Chase County Courant from Cottonwood Falls, Kansas • 6

BLAINE'S LETTER. HARRISON'S CONVERSION. SINGLE TAX DEPARTMENT. our critics ask, that a man who has put his honest earnings into land, should have it confiscated? What better than robbery is that and the virtuous critic gives us a withering look of outraged honestv. which in the eyes of the un WHO PAYS THE TARIFF? The Lessons Taught By the Duties on Window Glass Complete Refutation of the Assertion of Secretary of the Treasary Foster That the Foreigner Pays the Tariff Tax.

The other day the secretary of the Foster, made a speech at Find-lay, Ohio, in which he asserted that the tariff is not a tax and that the foreigners pay the duties on goods sent to this country. The secretary said: "I do not know of a more fallacious proposition than the one contended for by all democrats, from Grover Cleveland to Jerry Simpson, that the tariff is a tax and that the consumer pays the tax. Of England formerly imposed an internal tax upon house windows, and every part of the receipts went into the national exchequer. To-day, under the McKinley tariff, we, in effect, impose a similar tax but how differently do we dispose of the receipts. Under our system the treasury gets one-third of the tax, and the window glass trust and Secretary Fosterget the other two-thirds.

This is the system of taxation which the late Justice Miller, of the United States supreme court In the celebrated Topeka case characterized as robbery, as follows: "To lay with one hand the power of the government on the property of the citizen, and with the other to bestow it upon favored individuals to aid private enterprises and build up private fortunes, is none the less a robbery because it is done under the forms of law and is called taxation." course, 1 know that tlie proposition seems to be logical, and in the light of the experience of this country the proposition has been proven to be untrue. If the democratic idea of a tariff is to tax articles imported into this country but not produced here, is to prevail then the tariff is a tax. This fact is abun- dantly illustrated by the effect of the McKinley bill in admitting sugar free of duty. The price of sugar has fallen the amount of the tax. But when you apply the protective principle namely, to place a duty upon articles we produce in this country such results do not follow.

Secretary Foster is a large stockholder in several window glass factories in Ohio, and took active part in the formation of the window glass trust The protective principle about which he speaks has been applied to window glass since 1816. We produce window glass in this country to-day, but the trust so controls and limits production that we still have to import SO per cent of the window glass we consume each year. Window glass satisfies the conditions which he savs compels foreigners to pay the tariff tax. No aiticle is more highly protected than window glass, as the fol lowing figures show. The figures are for the imports in 1890: McKinley Duty 2.

r'i r3 i3c es 115 iSC 129 27Sc 132 3i.se K) More Doable-Dealing by Jim the Political Trickster. Mr. Blaine has temporarily recovered his health sufficiently to write a letter stabbing in the back the author of the protection-run-mad. Mr Biaine has not added to his letter the request "Burn this." On the contrary, it is given to the press as freely as if its author had no fear of an investigating committee. Note the cunninar with which the Maine statesman inflicts his stab.

He avers that the following sentence is "garbled:" "But there is not a section or line in the McKinley bill that will open a market for another bushel of wheat or another barrel of pork." And he says that the following is what he did write: "But there is not a section or a line in the entire bill that will open a market for another bushel of wheat or another pound of pork." Of course a carefu letter-writer like Mr. Blaine will discover that in the two above quotations there is but one discrepancy, and that it refers to the title of the bill. In the one case it was unnecessary for the ti tle of the bill to be named and in the other it was. On this hangs Mr. Blaine's plea that his words have been garbled.

And he must be granted full credit for his observance of the facts. Mr. Blaine has not hit so near the truth before in half a century But what does this letter really mean? It is perfectly understood that Mr. McKinley was as strongly opposed to the reciprocity clause as was Mr. Blaine to the ultra-protection idea of McKinley and Tom Reed.

