years in Mexico City, as a protest against the policy pursued by the Administration in that unhappy land. Can Mr. Wilson's Mexican policy be regarded as a success by any one? In fact, it may fairly be asked where . has his policy in business matters been a real success? Even its great protagonist now is willing to have the League of Doubts amended by reservations. It has taken him a long time to see the light and he yields grudgingly. The Kaiser said: "There is but one will in Germany-my will." A similar belief was held by Mr. Wilson, but he, too, came to grief in his attempt to force it upon the people of the United States. Out of a population of 40,000,000 in Great Britain only 5,346,000 are assessed for income taxes and 1,940,ooo are not chargeable with taxes because their incomes, after abatements and allowances, do not bring them within the provisions of the law. Of the 5,346,000 assessed for the ordinary tax, 2,905,000 persons have incomes not exceeding $2433, and of these 2,163,000 have $1216 or less. If half the population be considered as children and women in receipt of income, there remain 15,000,000 whose earnings do not reach $633 per annum. Attorney General Palmer, in his quest for the presidential nomination, is trying to upset economic laws by fiats of the government and to compel reduced charges for commodities. Royal Meeker, United States Com missioner of Labor Statistics, sees "no prospect of any considerable fall in prices for several years to come" and he declares that the sufferings already endured by the people because of the increases of the past four years will be multiplied ten fold if prices drop within the next seven years to the 1913 level, because a period of falling prices is always a time of business depression, failures, and unemployment. So far as Senator Warren G. Harding, of Ohio, is concerned, the "old American protective idea" is not a thing of the past. In a recent address in New York he made an eloquent appeal for protection of American industries when he said: "I do not care how much men may sneer at it, I do not care how much men may say that the old American protective idea is a thing of the past. I warn you now that if we expect to maintain American eminence we must still cling to the policy which made America eminent. I have noted with very great interest the moderate switching of the party now in power to this helpful American idea." tween July 1 and July 15, 1916, 30,144,382 copies of speeches made by Cabinet officers were printed and distributed through the mails at a cost of $442,000. Isn't it a good time, when people are burdened by taxes, for Congress to insist that this great waste shall be stopped and stay stopped? Recounting the war loans made by Great Britain to the Allies and noting that £568,000,000 are sunk in Russia alone, the Yorkshire Observer says: "We know full well the need of export, outpouring of our made goods to the last possible pound that we can put into the holds or on the decks of ships." Germany is in equally dire straits and will enter the foreign export field with the same desperation. Such competition as Great Britain and Germany will furnish will be met in every foreign country which vessels can reach. Will our manufacturers and our wage earners deliberately choose that field to face therein the kind of competition these two desperate countries will surely furnish? English authorities proclaim that they can furnish cotton textiles to the world and that they do not fear competition from this country. The conditions to be faced at home and abroad are known and a deliberate choice must be made. Is there any doubt which course sane men will choose to follow? A recent London dispatch stated: "According to reports from Cardiff, Welsh tin plate makers are being asked by American firms to carry out contracts for Japanese custom ers." In 1890 who in this country would have been rash enough to predict that the day would come within three decades when the tin plate manufacturers of the United States would be declining proffered business and turning it over to their Welsh rivals? At that time the Democratic opponents in the United States Sen ate of an American tin plate industry were deriding all attempts to organize and establish such an industry in this country, and were predicting the impossibility of setting it up in our midst. All their predictions were long ago proven false and their sponsors discredited. PROTECTION AGAIN A CANADIAN ISSUE. From out of what has been the most blurred political situation that Canada has perhaps ever known, there emerges the present Unionist Ministry, preparing to stand or fall by the old, historic national policy (given to Canada in 1878 by Sir John Macdonald) of moderate protection for Canadian industries. For a year or more past, talk of tariff or protection, except by way of condemnation, has been conspicuous by its absence from Canadian political platforms. With the rise of the agrarian movement in the West, with free trade as one of its foremost policies, the return of the official Liberal party to the low tariff platform of the early nineties, and the unpopularity which the high cost of living and profiteering earned for manufacturers generally, there was a general inclination on the part of protectionists to "pussy foot" on the tariff, and even the staunchest enemies of Cobdenism became apologists for the national policy. This policy was tolerable, so far as the Unionists were concerned, so. long as the war made it necessary to hold together a coalition composed of men of conflicting faiths and economic beliefs. Now, however, with the war over, and the vital revenue needs of the country making destruction of the tariff, which is the bulwark of Canadian income, a perilous undertaking, protectionists are reasserting themselves, and an address which Hon. Arthur Meighen (regarded by many as Sir Robert Borden's logical successor as Premier) delivered recently to a convention of Canadian shoe manufacturers dealing with tariff and taxation issues, is regarded in well informed circles as having been a key note speech signalizing the Government's adoption of a well-defined policy of moderate protection. Warning his hearers that they must not expect a tariff that could be used for exploitation, Mr. Meighen went on to throw down the gage of battle to farmers and Liberals in this unmistakable fashion: There are others, one political party, possibly two, but one at any rate, full-fledged and on the march, who would submarine our whole fiscal system, who would legislate first and then count the cost. With them, so far as I am concerned, I engage the issue. If this whole thing has to be threshed out again let it be done, and well done, and let the people once again decide. One thing is sure, with the burden on this country we must have revenue, and we must have business, or everybody is going to suffer. It is significant that the Ottawa Journal, the Government organ here, owned and edited by Dr. P. D. Ross, a close personal friend of Sir Robert Borden, welcomes Mr. . Meighen's declaration as a needed change in the Ministerial policy, adding that on a clear-cut tariff issue the Ministry the Ministry need have no fear of the public verdict. The political effect of the adoption of a moderate protective policy by the Government is problematical, both as regards the continued existence of the present coalition and the fortunes of the agrarian party. A reasonable prediction, however, is that it will re sult in a sifting of free traders and protectionists into separate groups, the low tariff advocates dividing between Liberals and farmers and the protectionists standing by the Gov ernment. Such an orientation would effect more good than harm, for in the past one of the banes of Canadian politics has been that protectionists and free traders, radicals and conservatives, have been hopelessly intermingled; so much so that the Liberal party was often more reactionary than the Conservative party, and the Conservative more progressive than the Liberal party. With the various political and economic creeds lined up together and the country presented with definite, clear-cut issues, it will be possible for the electorate to render a verdict with a greater measure of intelligence. ECONOMY AND PRODUCTION. A state of underproduction exists all around the industrial circle, due largely to labor discontent, and the effect is to make the cost of living higher and cause more discontent, as is pointed out by the monthly letter of the National City Bank. There is complaint from employers that higher per diem wages and a shorter day are accompanied by reduced production per hour. A widespread, persistent, well financed campaign of propaganda is being carried on to instill suspicion and discontent among the workers. Wage increases, of course, accomplish nothing in the face of diminishing production. An actual scarcity of necessary goods exists the world over today, which means that the average consumption per individual must be less. It follows that the person who insists at this time upon having as much for consumption as in normal times is insisting upon more than his share of the existing supply. It is something more than a question between employers and employed; it is a question of fair distribution of the consumable goods. The whole argument that wages must be advanced to cover the rising costs of living, although plausible, is fallacious, because it assumes that each individual is entitled to have as much as though there was a full supply. |