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is anxious that the railroad funding bill and the bill to refund the allied debts should be passed before the regular session. There are many who believe that if these three measures are put through during the rest of the special session the Senate will have accomplished much. Under such circumstances the Tariff bill must go over, but when it is completed and made ready for Senate consideration it is believed it will be a thoroughly scientific measure, in harmony with Republican principles, and potent for great good for the American people.

FRANK I. WHITEHEAD.

Union Domination in the Government's Printing Plant.

Attention was recently called in the Manufacturers Record to the closed shop conditions in the Government's printing plant, and in reply thereto Mr. Carter, the Public Printer, sent us a copy of a letter which he recently addressed to Congressman Blanton in which the ground was taken that it was his determination to forbid the control of the printing office by the Typographical Union. Mr. Carter in that letter said:

"No inquiry is made by this office as to whether persons eligible for appointment are or are not members of labor organizations. Their eligibility for appointment is determined solely by Civil Service requirements. Nor is there any rule that an employe shall or shall not belong to a labor organization in order to retain his position in the Government Printing Office."

On the other hand. an employe of the Government Printing Office who is opposed to the Typographical Union and believes in an open shop writes us:

"I see from your letter that the Public Printer has taken notice of your interest in the matter and by his reference to the matter published in the Congressional Record seems to take it for granted that what we complain of has been remedied. It has not. The union still collects dues, and to all intents and purposes is functioning inside the shop as it ever did. So far as really controlling the activities of the union nothing has been done. The bare truth might be stated in softer words and the actual conditions clothed in milder phrases, but to a man who has any knowledge of printing, who knows what a closed union shop is, needs no explanation why it is neecssary that one must have a card to work in this shop. I make the simple statement that no self-respecting American citizen can work in the Government Printing Office without first getting a license from the International Typographical Union. He can 'stay' in the shop, of course, but God Almighty has never yet found a quality of clay that will long stand up under the assaults of ostracism and bloodless methods of silent treatment. The value of what you are doing through the press cannot be overestimated, and if you could personally get some Senators and Congressmen interested we might get more direct results."

This gentleman, who against his will was practically forced to become a member of the union in order to work in that Government shop, sends us a copy of the "constitution and by-laws and rules of order" of the Typographical Union which practically controls the work in the Government Printing Office. Article 9 reads as follows:

OBLIGATION FOR MEMBERS.

Every person admitted as a member of this Union shall subscribe to the following obligation, which shall apply only to matters pertaining to the printing industry.

"I (give name) hereby solemnly and sincerely swear (or affirm) that I will not reveal any business or proceedings of any meeting of this or any subordinate Union to which I may hereafter be attached. unless by order of the Union, except to those whom I know to be members in good standing thereof; that I will, without equivocation or evasion, and to the best my ability, abide by the Constitution, By-Laws, and the adopted Scale of Prices of any Union to which I may belong; that I will at all times support the laws, regulations, and decisions of the In

ternational Typographical Union, and will carefully avoid giving aid or succor to its enemies and use all honorable means within my power to procure employment for members of the International Typographical Union in preference to others; that my fidelity to the Union and my duty to the members thereof shall in no sense be interfered with by any allegiance that I may now or hereafter owe to any other organization, social, political, or religious, secret or otherwise; that, I will belong to no society or combination composed wholly or partly of printers, with the intent or purpose to interfere with the trade regulations or influence or control the legislation of this Union; that I will not wrong a member, or see him or her wronged, if in my power to prevent. To all of which I pledge my most sacred honor."

In view of the sentence printed in black type it is not surprising that the writer of that letter recently wrote that no American citizen could take the oath of office to this country and be a member of the Typographical Union without practically perjuring himself. For here is the distinct statement, which he swears to uphold, that his fidelity to the Union shall in no sense be interfered with by any allegiance that he may now or hereafter owe to any other organization, social, political, or religious, secret or otherwise.

That definitely places the Typographical Union membership before the Constitution of this country, above religion and any other thing which might in any way be contrary to the work of the Union as the Union sees it.