It is too late to argue away the effect of the scene when Mr. Blaine spoiled a new hat in giving vent to his anger at Mc Kinley and his whole tribe. He now says that he is in favor of the McKinley bill since it contains the patent reciprocity provision. He shows that the only way in which he can see that an additional market has been secured has been by provisions that are direct- ly in contravention to the McKinley idea and that were foisted on the bill against McKinley's protest Mr. Blaine says: "I am not, therefore, an opponent of the McKinley bill, as the democratic papers of Ohio are constantly alleging.

On the contrary, I have constantly supported it ever since it was perfected by the insertion of the reciprocity clause." Mr. McKinley is welcome to the good effect he may receive from such an indorse- T-v A ment. iur. lwaine aamus inai, ne op- posed McKinleyis-m as expressed in the bill he so vigorously denounced. He does not even deny the little episode of the crushed hat But he say's he has supported the bill "ever since it was perfected by the insertion of the reciprocity clause." Nor do democratic papers in Ohio or elsewhere say that Mr.

Blaine "is" opposed to the present tariff bill. They simply repeat his own words to show that he once denounced McKinley and his bill. If Ohio republicans cannot see in this a stab at their candidate they will perhaps better understand Mr. Blaine's letter after election. Its publication follows closely upon a very close conference of certain gentlemen of the g.

o. p. known to be friendly to the ambition of the Mulligan statesman. Perhaps "Ret" Clarkson and Mr. Conger could tell why this letter of Blaine's was put lortn witn the ostensible pur- pose of helping McKinley by showing that his bill became wnrthv of snnnnrt only after being impressed with the statecraft of Klaine.

Chicago Times. THE "HONEST DOLLAR" PARTY. Fraudulent Method of the Minion of Monopoly. There is but one possible definition of an "honest dollar" as the republic-j ans employ that term. It is a dollar that would be worth just as much un stamped as though the government had stamped it.

It is a dollar intrinsically worth its weight in gold, stamped or unstamped. The gold dollar is, according to this definition, an honest dollar on its merits, because 25S grains in bar are worth 25s grains in coin. It is an honest dollar because 258 grains with the government stamp are worth no more than 258 grains without the stamp. If this is true of a gold dollar, why can it not be made true of a silver dollar? Silver as a commodity on its com Al forth mercial merits nas fluctuated no more past fifty years than has srold. there is any difference in relative fluctuation, the balance is certainly in favor of silver.

If a man takes five gold dollars to the mint for recoinage, he gets five dollars back. If he takes five silver dollars to he mint for recoinage, he only gets four back. The recoinage of the five silver dollars has cost one. dollar, because twenty cents on each collar are not intrinsic, but are. in the lansruaare of McKinley, "the mere breath of con- gress.

It is as plain as your hand before your eyes, then, that the republican party is engaged in business of coining fraudulent dollars under its own definition of an honest dollar. In vulgar phrase it is a "skin" dollar pure and simple. This crime has been known for centuries in he world as debasing coin. Tyrants in the last shifts of desperation have done it just as the republicans are doing it now. They are coining annually 554.000,000 worth of silver dollars.

each containing only SO cents' worth of silver. The fact is patent that the sec retary of the treasun' is cents for 40 grains of silver and only putting 31H grams into that he coins and passes off on the people. This is an interesting party to be talking about "honest money." The big fag that floats over Washington street, proclaiming "honest money" as the watchword of the party in this state, flaunts a big lie every time it shows its skirts to the passer-by. Boston Globe. Now that Mr.

Harrison has 6een sample cf "genuine American tin plate," and has written a letter about it, he should come to St Louis and see Mr. Niedringhaus in the act of trying to persuade the imported Welshmen to work against the American scale of wages. St Louis Republic The Free Trade Idea Take a Hold on the President. If a member of the cabinet (not named) is correctly reported the president may surprise the country and disgust the McKinleys of his party by ap pearing in the character of a tariff reformer next December. According to the report this anonymous member of the cabinet would not be surprised if the president were to recommend a material reduction of the tariff taxes on certain imports in order that reciprocity treaties of a range much greater than is now warranted by the reciprocity clause of the McKinley bill may be made.

