HOW FREE-TRADE HITS THE RAILROADS.

Twenty-five Per Cent. of Their Capitalization Is in the Hands of Receivers.

Binghamton (N. Y.) Republican-Herald, Octo

ber 2.

The Railway Age Gazette notes that there are now in the hands of receivers railway systems aggregating 41,988 miles of trackage and with a capitalization of $2,500,000,000, or about 25 per cent. of the railway capitalization in the United States.

It would be pleasant to record that all the railroads in the country are paying large dividends, that their stocks and bonds are away above par and that their relations with the Government that has taken from them the power of managing their own business, is managing it, through the Interstate Commerce Commission, in the general interests of the country at large and also in the interests of those who have money invested in the roads or who have pay envelopes coming from them. This cannot be recorded, however, in the face of the accurate figures furnished by the Railway Age Gazette, a most conservative journal.

The constant pressure of unfavorable influence exerted from Washington against public utilities of all sorts coming under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government has had its effect. The failure of the low Tariff to produce enough revenue to run the Government and to Protect American capital and labor not Protected by artificial war conditions also is having its effect. The protracted hearings of the Interstate Commerce Commission and its shuffling policy also are having their effects.

All these effects relate back on one great cause the failure of President Wilson to appreciate the weight his words and actions have had as against the general prosperity of the country. No doubt he is actuated by the best of intentions, but his lifetime of professorial duties has made him unable to grasp the fundamental facts of every-day business life and their relation to the general wellbeing of the people.

The real stress of the situation is felt in the Middle West. The large war order business has kept the East from feeling it.

"Necessary Legislation."

"If the European war continues two years, new industries of priceless value to the American manufacturer will be rooted here, provided Congress enacts the necessary legislation." With these opening words the New York Evening Post (Free-Trader) publishes a Washington dispatch. Toward the close of the article are suggested two features of the "necessary legislation"—a statute to prevent the "dumping" of foreign products

upon our markets, and a provision that imports must be invoiced at a price not less than the current price in their country of origin.

These evidences of enlightenment on the part of the Evening Post are suggestive. But they do not go far enough. Even with anti-dumping statutes and with full valuations in invoices there will still remain the menace of unrestricted competit on between the highly paid labor of the United States and the underpaid labor of Europe. "Dumping” and under-valuation may not be constant factors in the import trade. But cheap labor is always there; and it must not be forgotten that when the war is over in Europe the impoverished belligerents will rush their industrial capacity to its utmost in order to bring in money to pay the bills of the war. The only wide market for these products, indeed, practically the only market of any consequence at all, will be the American market, which we must Protect through adequate Tariff duties.

No matter how long the war may last, "the necessary legislation" for American industries, old or new, includes adequate Tariff Protection. To secure this the country must elect a Republican President and a Republican Congress next year.-Wolfsboro (N. H.) Granite State

News.

Unrest in the West.

Travelers returning from the far West and the Pacific Coast report manifestations of discontent with conditions in that famed region of unrest. The dissatisfaction now is not so narrowly political as it was a few years back, although necessarily closely related to politics. The present complaint is that the Woodrow Wilson Tariff has failed to produce results. The West is getting much the same dose it was compelled to swallow when the William L. Wilson Tariff law was

operative twenty years ago. Not even bountiful crops and the abnormal demand for horses and cattle created by the war have been sufficient to restore prosperity.

So there is a great deal of talk among big business men, agriculturalists and lumber people, not to mention small merchants and the real estaters, of getting rid of the Democratic party next year. They say that, while manufacturers in the East and Middle West have been able largely to neutralize the general effects of the war and the adverse influences of a defective Tariff system by supplying munitions and materials for the Allies, the West has been standing still. And that is the one thing in all the world that no Westerner worth while is content to do. It is not to be disputed, meanwhile, that there is still a lively and considerable progressive sentiment in the West, but this appears to be centered less on individuals and the necessity of a

third party than was the case in 1912. There is evident the admission that what is needful to be done next year can be accomplished through the instrumentality of the Republican party, if at all. The one overshadowing requirement of the situation is that the Democratic party shall be retired, as the West has paid heavy penalty for the outcome of the campaign of three years ago. Much progressive legislation has been achieved, and its efficacy is more or less stoutly defended, but it does not yield prosperity, and it is material progress and sustained development that appeal to men of the West.-Pittsburg Gazette-Times.