This pledge is what members of the Typographical Union generally take. It is an indication of the tremendous force of the oath to which Union printers swear when they join the Union and then to the employer who enables him to earn his daily bread.

No wonder there are men in the Government Printing Office in Washington and in other printing plants in the country who resent with all their manhood and souls the acceptation of any such oath to a Typographical Union as they are required to take if they are members of it.

That such an organization is permitted to operate within the Government Printing Office, and that the men who are non-union in sentiment are ostracized by the officials and members of the union who are permitted to practically control the organization within the Government building is an outrage which Congress should immediately correct.

The printer who has furnished us this information also encloses a copy of a letter which he wrote to Congressman Underhill, in which referring to the letter Mr. Carter, the Public Printer, wrote, said:

"If Mr. Carter means by his statement 'union dues are not collected during work hours,' that they are not paid during the time we are actually reading proof, he is in part correct-not wholly, by any means.

'Last Thursday, pay day, when the bell rang at 11 o'clock for lunch the union collector with his money box and receipt book moved up and took charge of the copy desk, and to all intents and purposes did a regular clearing house business, taking in money and issuing license to employees, giving them the privilege of working for the Government without being ostracized for two weeks longer. During this thirty minutes the Riggs National bank never did a more flourishing business-over and above aboard.

"I watched this functioning of a business organization inside a Government department, with deadened amazement and wondered if Mr. Carter really called this 'dues are not collected during work hours.'"-Baltimore (Md.) Manufacturers Record, 8.9.21.

Government Print Shop Unionized.

The one hundred millions of Americans who are not identified with the American Federation of Labor probably do not know that the government printing office at Washington, maintained by the United States out of the public funds, is in control of the tyроgraphical union. No printer, however qualified he may be by experience, can obtain a job in that office unless he carries a union card. The chairman of the chapel, as the union representative is called, has a voice in

the hiring of all employees and the first requisite to secure even a hearing is the presentation of union credentials.

Why should any department of the federal government be subservient to the rules and regulations of a labor organization? Should an American citizen be discriminated against because he has the manhood to engage in the struggle of life on his own merits rather than as a cog in the federation wheel? Who has conferred upon the union men employed in the government printing office the right of depriving any American citizen from earning his living in an institution created by an act of congress?

The answer to these questions should be forthcoming at once. The public is entitled to know by what authority one of its de partments has been unionized by the most tyrannical labor organization in the country.

Last May the typographical union struck for the forty-four hour week. Its leaders made the broad statement that they were bound to win because there were not enough capable printers in the United States outside their organization to do the work. In almost every city where the employing printers had the nerve to fight, the union lost. Over forty cities and towns, formerly unionized, are now conducting their printing business on the open shop plan. In Chicago and other union centers there are many representative open shop establishments whose work is equal to the best. The May strike proved conclusively the falsity of the statement that all experienced printers are affiliated with the typographical union. There are many thousands of capable printing craftsmen who believe in individual freedom and the square deal. Will the public printer at Washington please explain why these men should be kept out of the government printing office in case there is a vacancy and they want a job?-Chicago Manufacturers' News, 8,18,21.

The Underwood Tariff Law seems to hold the record as a business killer. Under it four million men were out of work in 1914. and now it is declared that six million wage earners are idle because the same law is still in effect. Unemployment and Democratic Tariff policies always go together, and relief never comes until the Protective policy is restored. This means that Congress should get busy and enact a Tariff law in the interests of the American producer to replace one framed in the interests of alien producers and importers.-Washington National Republican,

9.10.21.

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271921

American Economist

DEVOTED TO THE PROTECTION OF AMERICAN LABOR AND INDUSTRIES.
NEW YORK, SEРТЕМВER 23, 1921.

LXVIII. No. 13

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Please Wire Acceptance.

The National Convention of Business Men To Consider Business Conditions, Causes And Remedies under the auspices of the National Conference Of State Manufacturers' Association, 104 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, to be held at the Congress Hotel, Chicago, September 29 and 30 should have the most hearty and personal cooperation of all American manufacturers.

