive, the happiest,