The Old McKinley Starting Point. After the war there will be the same problems there were before the war. The war may end any day, whenever the powers consider it the time to close it. In that case, the German dyestuffs and chemicals will be here again in shiploads -the ships may be on the way now-so little we know of what is really going on. Then the million dollars' worth of splendid buildings that have been erected in the east end of Oakdale will stand idle, and that place will return to a cornfield. We might just as well have had that manufactory ten years ago, fifteen, if we had put into effect the principle of a prohibitive Tariff, in place of waiting for a war to force it upon us. And such manufactories will not last very long unless we gird up our loins and put an old-time Republican prohibitive Tariff on next year. The normal Republican party is the enemy of Germany and England, because Germany and England are the enemies of us in the perennial wars of peace. They are foreign nations, heathen, with strange gods that we know nothing about. The ancient Israelites were the right model for a nation, established by the Lord Himself; outside are pagans, with whom we want as few dealings as possible. The modern way, for all the world to have one purse, one set of common interests, suits the Kingdom of Interest on Money, the Rothschilds. The Republican party cannot settle all questions of moral philosophy, matters that go as deep as the origin of sin. But it is a step in the right direction-the old McKinley starting point of a self-contained country: keep our natural riches within it, fill our own wants. Then, if we have our evils, they will be our own, and not a stranger's with us. The Republican party, a prohibitive Tariff, keep the dye and chemical works, like this Oakdale plant, that we should have had fifteen years ago; this will make Germany and England madder than if we had made war upon them.-Oakdale (Pa.) Times.

DON'T fight over the details, but just see that Protection is made adequate.

American Economist

Published Weekly by THE AMERICAN PROTECTIVE TARIFF LEAGUE

There are no dividends, personal or private profits in connection with the Tariff League.

"I regard it as highly essential that truthful propaganda in the interests of Protection to American industries should be disseminated throughout the United States. I believe that your facilities for doing such work are of an order to justify the encouraging support of every friend of Protection.

"The inequities associated with the present Tariff law must be corrected by the friends of Protection, and the day is near when there will be righteous demand from all sources for Tariff rates that will prevent this country from being flooded with goods made under economic conditions, such as the world has never known.

"As a result of the present war, the great preponderance of women in the European industries who are fitted to maintain an economical status, such as our men and women could not possibly compete with, spells ruin for manufacturing and laboring interests in the United States, unless Tariff rates are increased to meet those conditions, and which means higher rates than the most ardent Protectionist would have advocated a few years ago.

"There is also grave apprehension in the minds of many manufacturers in the United States as to their ability to meet the increasing competition from Japan, in which country the standard of living and labor costs are much lower than in the European countries, and against which our present Tariff rates will be pitifuly small.

"As long as the American work people propose to live under better conditions than other countries, then Protection is absolutely necessary.

"I can think of no higher form of patriotism than the good work which 'The American Protective Tariff League' is doing in its efforts to make it possible for Americans to work and live under favorable conditions insured by a full measure of Protection." See last page.

An Appeal to the American People.

[Moved by Joseph R. Grundy, of Pennsylvania; seconded by B. A. Van Winkle, of Indiana, and unanimously adopted at a special meeting of the Board of Managers, the Executive Committee and the executive officers of the AMERICAN PROTECTIVE TARIFF LEAGUE, held at LEAGUE headquarters, 339 Broadway, New York, October 15, 1915. Present: Colonel William Barbour, of New Jersey; Edward H. Clift, of New York; Hon. Lyman B. Goff, of Rhode Island; William Einstein, of New York; A. M. Patterson, of New York; Henry B. Joy, of Michigan; John Hopewell, of Massachusetts; Dr. H. C. Lovis, of New York; Joseph R. Grundy, of Pennsylvania; Col. Francis L. Leland, of New York; George R. Meyercord, of Illinois; B. A. Van Winkle, of Indiana; Wilbur F. Wakeman and T. Z. Cowles, of New York.]

