the sinking fund should not equitably be credited, thus protecting us against a deficiency in the event that the internal taxes are largely reduced or altogether abolished. The amount which is required by law to be placed to the credit of the sinking fund for the year ending June 30, 1883, is $45,122,110.80. By reason of the payments already made there is, therefore, due only an equitable balance of $4,698,410.80 to be credited to sinking fund for the year 1883, with period of time from July 1, 1882, to June 30, 1883-an entire year.

In my opinion $75,000,000 of payment on account of current pensions and arrears is as much each year as can be safely made with due protection against fraud. Until the arrears are all paid-say $45,000,000 per year in addition to appropriations of years 1877-'78—we might be required to continue the tax on whisky, say at fifty cents per gallon, or we could encroach upon and reduce our now excessive unemployed balance in the treasury. Admitting there might be a moderate deficiency, we have, to meet such deficiency, now in the Treasury $136,000,000 above and beyond every claim on the Government dollar for dollar.

It is thus made plain that, with economical expenditures and reduced appropriations for the year, we are fully provided.

As I have already said, a heavy reduction or the abolition of internal taxes would compel immediate revision of our tariff laws. How that can be done with most expedition is the question which most directly concerns us.

I do not favor a tariff enacted upon the ground of protection simply for the sake of protection, because I doubt the existence of any constitutional warrant for any such construction or the grant of any such power. It would mani. festly be in the nature of class legislation, and to such legislation, favoring one class at the expense of any other, I have always been opposed.

In my judgment the question of free trade will not arise practically in this country during our lives, if ever, so long as we continue to raise revenue by duties on imports, and therefore the discussion of that principle is an absolute waste of time. After our public debt is paid in full our expenditures can hardly be much below $200,000,000, and if this is levied in a business-like and intelligent manner it will afford adequate protection to every industrial interest in the United States. The assertion that the Constitution permits the levying of duties in favor of protection "for the sake of protection" is equally uncalled for and unnecessary. Both are alike delusory and not involved in any practical administrative policy. If brought to the test, I believe neither would stand for a day. Protection for the sake of protection is prohibition pure and simple of importation, and if there be no importation there will be no duties collected, and conse quently no revenue, leaving the necessary expenses of the Government to be collected by direct taxes-for internal taxes would interfere with the protective principle, and when the people were generally asked to bear the burden of heavy taxation to sustain class legislation, and the interests of a portion of our people at the expense of the great bulk of our population, there would be an emphatic and conclusive negative. So, too, with free trade, there is hardly a man in public life who advocates it pure and simple. Nobody wants direct taxation, although it would bring taxation so near and so constantly before the people that Congress would hesitate long before it voted the sums of money it now does, if not for improper at least for questionable purposes.

Let me cull a few sentences from recent debates to show the feeling on the subject

Ex-Governor Hendricks says: "A horizontal tariff is impossible."

Senator James B. Beck says: "Nobody asks or expects this Congress to establish free trade or tear down custom

houses.

In adjusting taxation on imports with a view only to obtain revenue or "for revenue only," we never thought of discriminating against American, industries, or of depriving them of the incidental benefits or protection a proper revenue tariff would afford."

Senator Bayard says: "The power to tax by laying duties upon imports may be so exercised as to do what it has done ever since the foundation of the Government, and this is to give an advantage equivalent to the amount of the tax to the American producer or manufacturer over his foreign competitors in the same line of production or manufacture, and this becomes his protection."

Senator Williams of Kentucky says: "Nobody is for free trade just now."

Senator Cooke of Texas says: "As an inevitable consequence domestic manufacturers and producers of the articles upon which such revenue import duties are laid are to that extent protected against foreign competition."

Mr. Carlisle of Kentucky in substance reiterates these sentiments. So they all say, with rare exception. The real question presented and which is in controversy is the revision of taxes, so we may hold the control of the markets of the world for the benefit of our excess of production over the home consumption.

I favor what Mr. Jefferson declared to be "discriminating duties," which General Jackson described as "a judicious tariff," and what Silas Wright designated as "incidental protection." To accomplish these ends wisely and well requires the greatest circumspection and the exercise of the most careful judgment.

CHAPTER XXI.

FREE TRADE.*

BY HON. FRANK H. HURD.

R. CHAIRMAN, I desire to say that the Marquis of

MR. Ripon is the representative of the Liberal party

of England in India, sent there to secure the abrogation of India's protective tariff system and open her markets to the operation of the principles of free trade.

This policy has been carried out, and under Ripon's administration, as I have said, India has adopted commercial freedom. Immediately Great Britain commenced the devel opment of India's agricultural production. Large extents of territory were made cultivable through the adoption of systems of irrigation. Railroads were commenced and the work of construction was vigorously pushed. The interior was opened up to the coast, so that the products of the soil could be cheaply loaded in the vessels. Then the most suitable seeds were distributed among the people. Cheap agricultural machinery was afforded them. Under this impulse, wheat production was so stimulated that last year there was a production in India of more than 300,000,000 bushels, of which a large portion was a surplus above domestic consumption. Of this 40,000,000 of bushels have been exported, while five years ago there was scarcely a cargo of grain sent from the shores of that country. In the first three months of this year this exportation has largely

*Speech in the House of Representatives, May, 1884

increased over the same period of last year, indicating for this year an exportation of nearly 70,000,000 bushels.

What has been the effect of this increased production in India upon our markets? In the last nine months there has been a decline in the exportation of American cereals of $47,000,000 in value, and wheat has gone down in Chicago to less than eighty cents per bushel, the lowest price that has ever been known in that market. It is notable, Mr. Chairman, that just as the exportation of wheat has increased from India, the exportation has diminished from the United States. This development of wheat production in India is the natural and inevitable result of the protective tariff in America, which puts high duties on foreign goods. England refuses to buy of the farmers of America, who will not take her goods in exchange, and seeks her food supply from those countries who will take her productions; and thus from the farmers of America is passing away the last vestige of a foreign market.

I say to the farmer of America that the prospect for him is by no means encouraging. With elevators, granaries, and warehouses all filled to overflowing, with the old crop still unsold, with the vast fields of the great West greening to the coming harvest, with crops unexcelled in India, almost ready for the market, with splendid promise among all the wheatgrowing nations of the earth, and with the price of wheat less than eighty cents at Chicago, I predict that before January next the price of wheat will be so low that it will not pay the cost of production, and the corn raised on the western prairies will be burned again for fuel as was the case years ago. When that time arrives the farmers will be beggars in the midst of their own plenty and paupers by the side of their own golden gathered sheaves. There is absolutely no relief to the American farmer, except in mak. ing foreign markets for him. Talk about the home market which American manufacturers make for him. Already