We urge that all members of the Tariff League and all producers seeking a restoration of prosperity will by wire get in touch with Mr. John M. Glenn at the address given above and signify desire to be present and cooperate in the deliberations of the convention. The call for the convention dated September 10 is as follows:

"There will be a meeting of the National Conference of State Manufacturers' Association at the Congress Hotel. Chicago, September 29 and 30, 1921, at ten o'clock, to consider the industrial situation, giving special attention to congressional legislation such as the Tariff (including American Valuation), Taxation and Transportation.

The agitation as to the three subjects referred to must be settled before the country can enter upon an era of prosperity.

The convention is called at the urgent request of manufacturers generally and manufacturers' associations, with particular reference to pending legislation. Invitations are being extended to manufacturing organizations of the United States to send representatives and also to corporate and individual manufacturing firms.

A well considered program will be announced later for the two days' meeting. Every line of manufacturing business will be given an opportunity to be heard, so far as is possible, in the two days' session.

At the close of the convention resolutions resulting from the deliberations will be offered for action by the convention.

You are urgently requested to be represented by one or more representatives at the meeting.

1897-Warning—1921.

With the splendid devlopment of the American textile industry it seems astonishing that the American Woolen Company and perhaps others may import manufactured goods from Germany and other European countries where costs are lower than here.

Mr. William M. Wood, President of the American Woolen Company is reported in press dispatches to have said:

"It must be realized that Europe, especially Germany, is making goods at costs far below ours. Trade follows the price, not the flag. These products are going to come to this country, anyhow. We want to find out to what extent it is practical and desirable that we take part in this trade.'

This is a practical illustration of the effect of delays in Tariff legislation and

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$2.00 a Year. Single Copy 5 Cents.

again calls to mind the often repeated recommendation that Congress re-pass the Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1909 as quickly as possible, as emergency or ad interim legislation pending the carefully prepared, complete, scientific and adequate Protective Tariff.

Tariff legislation is now held up by Revenue legislation which is perhaps necessary, but not as necessary as that legislation which will give jobs to the jobless.

In June 1897 the writer was talking with Hon. Cornelius N. Bliss, Secretary of the Interior at Washington, on the subject of appointments, when Mr. Bliss rejoined with:

"WE CANNOT THINK OF APPOINTMENTS UNTIL AFTER A PROTECTIVE TARIFF BILL IS PASSED. GREAT INDUSTRIES ARE ON THE BRINK OF RUIN. I WOULD NOT DARE TELL YOU OF THE CONFIDENTIAL REPORTS IN MY POSSESSION, EVERYTHING MUST BE SACRIFICED TO THE QUICK PASSAGE OF THE DINGLEY TARIFF."

We were then in a condition of profound peace, without the terrible after-war responsibilities now existing. How much more necessary is a Protective Tariff in 1921 than in 1897?

Let members of Congress read Mr. Bliss's words as if uttered in September of this year, for there is greater force and application in them now than when uttered. We warn the Congress of results if it does not make haste.

Resumption of Tariff Hearings.

We are reliably informed that Tariff hearings wil be resumed by the Finance Committee of the United States Senate on or before October 1 and these should be taken advantage of by American producers who feel that the rates of duty upon foreign merchandise are not adequate to protect American products against the products of foreign producers.

Washington is alive with the representatives of foreign products who taking advantage of their knowledge and experience in customs procedure and customs administration have recommended and may secure many conditions which will largely nullify the Fordney Tariff.

Domestics seem to feel that a Republican Congress has been elected and should write a law which will be satisfactory. But, when any member of the Finance Committee, U. S. S. or Ways and Means Committee, H. R. can not turn a corner without running against a representative of foreign merchandise he may be misled. We urge that the most representative producers go to Washington and remain there until the amended Fordney Tariff as amended is passed. The man or men who know how goods are made, the cost of production and wholesale selling prices at home and abroad can accomplish the best results.