In behalf of American prosperity, the prosperity of the American people as a whole;

In behalf of the full employment of American labor at the full American wage rates;

In behalf of the high standard of American living; in behalf of American industrial production and consumption brought back by the normal volume of Protection activity;

In behalf of American merchandising,

now reduced to a low stage through fewer and thinner pay envelopes, as reflected in the unprecedented number of mercantile failures in the past two years of FreeTrade depression and stagnation.

In behalf of all lines of American business, crippled by the general decrease of the purchasing power of the American people, and only in part relieved by the exceptional and ephemeral aid of war export orders;

In behalf of the restoration of sound and safe economic precautions against the certain deluge of competitive importations that will flood our country at low prices after the return of peace and the resumption in full of industrial activity in Europe;

PROTECTIVE TARIFF

THE AMERICAN LEAGUE, speaking through its Board of Managers, executive officers and Executive Committee, at a special meeting, October 15, 1915, urges upon its members and connections, and upon all Protectionists, united and effective action looking toward the restoration of the American policy of Protection as the result of the election in 1916.

Such a result is plainly within the power of Protectionists to bring about, if, setting aside all past differences, they will move together in one common cause.

The enactment of an adequately Protective Tariff at the earliest possible moment is the one grand object to work for. Let questions of method be in abeyance until that object is achieved. Existing agencies and instrumentalities, provided by the Constitution of the United States, are ample for the purpose.

This is no time for experiment with new agencies and instrumentalities. The country cannot afford to wait for the results of such experimentation. No one can tell what length of time would be consumed if the framing and enactment of a fully Protective Tariff should depend upon the slow and uncertain processes of any new plan of Tariff making.

Get back to a Protective Tariff first of all. This can be done at a special session of Congress called immediately following the inauguration of a Protectionist President and the incoming of a Congress Protectionist in both branches, March 4, 1917. That done, confidence will be restored, the wheels of all industries and all busi

ness will move again at full speed, and prosperity will be with us once more.

This is the main thing, the one great thing, to strive for. Don't waste time in trying out theories or experiments. Don't befog the issue by advocating them. Get back to Protection and prosperity by the shortest possible route. Let experimental theory and method come later.

The One Thing that Will Do It.

The members of the National Metal Trades Association are looking forward to the time when the huge machine shops of Europe, enlarged and pushed to their extremest capacity by

war exigencies, shall be no longer employed in producing war supplies and shall turn their great equipments to the manufacture of other products. Henry C. Hunter, general counsel for the association, discussing the labor situation as viewed by the employers of nearly 500,000 American machinists, is quoted in the New York World of October 18 as saying:

in

The machine shops of the United States have increased enormously their machine tools. Men large numbers are being employed on highly specialized machines and increasing the ranks of machinists.

The belligerent nations, after the war is over, will adopt a campaign to recover their markets and to extend them which the manufacturers, particularly in the machinery line, will be obliged to meet, and unless they can do so the basis of a normal work day and a fair wage, disaster will follow that will be nation wide in its effect, and from which even a high Tariff cannot save the country.

on

The normal American wage is fully double the normal European wage. When the half-paid machinists of the now warring nations return to the production of the implements of peace a high Tariff is the one thing that will enable American machine concerns to keep on paying the normal American wage and at the same time hold their own against European cheap labor competition. Nothing else will do it.

WAR isn't the only calamity that brings suffering to dependent wives and children as well as the men. There's Free-Trade, for instance.

Will Welcome the Return of Protection.

Eighty-two American railroads, with 41,988 of mileage and a total capitalization of $2,264,000,000, in the hands of receivers a larger mileage than ever before known in the history of the country -prompts the Railroad Gazette to say:

This is more than one-sixth of the railway mileage in the United States, and exceeds the total railway mileage of any other country in the world, except European and Asiatic Russia combined. The total par value of securities outstanding, of roads being operated by receivers represents about 15 per cent. of the total capitalization of the railways of the United States.

This is a record unparalleled in history. The

BOTH HAVE BEEN TRIMMED.

trations. There is one consolation to America about the present war troubles, that notwithstanding our terrible shrinkage in business and consequent money loss from the Democratic administration, we are still better off than the European countries, as we at least have our men left after the war is settled, and after next year the Republicans will see to it that our business is restored to a sound basis.