The cabinet officer does not say to what tariff taxes he refers, but he gives a hint upon which we may base a guess when he says: "The markets of the old world are far more precious to us than 1 the markets of South America. The latter in time will rank with if not sur- pass those of the eastern hemisphere but that future is too iar away. The present is what concerns us. This is a business administration, and to promote the business of the country is our most earnest desire. You have seen the impetus resulting from Germany's action in regard to our pork.

Let me tell you that the benefits coming from that are but a drop in the bucket compared with the benefits that will result from treaties which we hope to make." So we are told plainly rnough that Mr. Harrison is going to advocate reciprocity with Eurpoe; in other words, that he is going to try to steal the platform upon which Mr. Cleveland placed himself a long time ago. That to cause both McKinley and Blaine to fall in a dead swoon. It is enough to cause an expression of blank amazement to overspread ever3r countenance from the northeast corner of Maine to the southwest corner of California.

Why, Mr. Harrison is the man who told the people during the period of his candidacy in 18SS that the tariff was a tax on foreigners: and now he proposes to take the tax off from foregners and put it on Americans. He is the man who swung around the circle last spring, telling the farmers that the "ideal condition" was one in which they would sell all their produce to consumers from their farm wagons, and neither buy nor sell abroad. And now he proposes to make treaties under which they will not only sell more abroad but buy more abroad. yea, even in Europe, what, then, will become of the home market? What will become of the American "wajre scale?" What has happened to Harri son? There has been no such miraculous conversion since the memorable case of Saul of Tarsus.

The dazzling light emitted at the polls last Novem ber seems to have penetrated to the presidential retina. Chicago Herald. REPEAT THE LESSON. Popular Sentiment I'nheeded by Spend thrift Republicans. Last year the people voted down the republican party with a unanimity un matched since the federalist party was voted to death for its treason.

Is there any sound reason why any man in any state who cast his ballot last fall in rebuke of republican mis conduct and in protest against republican tendencies should this year vote other than a democratic ticket? Last year's rebuke was not heeded. The chastisement brought no repentance. The Fifty-first congress repealed none of the measures of extravagance and injustice against which the elec tion was a protest. On the contrary, it went on to enact ether measures of like character. It defied popular sentiment and mocked at the popular con demnation of its course.

It is necessary to repeat the punish ment and emphasize its Every state that went democratic last vear should give an increased maioritv on the same side this year. Every man who voted last year to rebuke the bil- i lion dollar congress' misdeeds must vote in the same way this jear if the lesson taught is to be learned. N. Y. World.

POINTED PARAGRAPHS. "I have not resigned." said Raum, "and I do not intend to Mr. run under fire." If it could be made certain that Mr. Rauni would retire if the firing ceased there would be an immediate cessation of artillery all along the the line. -Chicago Times.

The sweeping democratic victory in the election at Indianapolis shows two things: That the secret ballot of the reform law helps the democrats by putting a partial stop, at least, to the Dudley style of vote-buying, and that President Harrison will have to go away from heme for a political indorsement. N. Y. World. Tom Reed knows just how to say the right thing to bring dawn the house in thunder and applause.

But we notice he never mentions the name of like seme of the other republican orators when he wishes to wake up his audience. It is also noticeable that need is present none of the other crators ever make the remotest allusion to the secretary cf state. Boston Glebe. The tin plate continues to ccme. Two hundred and forty-seven thousand six r.u r.r.d sixtv rcunas arrived in Chicago from ago.

This Is no da auction, however, cern keers at 1c ipener on heme proud if that Ohio con- ng encugh it s- 11 make a sufficient quantity to cover possibly, ticn will one cerr.ocrat's tarn if fhe good democrat ques-accept the plated leal. De- trait free I An administration organ calls it a stroke" ia Secretary Foster to have secured ar extension of of the government's matured bondi It would Lave leen a far cleverer stroke to be able to pay the debt when it became cue. But the clever stroke" of the billion-dollar congress in squandering the surplus put a stop to that It will be the clev erest stroke of all lor me people tc re iterate in the elections this year their condemnation of all this spendthrift and trickery cleverness. N. Y.