If you have not already, please immediately ask for a hearing on the paragraphs in which you are interested, addressing Hon. Boies Penrose, U. S. S. Chairman, Finance Committee, Washington, D. C., and, concurrently, please advise Mr. Frank D. Wickham, Agent, American Protective Tariff League, Shoreham Hotel, Washington, D. C., of your action in order that we may cooperate.

Immediate action is necessary if American industry is to be adequately protected.

American Valuation.

American Valuation of imported merchandise is practical, workable, sensible and will achieve honest and efficient enforcement of our customs laws. It is true that during the entire history of the government, excepting under embargoes and a legal period of two months prior to the passage of the Tariff Act of 1846, foreign valuation for dutiable purposes has prevailed. The ascertainment of honest foreign valuation is impossible for the collection of ad valorem duties. Admitting, for the sake of argument, that all customs investigators are efficient they find every obstacle thrown in their way by foreign nations, foreign exporters of merchandise to this country, questionable importers located here and other representatives in and out of the customs service. Our customs officials have no authority over a foreign citizen in a foreign country. The foreigner in a foreign land naturally has no respect for our laws or our oaths.

Under American Valuation we can get at an American citizen or a foreign resident doing business in our own country. Thus our customs tribunals can obtain proper evidence on which to base valuation of foreign merchandise entering this country.

We are astonished at the misrepresentation presented by importing merchants to the Finance Committee upon this subject and we believe that it will not prevail. Bearing upon this subject and addressed to the American manufacturer and wage earners, Mr. Walter Camp, President of the American Valuation Association issued a circular on September 14 which in part read as follows:

The foreign manufacturers through the importing interests in our large cities have just issued this statement:

"The prediction is made in import circles that, if action on the tariff is deferred long enough, opposition to the United States valuation plan, as incorporated in the Fordnoy tariff bill, will grow to such an extent that Congress would probably be compelled to reverse itself on this question."

Do you know that the British Board of Trade sent representatives from England who

appeared before the Senate Finance Committee last week and protested against American valuation on steel imports? With onethird of all the steel workers in the United States out of employment now, these English missionaries had the nerve to argue that the American Valuation plan would cripple their exports to the United States, and keep their own workmen out of a job!

The French Manufacturers' Association, the Cuban manufacturers, the English cotton manufacturers and many other foreign nations are protesting against American Valuation isn't that an argument for it? When millions of our own workmen are out of a job; when thousands of factories are shut down; which do you wish to aid. the American or foreign industries?

During the present recess of Congress the importers, the retail merchants and the newspapers are flooding the Senate with their propaganda against you and the men you employ. The Senators, home on vacation, seeing in their home-town papers only fallacious arguments against American Valuation will be prejudiced against this plan. That is because you are not doing your share of the work. The Senator looks to the papers to voice your sentiments. We urge you to go at once to your own hometown newspapers, tell them the present condition of your own plant and how the American Valuation on foreign products will affect you and your co-workers, and urge them to print your statement.

The Rice Industry.

The Trade Record bulletin of the National City Bank of September 19th gives some very interesting facts regarding the wonderful development of the rice industry since the year 1900. This bulletin is devoted to the exports of rice more than to the important question of American production. It shows that the world's total crop of rice is approximately 200 billion pounds a year and that the American production was 3 billion pounds in 1920. We quote as follows:

"This big exportation of rice as compared with former years, is, of course, due to enormous increases in our domestic production, which advanced from 10 million bushels in 1900 to 25 million in 1910 and 32 million in 1920, while the farm value increased from 7 million dollars in 1900 to 17 million dollars in 1910 and 110 million dollars in 1919, the latest year for which value figures are available. Meantime, imports have fallen from 200 million pounds in the year immediately preceding the war and 364 million in the fiscal year 1919, to 97 million pounds in the fiscal year 1921, while the average import price of rice from abroad has fallen to onehalf that of a year ago. Of the 393,000,000 pounds exported in 1920, 64 million went to Cuba, 54 million to Germany, 35 million to Greece, 20 million to Belgium, 20 million to France. 24 million to Canada, 19 million to Argentina, 17 million to Chile and 31 million. to the Dutch East Indies.""