S. C. PIGGOTT. The return of Protection prosperity will nowhere be more warmly welcomed than in American railroad circles.

Where It Would End.

Whether or not it prove true that the President now leans toward the restoration of the Tariff on wool as well as the Tariff on sugar, the New York Herald is right in saying:

If there is to be a Tariff on wool there must be a new Tariff on woolens and the whole schedule must be revised. The instant

that is done there will be no means of stopping a wide ripping up of the whole Tariff question. Who could prophesy where it would end?

Well, why not rip up the whole Tariff question? That is what the

country wants, and the country will get it, too; if not at the hands of the present FreeTrade administration and Congress, then at the hands of the Protection administration and Congress to be elected next year. That's where it would end.

THE Louisville Courier-Journal congratulates President Wilson upon his backdown on the sugar Tariff question.

Col. Watterson thinks it was a mistake in the first instance

for the President to be "caught by the old sophistry of a 'full breakfast table,' a sugar-coated pill that has befuddled more Tariff reformers than any other nostrum." But, says the Courier-Journal:

It ought at least to be a consideration of some satisfaction to the administration that it has not been bullied into this reversal on the sugar Tariff by the antics of the Louisiana sugar growers, who have been threatening all sorts of dire things because of the policy of free sugar, and who will now escape that policy not because it is the desire of the administration to give a few people in Louisiana a Protective Tariff, but because it is its desire to give the people of the United States a revenue Tariff.

The cane growers of the South and the beet growers of the North will take notice that it was with no thought of benefiting them that Professor Wilson has consented to "eat crow" on the sugar Tariff question. It is "for revenue only."

Free-Trade Financiering.

Secretary McAdoo's announcement of ways and means to increase the revenue reads as follows:

In reply to many inquiries I have received about the revenue measures that will be proposed in the next Congress, I have determined to recommend (1) that the emergency revenue act, which expires by limitation on December 31, 1915, be extended until peace is restored in Europe, and (2) that the existing duties on sugar shall be retained for several years, or until normal customs conditions are restored. These are distinctively revenue measures, and are necessary in view of the extraordinary conditions now prevailing throughout the world.

It is

It is impossible to state at the moment what, if any, additional revenue measures may be necessary, as the estimates of the various departments have not yet been received. cicar, however, that the two sources of revenue I have just mentioned should be preserved, no matter what the departmental estimates may be. Of course, it rests with the Congress to say what shall be done. I am merely stating what my recommendations in these particulars will be.

It is to be noticed that the retention of sugar duties is a "distinctly revenue measure," which means that it is resorted to solely to put money in the Treasury and with no reference to Protection for the growers of sugar cane and sugar beets. Of course, there will be some incidental Protection, but no intentional Protection. But for the needs of the Treasury, the cane and beet growers could go to the devil-just as they would go if FreeTrade in sugar were to take effect next May, as provided in the Underwood Free-Trade Tariff law.

Also it is to be noticed that the War Emergency Tax, inflicted upon the country in a time of peace so far as the American people were concerned, is to be extended indefinitely. But the war tax and the sugar duties combined have failed to keep the Treasury away from a deficit. Disbursements last year exceeded receipts by about $35,000,000. We are passing through an instructive era of Free-Trade financiering.

A Gleam of Blue Sky.

The Louisiana Sugar Planter thinks that the people of that State will sincerely appreciate the willingness of President Wilson to extend the Tariff on sugar:

To us in Louisiana this conclusion of the President comes like a gleam of blue sky out of the clouds that have surrounded us. The destruction of the sugar industry that has been going on silently and yet positively during the last few years bids fair to complete its work during the coming year. This gleam of blue sky will now lend heart and confidence to everyone engaged in the industry. The sugar factories that have been seeking buyers for their apparatus at auction prices in foreign countries will stay where they are and will promote cane culture in their own vicinage, and we shall hope that within two years Louisiana will be able to regain its lost time and again turn out 300,000 tons of sugar. With reasonable assurances of permanence the crop of Louisiana can be indefinitely expanded, and it is greatly to the interest of our entire country that the cane sugar industry should be fostered in the southern part of the Federal Union and that the beet sugar industry, which is making such splendid progress in the Middle, Western and Mountain States, should also be sustained.