World, of It THE NEW ABOLITION. from a Speech Delivered by 'William Lloyd Garrison Before the Chicago (I1L) Single Tax Club, September 3, 1891. (continued fbom last issue.) We are the new abolitionists, because our object is be attained purely by the abolition of vicious taxes, taking off one by one, until land values alone supply government with revenue. While working for the ideal society where justice shall make charity obsolete, we strike directly at the obstacles which lie neai est our land. We do not question the result "We may not live to see the day.

But earth shall glisten in the ray Of the good time coming." I have time only to suggest a few of the points wherein single tax puzzled me, hoping that the reasons which dissipated my objections may remove similar ones from some hearer's mind. I had no hesitation in accepting the basic proposition of our creed, that man has a right to the use of the earth so long as all wealth is drawn from that source by the application of labor, and to deny a human being ac cess to this great storehouse of nature is, of course, wrong. The simple state ment carries with it conviction, and for the bounty of the Creator to be con trolled or monopolized by individuals for aggrandizement, at the expense of their fellow creatures, is manifestly uniust and indefensible, and needs no demonstration. That this is our strong fortress is mani fest by the disinclination of our oppo nents to debate it I never yet met one who tried to controvert our principle. It is about details and methods and re sults that the controversy always rages.

The failure of all attempts to reach personal property is widely recognized. the rich escaping and the poor and con scientious making up the deficit The tax on incomes leads to false returns and is a premium on deception. So etudents of long experience, like David A. Wells and Edward Atkinson, con tend that real estate should bear the burden, because it lies open to the sun and can not be hidden, and the tax will distribute itself most fairly. Strange that these men, with whom we are so nearly in agreement should range themselves among our opponents.

JNqw the single tax would lift every burden from the product of labor, not taxing the houses and improvements put upon the land, as the economists I have mentioned propose to da We are cefenders of property and insist upon the sacredness of men's just earnings and their inalienable right to exchange their products or services to the best advantage. Our difference arises in our definition of property, under which head we deny thatland properly comes. It is the element from which property is evolved by labor, but in equity is no more property than the air or the sunshine. It has been treated as such, because, unlike air arid sunshine, it is possible to monopolize it but the gen-sis of every title deed rests on "force, fraud or cunning" to borrow Mr. Spencer's words.

We do not deny that the law considers land property, but thirty years ago it also recognized the ownership of human flesh. We say with regard to land, as the righteous Vermont judge said to the slaveholder claiming his fugitive: "Show me a bill of sale from the Almighty and I will deliver him to you." I was puzzled at first about land bearing the sole burden of taxation, because I thought the farmer would suffer most But when I learned that land values only were to be taxed, not land, I saw that farmers would pay less instead or more, because the value of farms, irrespective of all improvements would be small, while under the pres-int system the more industrious and relf-denying a farmer is, the more the tax gatherer takes from hiin. Two farms, side by side, having the same site value, are taxed to-day in proportion to their working, and the thrifty farmer is made to pay heavily because of his industry, and his shiftless neighbor is let off with a small contribution-Thrift is punished and neglect is rewarded. The single tax would leave lo labor its entire earnings. The real land values are to be found in cities.

What enormous farms the little lot under this building would buy! The hardest thing for me to understand was the fact that land taxes can not be shifted by the landlord, and today neither Mr. Wells nor Mr. Atkinson can see it thereby differing with the recognized authorities on political economy. I thought if I leased a lot of land, I could make my tenant pay the tax back to me in added rent It seems as if I might do so. But it takes two to make a bargain, and it is not what I ask that I get but as near that as my customer will give.