The bulletin, referring to the 400 per cent. domestic increase in production since 1900 fails to show the cause of the wonderful increase which was exclusively due to the Protective Tariff placed upon rice by the Dingley Tariff Act of 1897 which read as follows:

"Rice, cleaned, two cents per pound; uncleaned rice, or rice free of the outer hull and still having the inner cuticle on, one and one-fourth cents per pound; rice flour and rice meal, and rice broken which will pass through a sieve known commercially as number twelve wire sieve, one-fourth of one cent per pound: paddy, or rice having the outer hull on, three-fourths of one cent per pound."

Protective Tariff duties were continued

in the Payne-Aldrich Tariff, the Underwood Tariff of 1913 and are included in the Fordney Tariff now under consideration.

In 1897 when the Dingley Tariff Act was passed, rice growing was practically unknown except in South Carolina and a limited portion of Georgia. But, now the great production of rice is found in the valley of the Mississippi. There is perhaps no better illustration of the benefits of a Protective Tariff than in the wonderful growth of the rice industry.

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Sugar Regulations.

This country imports upwards of four million tons of sugar annually, nearly all of which reaches this country in the raw state. Of pure sugar the raw product runs as low as fifty-five and sometimes as high as ninety-six per cent. The rate of duty of about one cent a pound under the present law is estimated on the saccharine strength of the sugar.

Since 1898, under the Dingley Tariff, the strength or purity of the raw sugar has been estimated by the polariscopic tests and this test has been based upon samples of sugar drawn from every shipment. Naturally the first important point is to secure a representative sample of sugar and to maintain the integrity of this sample until it has gone through the polariscopic test as to strength or purity.

This system has proven very successful in collecting the proper duties upon imported sugar, excepting when the samples have been tampered with as was conclusively proven some years ago in connection with certain importations at New York, Philadelphia and Boston.

We learn through the sugar trade that a committee of customs officials was appointed by the previous administration to make an investigation of the present methods and this commission has recently made a report recommending the abolishment of the polariscopic test of sugar with the additional recommendation that tests by the trade and importers be used as the basis of classification of sugar for dutiable purposes.

As a matter of fact sugar importers, in their own selfish interests controlled the assessment of duties prior to the operation of the Dingley Tariff in 1897 under the McKinley administration. The frauds upon the revenue were enormous as illustrated by the investigation of 1885 under the Cleveland administration at Boston, but whenever these investigations got well under way for some mysterious reason they were stopped until the great, sugar trust prosecution during the Roosevelt administration. These were successfully prosecuted and brought to a successful conclusion by Hon. Henry A. Wise, United States District Attorney of New York. As will be remembered the government secured several million dollars in the settlement of these cases; there

was one suicide; two or three deaths of indicted sugar officials; and, some final convictions.

The entire subject is now before Hon. A. W. Mellon, Secretary of the Treasury and we sincerely hope that his decision will be in favor of the continuation of the present system or the turning down of the report of the commission which is now before him. We know that Mr. Secretary Mellon is anxious to give a thoroughly efficient administration of our customs laws and from personal experience in administration we earnestly recommend that the present system be continued. If any better method for the honest enforcement of the law can be suggested we are for it, but to accept the trade tests and the importers methods for the collection of duties under the law would be dangerous. The sugar importers did about as they pleased before the McKinley administration. Is it safe to trust the collection of sugar duties to the same people or their successors?

Anti-Dumping Act Loop-Hole.

A well known customs official writes us under date of September 13 as follows regarding a remarkable loophole in the Anti-dumping act which was included in the Emergency Tariff Act of May 27, 1921:

"What were our legislators thinking about when they enacted the Anti-dumping act of May 27? The provisions of Band Cof Section 202 are bound to prove mischievous. They are contrary to the purpose of the Act itself which provides a penalty for the importation of ordinary quantities bought below the prevailing home market values. So long as the purchaser of foreign made goods makes certain that the quantity taken is unusual he insures against the dumping penalty. In other words, the effect of this short-sighted provision is that if I break the law in a small way I break it if I break it in a wholesale way, I don't break it. It is a most unwise provision-one that will permit the appraising officer to penalize the small man while the big importer is exempt from the penalty. It is a practical annullment of the Anti-dumping act.'