But what would have happened but for

the pressing need of the revenue to be derived from the Tariff on sugar? In the absence of that pressure, would Professor Wilson have come to the rescue of a people half of whose capital is directly and indirectly involved in the sugar industry? Louisiana stood to be ruined by Free-Trade. For her salvation she has to thank an empty Treasury, and not the good-will of Woodrow Wilson.

Campaign Contributions.

The New York World is worrying about contributions to the anti-Free-Trade campaign fund of 1916. It says:

The beneficiaries of Tariff extortion are ready to contribute. They are always willing to pay handsomely for the privilege of getting their feet back into the trough and hogging everything. So the Republican organization leaders turn instinctively to the Tariff monopolists.

Is there anything so dreadful in the contribution of campaign funds by Americar business men? Who is more interested than they in American prosperity? From what source would campaign contributions mainly come if not from the business interests? And while we are asking questions let us ask the New York World if it has ever been shocked or scandalized by the fact that a very large proportion of Free-Trade campaign funds are invariably contributed by importers, by foreign manufacturers, and by foreign steamship companies, and by American bankers with profitable foreign connections.

Protection and Foreign Trade.

It is the claim of Protectionists that the home market is enough; we will be happy and rich when we do business with ourselves only, on the Chinese assumption that no foreigners are wanted; it is a modern revival of the old story that a man lifted himself into heaven by pulling on his bootstraps.-Jacksonville (Fla.) TimesUnion.

The average Free-Trade propagandist seems wholly unable to understand-or, perhaps, it would be nearer the truth to say that they are unwilling to fairly state -the policy and the intent of Protection. The ridiculous assertion quoted above is a case in point. No Protectionist contends that the home market is enough. What is insisted upon is that the home market is many times more valuable and more important than all possible foreign markets ever were or ever could be. Protectionists are, in fact, the best friends of foreign trade. Never has foreign trade assumed such large proportions as when the Protection policy has been in full operation. Prosperous Americans, made prosperous by a Protective Tariff, have always been good customers of foreign countries. Having plenty of money with which to gratify their tastes and preferences, they have bought liberally of for eign goods. If they could afford to prefer foreign goods they could afford to pay the Tariff on such goods, and the Federal Treasury got the benefit of always abundant revenues. Foreign trade is best and biggest under Protection, and poorest and smallest in times of FreeTrade stringency.

America First vs. Last. In one of his recent addresses President Wilson said:

I am in a hurry for an opportunity to have a line-up and let the men who are thinking. first of other countries stand on one side and all those that are for America first, last and all the time stand on the other side.

Apparently the President was thinking of next year's general election. Well, a great many people are thinking of the same thing. They are thinking of a political line-up far more important than thất which the President has in mind. They are thinking of a line-up for "America first," industrially and economically. The President and his Free-Trade supporters have given no thought to such a line-up. They were not thinking of "America first" when the Underwood Free-Trade Tariff bill was consummated. They were thinking of how to give to foreigners the freest and largest possible entrance into the American market. And that is what they succeeded in doing, to the great damage of all labor, all industry, all business. Next year the line-up will show what American voters think of that "America last" policy.

WHY depend upon war for work and wages in America, when a peaceful, adequate Tariff will do the work. In an adequate Tariff there is peace, prosperity and happiness.

Oriental Competition. (Continued from page 193.) perfectly willing to receive and show me every attention.

With this letter I am sending some pictures I took on my visit to the cotton mills and iron and steel works in China.

Pig Iron Production at Hankow. For more than three years I had had a strong desire to visit Hankow for the purpose of seeing the Chinese make pig iron and steel rails six hundred miles in the interior of China, on the banks of the famous Yangste River, the fourth largest river (3,400 miles) in the world. I had read in an American newspaper of a cargo of Chinese pig iron made in this place being sold in Brooklyn, N. Y., for a certain price per ton. This iron was loaded at the furnace on an ocean-going vessel which can ascend this great river to Hankow nine months in the year. The voyage was down this river, across the Pacific Ocean, around South America, Cape Horn, up the Atlantic Ocean

into the harbor of New York, and unloaded at the Brooklyn wall. As the district I represent in Congress makes pig iron, in furnaces located within less than eight hundred miles of Brooklyn, I made an investigation and ascertained that this cargo of Chinese pig iron was sold for $2 per ton under the price the Tennessee furnaces could make and deliver it to Brooklyn. So a ton of this Chinese pig iron could be made

and delivered at the end of a 15,000-mile ocean voyage, and pay our Tariff duty, for less than a ton of Southern pig iron could be manufactured and sold eight hundred miles distant in the United States, on the Atlantic seaboard.

