Conservative *
the whole people and should never be
allowed to pass iuto the hands of a few.
Following this principle , the nionopoly-
advantttgo now enjoyed by private as
sociations of capitalists would remain to
the people and be administered by their
agents for their benefit. The plan
would bo excellent , if it could be made
to work as its proposers would have it
work. But can it ? The difficulty is
this : What these writers prove is that
this business is suitable to governments
as they ought to be , while our practical
problem deals with governments as they
exist. Regulation of great industrial
enterprises might properly enough bo
committed to a government adminis
tered with strict integrity and economy
by capable and broad-minded business
men. But if we handed them qver to
present rulers , wo must expect to see
enterprises undertaken as our river and
harbor improvements , public buildings
and post-route extensions are now un
dertaken too often not because they
will repay their cost not because the
public interest calls for them but be
cause some politician with a strong
"pull" is able to force them , through.
We must expect to see the choice of men
to conduct those enterprises made on
similar grounds. The idea can bo re
garded as practicable only when busi
ness principles shall have taken a firmer
hold upon the conduct of our govern
ment than they yet have ; when business
methods shall govern public improve
ments and shall not bo forgotten even
in the allotment of pensions ; when the
business rule of assigning places accord
ing to fitness is as firmly fixed as our
republican system of government , and
when the demands of what is known as
"civil service reform" shall be accepted
as an unquestioned matter of course.
Government of , by and for the people
is a glorious thing , as we all confess , but
it needs to pass through a further pro
bation before it can be trusted with di
rect charge of industries.
But there are a good many things that
the government can do for us indirectly ,
and one of them is to break up the con
dition under which the evils of which
we complain have their rankest growth
that of secrecy.
Legislation can be used to lot in the
light ; to show truth where now is error
and confusion. It
Illumination.
may attach con
ditions to the corporation which it cre
ates ; among those that have been
recommended are that the books of
stock companies shall be open to inspec
tion , and that no such company shall bo
admitted to corporate privileges on its
own valuation of its stock official val
uation being made an indispensable con
dition.
Publicity would be one remedy for
the pernicious evil of watered capital ;
another remedy , not insurmountably
difficult , to apply , would be taxation.
A tax based on nominal capital might
easily have some effect to prevent that
capital from being exaggerated. It
would have a greater effect in that way ,
if the amount of capital actually paid in
were deducted from the assessment , so
; hat the tax-burden might be borne by
; he water alone. Graduated taxation
has also been suggested ; the effect of
this would be to discourage consolida-
; ion in very largo aggregations , since
; he same money invested in one capital
stock would be liable to higher tax than
if divided among many. THE CONSKU-
VATIVE does not undertake to say which
of these proposed plans would bo best.
Taxation is a complicated matter , and a
iheoretically bad tax that can be col
lected certainly and equally is to be
preferred to a theoretically better tax
that cannot be collected : In consider
ing what would practically prove the
best way to tax corporations , we must
liavo at command all human experience
of taxation , and at the same time , not
leave out of view the hundreds of ex
pedients by which the corporations may
creep out of paying.
"Would it not be possible , it may now
be asked , to disarm the trusts by taking
off taxes that help
Abolisli Protoo- .
to creafce the mon.
tive Turin's. , . . .
opoly on which
inordinate profits depend , and so control
them more effectually than by imposing
taxes upon them ? The tax they might
perhaps evade , but there is no dodging a
removal of the tax now levied upon the
people for the benefit of the trusts.
Monopoly , brought about by Nature , or
favoritism , or force , is the condition
which the trust most earnestly seeks to
secure , and the enjoyment of which
gives it most power over the community.
Deprive it of monopoly and we disarm
it there is little use in trying to fight it
any other way. And yet the tariff law
seems in certain of its provisions as
though deliberately calculated to give
trusts every advantage. It imposes
taxes on commodities entering the coun
try from outside , and thus renders it
easy for any organization that may ac
quire control over the supply of those
commodities within the country to en
joy a substantial monopoly , increase the
profits of production and rate its capital
stock at an inflated valuation. The
monopoly , partly assured by favoring
tax-laws , is rendered complete by force
rivals being suppressed by the combi
nation through what are virtually acts
of war. Thus comes about the alliance
of tariff and trusts. This alliance it is
that is driving so many people , from dif
ferent parts of the country and from the
ranks of different political parties , to ad
vocate tariff modifications as the proper
cure for the trust evil.
In the inner circle of Colonel Bryan's
adherents , it has been accepted as party
orthodoxy to leave the tariff alone and
strain every nerve to overcome "tho
money power : " while , on the other
hand , some of the most earnest appeals
for reduction of duties on articles cou-
; rolled by trusts have come from stern
unbending republicans. Though advo
cates of protective duties on other pro
ducts of industry , they argue , not with
out reason , that the application of such
duties to increase the cost of trust-
controlled products must tend to dis
credit protective duties altogether.
In the ten months ending with April
last , the country exported $276,000,000
. , worth of manufac-
Eximrtcrt , . . ,
Manufactures.tures' nenrly 18 %
more than the cor
responding ton mouths of 1897 and 1898.
This amount , considerably exceeding
that of our imports of manufactured
goods for the same period , covering a
wide range of products , conclusively
proves that we have nothing to fear
from foreign manufactures. Yet a duty
is still demanded on these very products ,
and why ? Not for revenue , because the
government gets no revenue from such
duties , but to enable the combinations
that monopolize their production to
exact higher prices in this country than
they can obtain abroad , and for no other
reason.
The Sugar Trust , with its rebates to
encourage exportation , and its high protective -
tective duty to
SHKIVV Trust. , . . .
keep up the price
of its product within the country , thus
favored by the law in two directions ;
the Steel Rail combine , which sends its
product to all quarters of the globe ( one
mill recently shipping 70,000 tons of
rails for the North China railway ) and
puts them down at the very doors of the
British shops , while at the same time a
Boston company finds it cheaper to get
rails from England and pay the duty
than to buy at the terms allowed at
home ; the Tin Plate monopoly , special
and particular favorite of protective leg
islation , now empowered to exact what
ever prices it thinks the public able to
bear ; these and many other associations ,
all profiting handsomely by legislative
favoritism , tempt us to appeal to the
law , not to lay its hand upon them in
any way directly , but only to lift from
us the hand with which it holds us down
in order to give the monopolies advant
age.
age.The
The officers of a prominent manufac
turing company in Wisconsin , convinced
that the high duties of our present tariff
law were provoking retaliation on the
part of more than one country of conti
nental Europe , where it would be ad
vantageous to sell machinery , sent out a
circular letter a few weeks ago to manu
facturers throughout the United States.
In this circular the opinion was plainly
expressed that this country had passed
the need of protection in machine con
struction , and that the tariff thereon
ought to be greatly lowered or abolished
altogether ; the views of correspondents
on the subject being also solicited. By
the kind permission of the authors
of the circular we have read a