For the information of all interested, we quote Paragraph B of Section 202 of the Anti-dumping act as follows:

If it is established to the satisfaction of the appraising officers that the amount of such difference between the purchase price and the foreign market value is wholly or partly due to the fact that the wholesale quantities, in which such or similar merchandise is sold or freely offered for sale to all purchasers for exportation to the United States in the ordinary course of trade, are greater than the wholesale quantities in which such or similar merchandise is sold or freely offered for sale to all purchasers in the principal markets of the country of exportation in the ordinary course of trade for home consumption (or, if not so sold or offered for sale for home consumption. then for exportation to countries other than the United States), then due allowance shall be made therefor in determining the foreign market value for the purposes of this section.

The joker appears in the last phrase of the paragraph quoted. A decision has been rendered by the Board of United States General Appraisers in connection with enamel ware confirms the statement of our correspondent.

It was not the intention of Congress to allow any such discrimination and we trust that the same will be corrected while Tariff legislation is under consideration.

Men Sold at Auction.

The days of the sale of human beings en the auction block have returned, according to a special dispatch published in the New York Times of September 9. The men sold were members of the great army of the unemployed, among them, sad to relate, were some ex-service men. Only two were sold, but there were others who offered themselves "for sale" through the auctioneer who conducted the sales, but there were no more purchasers. It is stated that other sales are to follow, or at least that other auctions will be held at which idle men will be offered for sale.

We cannot hire foreigners to do our work for us and still employ our own workers to full capacity. Every article of competitive nature which is imported from abroad displaces a like article of domestic production and deprives some American workman of the work necessary to produce it. We have not imported one article alone, but millions of them. During the first six months of this calendar year we have imported foreign goods to the value of $1,320,000,000 or a greater sum than ever imported in any full year into this country prior to 1907. But the value does not tell the entire tale, for all foreign imports of a competitive nature are, for the most part, less than half of the value of the corresponding American articles, so that the volume of goods competitive in character which have been imported is twice as large as the values would indicate. That is, every dollar's worth of foreign goods displaces two dollars' worth of American goods. But the American consumer pays as much or more for the foreign as for the domestic goods.

It is true that not all of the articles imported were competitive, that is similar to goods produced here. Non-competitive articles are the proper subjects for importation, but no foreign goods should be purchased when to do so deprives a single American workman of the chance to earn a livelihood for himself and family.

a

We are glad that it is the New York Times which reports this auction sale, for it is one of the great Free-Trade organs of the country, one of the papers which is responsible for much of the Free-Trade sentiment which exists, although such sentiment is vanishing quantity. But it is such papers as the Times, papers which advocate FreeTrade, which are to a great extent responsible for the fact that unemployment is so great that human beings are willing to stand, stripped to the waist, like the slaves of olden times, and offer themselves for sale on the auction block.

We do not question the patriotism of the Times, but we do question the soundness of its economic policy. We blame

it for echoing the fallacy of the international bankers who are interested in increasing the values of the foreign securities bought at a great discount by them during the late war, that we must accept goods in payment of Europe's indebtedness to us. Those who put this fallacy forward forget that the shipment of foreign goods to this country does not cancel the indebtedness in question, for all of such goods must be paid for by those to whom they are consigned, and the money returned to the European shippers. Nor does it help the foreign producers to any greater extent than the sum of the net profits derived from the sale of such goods. If the net profit shall be 10 per cent., then our foreign debtors would have to increase their sales to this country by 100 billion dollars' worth of foreign products in order to cancel an indebtedness of 10 billion dollars. No nation on earth could possibly stand such a strain and those who advocate such policy are far from being safe leaders.

