Tr is an unedifying spectacle that the American Congress has presented during these recent months. Tariff patching at best is apt to be undignified work. But when all considerations of statesmanship ate confessedly—even if. regretfully—sacrificed to the exigencies of the situation, -then degeneration pro-grosses rapidly. In these latest throes of the government of the States, there has been little pretence at anything more dignified or satisfactory than a {eonciliating of trusts and monopolies, bef a buying off of hostile interests, and general carnival of "log-rolling" on the part of those who for any reason could secure a purchase upon the legislative body. Only a brief time has elapsed since this new protective garment, patched and mended in curious crazy-quilt designs, has been turned jour from the hands of its makers for the adornment of the new Republican administration of finance, and yet j already it begins to drag at the heels, to gape at the sides, and generally to declare itself an embarrassing misfit. Unfriendly onlookers rail at the spectacle, and the nearest friends look unami tnkably a trifle pained. And with more or less of reason.
It is not quite easy, in examining this ingenious and complex achievement, to extract from the welter of its amended and re-amended provisions, any 1 one of importance that has had time to declare what may be expected of it, in the years to come, as a revenne-producing measure. But probably the single item of wool, on which the administration has from the beginning laid great stress, will prove as illuminating as any, in an attempt to gauge the probable value of the tariff as a whole. The Senate finance committee estimated tat the increase of revenue from the new wool and woollen schedule would be the modest sum of 23,000,000 dollars gold—and have doubtless taken much "satisfaction in the contemplation of these figures. time, however, while the committee in question were contemplating a vast number of other changes, less important but more contentions in their character, the States were absorbing wool from all quarters of the globe, at a rate hitherto unpre-"cedented. Aad while their deliberations were lengthening out into months, the warehouses of all the leading coast cities were being filled; fresh buildings were impressed as warehouses and filled in torn; the rancid flavour of heated wool even left the water-front, to which it had previously been confined, and i vaded the resident sections of the city, filling up furniture warerooms: or any other roomy: buildings by chance unoccupied. "And so it comes that, when the seal of national approval is at last fixed upon the completed law (with a general groan of discontent from the greater part of the nation) the situation stands much as follows. As early as the Ist of May were in the hands of American manufacturers and importers 460,000,000 pounds of raw wool. Adding the importations of May and Jane and the domestic product for the next two years, and there appears the total of over a thousand million pounds, already in hand or in sight for the needs of this next 18 months, As the market for woollen goods: will hereafter be smaller than before, owing to the rise in prices, and as the States have hitherto been able only to dispose of an annual amount of about 400,000,000 pounds, it is clear that the' tariff during the next two years will not yield the. expected advance oran advance at all. 'I'he pleasing prospect of the added 23 millions of revenue fades away into a mere row of ciphers, while the groans of discontent remain an audible reality. Furthermore, this huge glut of wool, added to the rise of prices, will tend to deaden the woollen industry throughout the country, to retard and not stimulate trade, and to be a burden upon home wool-raisers so that revenue, trade improvement, and the "stimulus to home industry" disappear for the present pretty much together. And before the coming two years lave passed, the discontented and disappointed ones of forty-five States meet to elect a new Congress, which is likely to address itself with a glad heart to undoing as early as may possible the work of its predecessor.
Worse, however, remains behind. lhe present administration owes its election to the cooperation at the polls of the "gold Democrats," who hated a protective tariff much, but who, for the time being, hated Bryan and free silver more. Mr. McKinley owed his election to the aid of men who had no sympathy with his idea of "tariff reform," and who had received, as they confidingly believed, a quasi assurance that no attempt would be made in case of defeat to enact any- extreme protective legislation, Their trust in the generosity of a: Republican administration has been conspicuously and ostentatiously betrayed, and they are finding themselves in the unwelcome position of men who have aided to bring to pass mensares for which they have had a life-long hatred, "It is natural, therefore, that they should find themselves at the present juncture too choked with rage to talk intelligibly. What they appear to be saying, however, through one or two of their leading organs, is that no possible evil resulting from free silver eau equal the injuries flowing from this "infamous measure" of tariff reform. There is thus a steady defect tion to Mr. Bryan and his cause of those whose support is absolutely essential if sound money is to triumph at the next elections. Mr. McKinley is being
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.