I get all that I can, and he gives the least that he can and the rent is fixed at the line where neither will advance or recede. The taxes I must pay. because he has given me all he will, and if I should insist that they go with the rent he would seek other lots. I noted also that the city lots most heavily taxed contained stores where the lowest priced goods are sold. This convinced me that the landlord was not recovering his taxes from the public, but that the advantage of situation more than offset them.

In other words, he simply paid for a privilege worth the price, and to call such payment a tax, when value is fully returned, is truly a misnomer. So, although we use the term single tax to give a distinct idea of our method, it is in no sense a burden, does not partake of the nature of a tax, and can not enter into the cost of production. This is an important point because our claim for the justice of the single tax rests upon the impossibility of shifting it upon labor, and the trouble with the present system is. that taxes are made to be shifted and -eventually are unloaded upon the ehoulders of the people least able to bear them. Hence, unequal conditions of living, low wages and poverty.

The question of compensation is the last ditch we have to enter. Is it right, thinking is equivalent to annihilation. President Walker and Prof. Clarke, of Smith college, are prominent in this role. As truth crushed to earth will rise again, we come up smiling, to ask who is doing the confiscation? What does the single tax propose to take? Simply the economic rent or annual value which the growth of the community has given to the land Taking for the benefit of the people a value which they alone have made, is justice, not confiscation.

Our proposition is to put a stop to the present confiscation, and to rescue from private appropriation wbat belongs to the public. If compensation is to be made, it should be from him who appropriates to him who is despoiled, not the reverse. And one would think that even presidents and professors of colleges, observing the crowded and unwholesome conditions of city life the slums wherein the workingmen and women are forced to dwell, where anguish drives thousands to the oblivion of drink, and prostitution claims its subjects from a starving class would sometimes ask themselves what compensation is possible for these victims which a society that arrogates to itself the name of Christian, offers up on the altar of land monopoly. Emerson understood the true method, when the slaveholder called for compensation Pay ransom to the owner And fl'l the ba? to the brim. Who Is the owner? The Slave is owner, And ever was.

Pay him. To me, as well as to many others, the lessening of poverty and the raising I of wages, which the single tax prom- ises, was an unwarrantable prophecy, and in my letter of sympathy to Mr. George I said: 4T do not believe that your plan is the panacea of poverty." "Nor he replied, "but I am sure freedom is." Since then my faith has grown and is growing in the efficacy of this measure with the fiscal name. It is the handmaid of freedom aud must unlock the bars and bolts. Voluntary poverty tvhich results from willful disobedience we have no concern with, although with altered conditions and hisrher standards of liv ing that too must wane.

But self-de gradation, as sad as it is, is not the sight that wrings our souls. The sensu alist and idler may be safely left to the natural punishment which accompanies transgression. "As close as sin and suffering joined," is the descriptive line of Whittier. It is the involuntary and enforced misery that is so dreadful, man suffering at the hands of his brother. The wonderful increase of material wealth, which fairly distributed would make want almost disappear, the swollen and stolen fortunes, side by side with the sweat-shops and beggars, the carnival of luxury and the discontent" of labor, all indicate the dangers which threaten the republic and which we would avert We urge no arbitrary remedy, but make the safe and moder- ire demand conveyed in Emerson's wise words, "Give to bounties, make equal laws, secure life and property, and you need not give alms.

Open the doors of opportunity to talen and virtue and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands." Extirpating the "Sweater." It is said that the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics is about to begin an in vestigation into the ''sweating" system, with a view to prohibiting it by legis lation. ''Sweating" is a word with a bad sound, and we must expect to hear the Illinois Labor Bureau praised for what it intends to do, and the Illinois legislature urged to act upon its suggestions. "Sweating" must be stamp-ped out! But what is "sweating?" a capi talist, proposes to invest his capital in manufactured goods for the purpose of supplying the market and reaping a profit Buying raw materials, he turns them over to and and upon contract for manufacturing the finished articles. and and hire the re mainder of the alphabet to do the work 1 j- uuuci iuui uuct uuu, auu iidt iiij; paiu market wages and completed their part of the contract both with their own i employes and with they receive the contract price. Is not this ordinary business? Is there anything wrong about it? Who Khali nail a crimi' Of course it is no crime.