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It is true that our debtors must pay their indebtedness from their profits, past, present or to come, but it is not at all necessary for them to reap all of their profits from goods sold to this country, nor to do so in a single year, or any comparatively short period. We shall continue to buy goods from Europe. It has never been proposed to do otherwise, but it would be the height of folly for us to increase our present alarming idleness by increasing our imports of foreign goods, whether for the purpose of collecting from our foreign creditors or for any other purpose. Still further, it will be an economic crime if the present FreeTrade laws are allowed to long remain upon our statute books, for it is due to them, more than to any other one cause, that we have in the neighborhood of five million idle workmen who are suffering because there is no work to be had. We must have a speedy enactment of an adequate Protective Tariff or the idleness will increase instead of diminishing. If the New York Times cannot see that undoubted fact, then it is afflicted with a serious form of blindness.

[A second auction of the unemployed was attempted in New York on September 19, and was very properly prevented by the police authorities.]

The New York Times says: "There is a deeper viciousness and a larger variety of vice in the Fordney bill than in any of the acts which bear the name of McKinley, Dingley and Payne-Aldrich" This statement is accounted for by the fact that the Times believes that it is positively immoral to pass any law that will encourage American industries and agriculture rather than to enrich the importing and international banking interests centering in New York City. Fortunately this is a code of ethics which does not generally prevail beyond the special influence of business interests which seek to prosper at the sacrifice of domestic production. Consequently the political party which shares the antipathy of the Times to the Protective policy has been able to name only two Presidents in the past seventy years, and both of them dragged their party down to overwhelming defeat at the close of their administrations-Washington National Republican,

7.23.21.

Minimizing Unemployment.

This is the headline of an editorial in the New York World of September 16, reviewing a recent statement of Secretary Davis and in part reads:

That there are 5,735,000 unemployed in the United States today appears relatively unimportant to Secretary Davis in view of the fact that there was said to be 7,000,000 out of work in 1914.

"To exaggerate the evil," as the Times has said, "is to give a weapon to all the forces of radical discontent." But to minimize it, as Secretary Davis and the Times are inclined to do, is of no avail in the other direction. Radicalism is not bred in the comfortably employed by reading about the hardships of others; it springs up spontaneously in men who are out of work and who endure actual hardships day by day to remind them of it. The most logical and plausible argument will fail to convince the 5,735,000 who have lost their jobs that they are drawing wages and eating as usual.

The Underwood Free-Trade Tariff went into effect in the Fall of 1913 and naturally wide spread adversity followed and unemployment had reached an acute stage at the opening of the great war in 1914. Therefore unknown conditions of forced war developments and embargo existed throughout the war and continued until the present year when gradually approaching an industrial peace under the Underwood Free-Trade Tariff of 1913, national adversity set in. This resulted in the Emergency Tariff, of May 27, 1921, mainly directed to better conditions in agriculture. The Agriculture Emergency Tariff has already done much for the agricultural interests of the country but all production not effected by this measure is practically at a standstill or operating on a forty or fifty per cent. basis.

If Mr. Secretary Davis thinks that people are fully employed let him put a three-line advertisement in the New York World offering a position at Fifteen, Eighteen or Twenty Dollars a week. He would receive a hundred applications for the job where formerly he would receive one application.

Again, let Mr. Secretary Davis apply to a few representative manufacturers as to the actual hands employed and he will receive a report which would startle him. The Secretary has ample facilities to make such an investigation and statements based upon careful inquiries would go further than encouraging words to a man without a job.

No Foreign Control.

The interest of the International Bankers, Internationalists and other foreign agencies in the Fordney Tariff, now under consideration by the Finance Committee of the United States Senate, is extremely interesting but we doubt their influence in the American Congress.

We have already referred to the appearance of English interests before the Finance Committee and Ways and Means Committee. We note from day to day the protests from abroad and the protests of "Aliens at home" against the Americanism of the Fordney Tariff. Now comes the

International Chamber of Commerce in London with the following resolution:

"Resolved, that the International Chamber of Commerce draws the attention of the various governments to the importance of making such tariffs moderate, in order to avoid the erection between peoples of barriers that are obstacles to peace and the progress of civilization."