Can Undersell American Producers. Now that the Panama Canal is completed and the American Tariff duty on pig iron entirely removed by our FreeTrade Congress, the cost of transporting and selling a ton of Chinese pig iron in our Atlantic seaport cities has been greatly reduced. The distance has been cut practically in half and the Tariff duty is $2.50 per ton less than at the time the cargo mentioned was sold in our market. When I found, upon personal investigation, that the American iron producers paid their men in the coal mines, coking plants, iron ore mines and in the operation of furnaces more for one hour's work than is paid for twelve hours' work in these same lines or occupations in China, I fully understood how Chinese pig iron

could be sold in Brooklyn for $2 less per ton than Tennessee pig iron. Probably it can now be sold for $4.50 per ton less. Contrast 18 to 30 cents for ten and twelve hours' work in an Oriental coal and iron mine, furnace and steel mill with the American scale of wages for similar work and you will have the story.

The Time Is Coming.

Prior to the present war the American towns and cities on the Pacific Coast were being supplied with foreign pig iron and our European competitors were underbidding us on structural steel in the same markets under the Underwood-Wilson Free-Trade Tariff law. At present China is selling her entire output of pig iron and steel rails in the Orient. But we have only to wait. The time is coming when the iron and steel industry of America will be face to face with serious Oriental competition in the Orient, in Russia, the Philippines, Mexico, South and Central America and in the United States on both

VIEW OF COTTON MILLS AT WUCHANG.

coasts. If left alone, under the wise and progressive President of China, Yuan Shi Kai, China will have this industry in time developed. The iron and coal of China is inexhaustible. Its mineral resources are not excelled and it has the cheapest and most abundant labor in all the world. Japan's Designs Upon China. Japan will seize and develop this colossal mineral wealth of the Republic of China if her cunning and avaricious hand is not stayed. If Japan's plots and schemes succeed, then the iron and steel development of the Orient will be carried out by Japan. Certain bankers of Japan have at present a large mortgage, running into the millions, on the iron and steel works located at Hankow, and Japan only recently attempted, by treaty manipulation and the sending of 60,000 soldiers into China, to intimidate and force China to surrender its mineral wealth.

Japan has demonstrated what she can do in the manufacture of cotton goods. In this single line alone she has taken

from America an annual business which in 1906 amounted to $28,900,000 and reduced it to $1 194,930 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1915. There was a falling off of $4,901,478 last year over our sales of cotton goods to China, as compared with the previous year, 1914. What Japan has accomplished in this line she can more than duplicate in the iron and steel business if she gets a chance. We have more to fear from Japan than China in the iron and steel industry. We have the honest, sincere friendship and good will of the people of China, and this cannot be said, in truth, about the Japanese.

day.

Male weavers, 21

cents a day.

Female weavers, 20

cents a day.

Cotton mills,

males, 20 cents a day; females, 8 to 15 cents

a day; children, 8 cents a day.

Coal miners, 30 cents a day.

Women in coal mines, 18 cents a day; children under

In the plants operated by the Government of Japan the following is a scale of

wages:

In the ordnance department, 352 cents a day.

Torpedo department, 36 cents a day. Steel works, 38 cents a day. Shipbuilding department, steam, etc., males, 362 cents; females, 141⁄2 cents a day.

Powder mill, males, 31 cents; females, 14 cents a day.

Steel foundry, males, 342 cents; females, 151⁄2 cents a day.

Low Pay and Long Hours. In transportation by rail, river, canal and ocean, which means low freight rates from the Orient to America, the same low standard of wages and long hours of service obtains. In legislating for the future welfare, prosperity and happiness of the American people, especially the working people, Congress will be derelict in its duty if it hesitates, fails or refuses to