Nor would any one think of denouncing it but for the fact that in certain lines of work wages are so pitifully small that for and and to extract a benefit from them seems like grinding the poor. And so and and are called "sweaters," and we denounce their conduct as if it were not in perfect harmony with the legitimate laws oi trade. The real wrong lies in conditions that force the major part of the alphabet to beg for work of and and at any price, and not in the efforts of the better their own condition. But throats that swell with hard language at "sweating," are silent when it is proposed to abolish the cause of conditions that make "sweating" possible. According to all our standards "sweaters" are enterprising, thrifty workmen who, with souls above the drudgery lo which they were born, strive manfully to make their fortunes better than those of their fellows.

They steal from no one. They force no one to work for them. They merely buy labor for the price at which labor offers itself. If labor is free, there is in this nothing to condemn and much to admire. If labor is other than free, it is not especially the fault of the "sweaters.

No combination of workmen can raise their own wages much above the lerel of ordinary wages. The attempt to do so is like the attempt to bail out a boat without stopping up the seaojs. Social Problems. i I I i jlf i i i i a SOCKS FOR MR. M'KINLEY.

Ills Tariff Leads an Irih Lad to Make Him a Present. Samuel D. Frew came to this country from Belfast North Ireland, six years ago. He liked the American climate and the American people, but he could not endure American stockings. He longed for the comfortable, home-knit hosiery of old Ireland.

And so finally he wrote to his mother in Ireland to send him some stockings. She was glad to please her boy and so she knitted six pairs of Irish stockings and sent them to her son. But she didn't write about them, for she wanted them to be a surprise, and the first young Frew knew of the matter was when a bulky document arrived from the custom house. It was as follows: Samuel l. Frew to the Morris Kuropean American Express cti9tom house brokers and forwarding agents.

Dr. To specific duty on one pound manufactured wool at 49'i cents .50 Toad valorem duty on articles valued at $1. at F0 per cent 1.20 Reimbursements, charges and .50 United States bonded storage and labor. .21 Cartage, shipping or delivery 25 Postage, tc 05 Cust jm house entries, etc. 50 Total J3.21 When Frew looked at the bill he thought the custom house was at fault so he went home and hunted up a tariff book and figured out just what the tariff ought to be.

Here is the way he made it: Ad valorem duty on articles valued p.t J2, at 40 per cent Specific duty on one pound manufactured wool at 3 cents. 3 Total IL15 Frew went back to the express office indignant at the thought of being so imposed upon and handed the clerk the bill as he made it out The clerk looked at it and laughed. "Oh, that was under the old tariff bill," said he. "This other bill is made out according to Mr. McKinley's new tariff "You won't accept my bill, then?" said Frew.

"No," answered the official. Frew thought for a moment Then he called the clerk aside and whispered confidently. "You tell that McKinley that he can have my stockings." The stockings are still at the custom house, and after the expiration of the required time they will be sold at public auction same as the Astor dresses were. N. Y.

World. The Piano Manufacturers. Mr. Alfred Dolge took occasion in a recent issue of the New York World to say that the McKinley tariff had increased the cost of making a piano only twenty-five cents. Mr.

Dolge is a dealer in piano supplies and the only manufacturer of piano hammer felt in this country, and probably knows the facts; but it is a little puzzling to ordinary business minds to know just how he makes his estimates. Some of the piano manufacturers are not a little surprised that anyone should make such statements. They say: "Nearly everything that goes into a piano costs more. Tuning pins have gone up 80 cents per 1,000, or 20 cents a piano; piano wire, 20 cents a pound, and it takes one pound to each treble; keys cost SI more per set; imported felts, 30 cents more per pound, or 28 cents for each piano. These are but a few of the items which cost the manufacturer more because the duty was greatly increased on them, conse-1 quently the piano business has not been as dull in fifteen years as it has been this spring and summer.