It sounds a good bit like famous Section 10 of the Wilsonian League of Nations Covenant.

Some years ago the President of the American Protective Tariff League, Hon. Charles A. Moore returning from one of his long trips abroad said: "Commercial. Europe will do almost anything to break into the American market-the greatest market in the world."

Foreign interests temporarily resident in the United States formerly had a great deal of influence at Washington, but now happily they are not the same domineering crowd but seek by petition to have us give them a portion of our market and if they have their way, all of our prosperity.

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German Competition.

Were we obliged six days in every week to read low Tariff editorials we could not find many better ones than those of the Newark, N. J., News. They are invariably well written, and the recognition that there may be something on the other side of the question is never absent from our contemporary's mind.

A recent editorial in the News, though it dreads that the Republicans may cut off all our foreign trade, and has its dark misgivings over catastrophies soon to be, makes a straight-forward admission:

"We had varying degrees of Tariff Protection for infant industries, yet Germany, the pre-war exponent of international slaughter, was able to prevent any effective development here of important industries of a basic nature such as the dyestuffs industry, as we speedily discovered when the war stressed our lack of them."

Then, according to the News, the fault with our Protection in days gone by was that it did not protect. Mr. Gerard was alarmed lest, after the war, Germany would come into control of our markets, and said so quite frankly as if he had been a representative of the AMERICAN ECONOMIST or of any other Protectionist body or society.

It is well to couple with James W. Gerard's dread that Germany may cripple our industries the admission of the Newark News that she formerly strangled them in the cradle. We need hardly remind so well informed a man as our brother of the News that, according to Lord Brougham, England did the same thing a hundred years ago.

Let the News be calm, the new Tariff may not be so dreadful as it fears. It may prevent just such action in the future as the Nezes admits took place in the past.

"Camouflage" was originally an art term; then adopted into military nomenclature. Free-Trade is the camouflaged art of commerce; Protection, the real and enduring art.

Co-operation Between American and British Shipping?

Quite a surprise was sprung on the shipping interests of the United States in a disclosure by E. T. Good, of England, in an American daily to the effect that negotiations have been under way for two years between representatives of the U. S. Shipping Board and British shipping interests in an effort "to maintain freights at levels which would render even American ships profitable." "Certain terms have been provisionally agreed upon" between the negotiations, adds Mr. Good, but he did not indicate what they were. Details would be intensely interesting to the American people and it would seem that the Shipping Board should give them publicity. The people of the United States, surely, are entitled to know what they are to be let in for in the way of "entangling alliances" with British shipping interests, our end of the negotiations committing the Government of the United States to policies of which the people might not approve, and in the discussion of which, besides, they might be able to offer some valuable suggestions.

sea.

Englishmen seem impressed with the determination of Americans to establish themselves permanently upon the "Bold legislative measures have been proposed." Mr. Good says, "even to the extent of abrogating solemn treaties, encouraging our seamen to desert their ships when in United States ports and lavishly subsidizing the American ships." The basis for the charge that we encourage British seamen to desert in our ports is the provision in the seamen's act that we shall no longer arrest deserters of foreign ships in our ports, an obligation that the head of the seamen's union has declared was a lingering remnant of the fugitive slave laws. But why should this country not propose "bold legislative measures" to meet what it is up against in shipping? Mr. Good tells us: "The new American fleet has cost an almost fabulous sum of money. The problem now is how to employ this fleet. America has very little import trade, relatively to her population. Her exports are handicapped by the big premium at which the dollar stands. When her ships get outward cargoes they can seldom obtain homeward freights. In international commerce they are up against the competition of nations with cheaper building, cheaper operation, cheaper seamen, cheaper dock charges. They are up against nations with generations of experience in foreign laws and customs. They are up against nations which subsidize their ships. Above all, they are up against the huge economic fact that while the United States may be the biggest, richest and most progressive internal industrial country in the world. it is entirely unsuited to external shipping." Naturally, Great Britain is the ideal maritime nation; she is so peculiarly

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