Conservative *
manufacturing nations are dopeiidout
mainly upon us for ono or more of these
necessary elements.
Second. Our advantage in the light
burden of our national taxes has been
explained.
Third. The nearest approach to effec
tiveness in labor is to bo found in Great
Britain ; next in Franco and Germany.
Elsewhere there is no comparison.
Fourth. Our mechanism of produc
tion and distribution is the most com
plete and adequate.
We are now exporting twelve hundred
million dollars' ( $1,200,000,000) ) worth
of food , fuel , fibres and fabrics to
every part of the earth , There is not an
article of export in which the earnings
or wages of labor recovered from the
sales are not from twenty-five to a
thousand per cent higher than they are
in competing countries or in the non-
competing countries to which these
goods are sold. If the rate of wages
governed the cost of labor not one del
lar's worth of any of these products
could wo export to any place on the
globe.
Our conditions in many respects re
semble those of Great Britain in 1840 to
1842 , when Sir Robert Peel , convinced
by the logic of events of the error of the
previous policy of Great Britain , led the
way to the great reform in the monetary
system and in the method of collecting
the revenue which has given Great
Britain her pre-eminence since that
time. Ho then pictured "tho chancel
lor of the exchequer seated upon an
empty chest over the pool of a bottom
less deficiency , fishing for a 'budget. ' "
He denounced the previous system of
attempting to control the homo market
by the exclusion of foreign products
by stating that it had totally failed ,
"having brought the great mass of
the population to beggary , desti
tution aud want. " Wo have been
saved from disaster , due to similar acts ,
by the continental system of absolute
free trade within , our borders. We may
now take pre-eminence in commerce by
removing the obstructions of our exces
sive duties and our navigation laws.
We are waiting for the counterpart of
Sir Robert Peel , who carefully regard
ing the artificial conditions into which
some branches of industry had been
brought in Great Britain by the previous
system brought about remedies not only
without disaster to them but to their
great benefit. The statesman who now
rises superior to party , and disregarding
the dogmatism of the high tariff man as
well as of the doctrinaire free-trader ,
and who shall frame a judicious and
gradual reduction of the tariff , will
become the great leader in our financial
reforms which can no longer bo de
ferred.
It may be remarked that under the
present aspects of the case the money
cost of the present war will be $50,000-
000 to $100,000,000 of cash , taken out of
lie largo reserve which was in the
> ossession of the government at the beginning -
ginning , coupled with an addition to the
lobt of the nation of $200,000,000 , That
ncrca.se of debt is less than half the
obligations incurred under the Bland
and Sherman acts about $500,000,000
'or the purchase of the useless stock of
silver bullion , most of which now en
cumbers the treasury of the United
States. It mny also be remarked that
the president of the United States has
given duo regard to the necessities of
commerce in granting open courts in
Cuba xinder a uniform system of collect
ing duties , which are applied alike to
the United States , to Great Britain and
; o all other countries , thereby sustain
ing the demand of the English-speaking
people of Great Britain and America for
access to all the great ports of the world
on even terms with other nations.
It therefore follows that so far as our
financial future is concerned the inci
dents of the war have drawn universal
attention to the necessity of remedying
all the defects in our previous system of
taxation and in establishing the right
method of collecting the national rev
enue under the only just and simple rule
that all taxes that the people pay the
government shall receive ; the so-called
system of protection , with incidental
revenue , being utterly at variance with
this fundamental principle , and with
the views of the founders and promoters
of the protective system down to a very
recent date.
There are compensations to bo found
oven in the conduct of an unnecessary
war. The facts which have been devel
oped by the war are many.
First Sectionalism has ceased to exist.
Its final removal will bo assured when a
just and equal system of national taxa
tion has been established that will not
obstruct the exports of the grain and
cotton-growing states in the futile effort
to benefit certain arts existing mainly in
other sections , by prohibiting imports.
Second The interdependence of the
English-speaking people has been
brought out so plainly that all efforts ol
jingoism , bimetallism , and of men who
regard the import of foreign goods as an
attack upon American industry will
hereafter bo utterly futile.
Third The futility of any effort of
naval forces of any kind to overcome
powerful land defences is proved boyonc
a question. Wo have succeeded in our
naval warfare mainly through the inca
pacity of our enemies and the incompe
tence of those in command of the lanci
batteries.
Fourth The incapacity , or worse , of
leading men has been exposed who
forced the hand of the president , ren
dering futile his effort to avoid war
The apparently judicial statements o :
Senator Proctor , coupled with the wild
excesses of other senators regarding the
conditions of Cuba and the existence o :
a Cuban army , have been so totally dis1-
irovcd as to render those who made
; hem objects of contempt or dorisou.
Fifth The absurd effort of the very
unior senator of Massachusetts but a 'f '
short time ago to incite antagonism with
Great Britain by proposing differential
luties on her goods in order to force her
o adopt what is termed bimetallism in
lie conduct of international commerce
ms not been forgotten and will not bo
disregarded. The later undertaking of
; ho senior senator of Massachusetts to
jring the independents or mugwumps
in politics into disrepute has impaired
; ho respect of his friends for his political
sagacity , while not affecting their per
sonal regard for his integrity. Ho
may well be reminded that except
for the mugwumps and independents of
1840 to I860 , who by declaring their pur
poses to be governed by principle and
not by policy under the Liberty and
Free Soil parties laid the foundation
of the republican party , Senator Hoar
himself might never have obtained any
position of public prominence. ' *
Now , while the future of the finances |
may oven bo improved in consequence t > '
of the conditions of war , what shall bo
said on other matters ? Who will de
fend the conduct of the war in the com
missary and quartermaster's depart
ment , even if the medical department
can bo justified ? Who will defend the
typhoid Camp Alger ? Who will bo
responsible for the condition of the
army of the United States as it has been
disclosed in the protest of the officers
at Santiago in the papers or this very
day ? Who will justify orders to increase
the army in Porto Rico , whore there is
no possibility of armed resistance of any
moment ? Who will justify the pur
chase of some of the supplies or the 1
methods by which those purchases were
made ? The public attention of this
country has been aroused to something
more than the abuses of the Spaniards
in Cuba , and the suspicions of wrong
will not bo allayed if there have been
grave abuses in the conduct of the war
on which wo entered for the purpose of
abating the disasters due to Spanish
peculations and to the perversion of
public trust by Spanish rulers.
Thodwellers
UNAPPRECIATED.
upon the fertile
and health-giving lauds of the Trans-
Mississippi and Trans-Missouri domain
do not , as a rule , appreciate the value of
their fields and homes. There are no
other lauds comparable to them , in this
same latitude , anywhere else on the
globe. Reckless , stonoless aud stump-
less , they offer to the plowman the best
return for his labor and the highest and
surest compensation for deep tillage.
Rich in potash which has been distilled
into them from the ashes of autumnal
prairie fires for uncounted centuries ,
and opulent in plant food of all desirable
sorts these vast stretches of prairie laud