Nearly all factories are on half time, when they ought to be filling fall orders. Firms that usually make forty pianos a week are only making eight or ten now. Maying Oat Competitors. Some years ago a prominent American manufacturer of screws made a contract with Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, of Manchester, England, to pay him the sum of 530,000 for keeping out of the American market High prices in the protected home market were so important to this American firm that thev were willing to pay hard cash to have this protection's precious market all to themselves.

This odd freak of protectionism has just been repeated in Germany. In that country there is a duty of S3. 10 a ton on steel rails, and the manufacturers have a trust which keeps up prices quite after the American fashion. But one thing disturbed the high tariff antics of the German rail trust It was Belgian competition. But now peace reigns; the trust has paid the Belgian rail makers 530,000 to keep out of Germany.

Protection manufacturers are a queer lot, always so miserably poor, always about to be ruiDed by foreign competition, and yet they can go deep into their pockets to buy off rivals. The great plate glass factory at Irwin. Pa, with a capital of $1,000,000, has recently turned out its first protected glass. It is announced that its output will be 1,250.000 feet per annum. This quantity, at the average prices for American plate glass, will brinjjr the company $937,000.

while the same glass bought in Europe and laid down in New York, without the duty, can be had for $412, 000. Great is protection Jor American industry. Sizes. Not above 10x15 square 10x15 to 16x24 square lt.x4 to square to 24x36 square Above 24x-i square inches In spite of these enormous duties, we still import 30 per cent of the window glass we consume. The reason why we continue to do so is because the glass trust of which Secretary Foster is a member, finds that it can make more money by producing a small amount of glass and selling it at high prices than it could were it to make all the glass we need for home consumption.

But Secretary Foster says that the foreign manufacturer pays the duty and that the home consumer does not How absurd this is is shown by the cost of the foreign window glass imported in 1S90 and the amount of duties levied. In 1890 we imported JL 402,798 worth of window glass on which $1,538,233 were paid in duties. Nearly all of this glass came from Belgium. Does Secretary Foster mean, when he says that the foreigner pays the tariff tax, that the Belgians presented us with SI. 402,796 of window glass and gave us $135,432 besides for taking it as a gift? Now these figures were made up in the bureau of statistics under Secretary Foster's charge.

Either they must be erroneous or else the secretary has told his Ohio friends something which he knows to be false, for the Belgians are not more generous than are other nations. How the window glass trust takes advantage of the tariff to charge consumers all the bonus it allows is shown in the following table which gives the present wholesale price in Belgium, from which all our imports come, and the prices charged by Secretary Foster and his associates in the window glass trust for carload lots. The figures are the net prices for second quality single thick glass. These prices are absolutely correct The third and fourth columns in the table show the amount which the American price exceeds the foreign and the duties charged on the foreign glass when imported. Oi rC ooscoopo 1 3 1 xoq J3d pojjua aajd xoq j.jd aotad Toq jad Jqiq -roq jad saptiQ Nine boxes of the above sizes of glass can and aVe bought in Belgium for S15.3L When imported $12.

15 must be paid in duties. Freight and insurance amount to about SL 80, making the total cost laid down here, duty paid, $29.23. The glass trust charges exactly S29.065J for the same amount of glass. Secretary Foster knows that these figures are true. What then beeomes of his asscertion that the foreigner pays the tax? He characterized the proposition Mr.

Grover Cleveland that the consumer pays the tariff tax as "the most fallacious proposition of which he has any knowledge." Are not the above figures a complete refutation of Secretary Foster's assertion, and do they not establish the soundness of Grover Cleveland's proposition? Secretary Foster cannot complain of this proof. The figures are not drawn from obscure sources. The industry chosen for dllustratioa is not an obscure one. Is of all industies the one with which he is most familiar. Why did not Secretary Foster prove his proposition of illustrations drawn from the prices of window glass! Simply be- cause such, figures fallacious character.

would snow its.