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8-Day

No. 18.

Thursday, September 18, 1890.

Published weekly by J. MORRISON-Fuller, at 3 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.

SUBSCRIPTION, $1.00 PER YEAR.

It is the

If it be desirable to reduce the patronage of the Government (and I hold it to be eminently so), we must strike at the source, the root, and not the branches. only way that will not in the end prove fallacious. The main sources of patronage may be found in the powers, the revenue, and the expenditures of the Government; and the first and necessary step towards its reduction is to restrict the powers of this Government within the rigid limits prescribed by the Constitution. Every extension of its powers beyond brings within its control subjects never intended to be placed there, followed by increased patronage, and augmented revenue and expenditure.

We must, in the next place, take care not to call the acknowledged powers of the Government into action beyond the limits which the common interest may render necessary, nor pervert into means of doing what it was never intended by the Constitution we should have the right to do. Of all the sources of power and influence, perversion of the powers of the Government has proved, in practice, the most fruitful and dangerous.

JOHN C. CALHOUN.

Price 5 Cents.

Devoted to the record of the facts and considerations which show that Individual Liberty is good for the people of the United States: And that, therefore, Legislative Regulation is injurious for them.

IN MEDIAS RES.

On Aug. 30th the House passed the bill for the adjustment of accounts of laborers and mechanics under the Eight-Hour law passed on June 25th, 1868. That law never having been enforced, and the Government employees having received no extra pay for the extra hours exacted of them unlawfully by the officials, the bill provides that such employees shall have the right to bring suit in the United States Court of Claims to recover the deficiency. The amount necessary to reimburse the workmen is as follows: War department, $800,000; Post-office department, $175,000, and Navy department, $3,000,000.

On the same day the House passed a bill prohibiting the employment of convict labor on public works.

In the House, on Sept. 1st, a bill was introduced by Representative Gibson providing for an income tax:

"The bill provides that there shall be collected for 1891 and annually thereafter, a tax of two per cent upon the gains, profits, and income of every resident of the United States, or citizen temporarily residing abroad. This tax is to be upon all property, rents, interests, premium on gold and coupon, gains and income of any employment or vocation, including salary as member of Congress. It is provided that military or naval pensions and the sum of $2,000 of the income of any person shall be exempt under certain conditions. The salaries of the President of the United States, the judges of the United States, and officers of any State are to be exempt."

The Anti-lottery Bill was favorably reported in the Senate, Sept. 2d. It is expected to come up as soon as the Tariff Bill is disposed of.

Senator Cooke introduced, Sept. 2d, a bill providing that hereafter no national bank shall issue circulating notes, and that within six months each national bank shall deposit money with the United States Treasurer for the redemption of its circulating notes. The bonds now deposited for this purpose will be returned, United States legal-tender notes shall be issued in place of bank-notes. Authority is given national banks to loan money on real estate.

On Sept. 3d, Senator Plumb presented a memorial from the Women's National Industrial League, which is as follows:

The Women's National Industrial League of America having carefully watched the tariff debates in the United States Senate, and having, from our own observation and experience, obtained facts which corroborate the statements made by several Senators, respectfully submit the following memorial:

Evidently, the intended protection liberally bestowed by the House and Senate does not protect labor, but is only fruitful to the manufacturers of the country. Women, and children of tender years, are virtually to-day the slaves of powerful corporations. In the cotton and woollen mills of Pennsylvania, New York, and the New England States, women and children work at from 35 to 75 cents a day; their day's work consists of 10 hours ; hence at from 34 to 74 cents per hour. According to the census of Massachusetts of 1885, 23 per cent of all persons employed in the cotton and woollen mills received only $2.10 to $4.50 per week, attending to from two to three looms each, while in Great Britain they have charge of from one to two looms only. Families in these aforementioned States falsify the entries in their family bibles so as to enable them to put their children earlier to work than the law perinits, being unfortunately forced to resort to these means in order to be able to meet current living expenses.

The president of the Women's National League was appointed by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor, to investigate the status of the working women in this country, and has also for years past carefully watched the abuses of these corporations, and from actual facts and statistics gathered, appeals to your honorable body for protection to these unfortunate women and children. Immediately after the passage of the tariff in the House, on May 21st last, when a bountiful provision of an advance of 50 per cent on the ad valorem duty was granted to the cloak manufacturers, they on the fifth day of June notified their women workers that their wages would be reduced 25 per cent. Receiving themselves a further protection of 50 per cent on the ad valorem duty, yet reducing in turn their women wage-workers' pittance to a further reduction of 25 per cent, seems like grinning mockery and wanton cruelty. The silk weavers of Bethlehem, Pa., have been notified by their employers that a reduction of 40 per cent of their wages has been decided upon; they, for self-preservation, had to strike. These silk-ribbon manufacturers have also

been liberally provided for with an advance of 20 per cent, by the House and Senate, on their goods. Receiving a bounty of 20 per cent extra, and asking their white slaves to contribute from their already scant wages 40 per cent seems almost inhuman.

Your memorialists also respectfully submit to you that women in New York City are making boys' jackets for 15 cents each (in fact, a whole jacket for the price of two loaves of bread); a pair of pants for 12 cents each. Women finishers in the woollen mills in Pennsylvania, according to the annual report of the Secretary of Internal Affairs for 1888, receive only 45 cents a day, not girls, but full-grown women; women spinners, 71 cents per day; women spoolers, from 42 to 64 cents per day; women weavers, 40 to 90 cents per day, the latter, to experts only. In the knit-goods factories women (not girls) receive 55 cents per day for winding spools; women spinners, 50 cents per day; yarn twisters, 63 cents per day; yarn spinners, 66 cents per day; reelers, 65 cents per day. Girls at work in Pennsylvania in the shoe and boot factories receive 50 cents per day. In the textile-fabric factories the women spinners and spoolers receive from 47 cents to 55 cents per day, and the winders 66 cents per day; while the dressers of woven textiles get only 43 cents per day.

According to the chief of the bureau of statistics of labor in Massachusetts, in his annual report for 1890, on page 570, he states that 391 female children, from 10 to 13 years, are employed in the factories of Massachusetts, and that 69,807 girls of the age from 14 to 19 years are doing factory work. Considering that out of the 114,223 girls of the ages between 14 and 19 years in the whole State of Massachusetts, 69,807 girls are factory girls, or over 61 per cent of the whole girl population of that age, it seems almost incredible but for the facts presented in that official report. In Vol. II., page 215, of the Massachusetts Census for 1885, the following startling confession is recorded: “During the year ending June 30, 1885, 15,538 women were furnished with work at home, and the amount paid to these women for the whole year was $514,362"; or at the average of $33.10 a year of 312 working days, equal to 10 3-5 cents per day.

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new pension act. Senator Cockrell said that the whole number to be added to the pension list would not exceed 700,000. Senator Plumb believed this to be an underestimate, and said that 60,000,000 a year would be required to meet the new applications. He estimated the total expenses of the Government at $450,000,000 a year, and its revenues at $400,000,000.

Senator Aldrich's reciprocity amendment to the Tariff Bill was adopted by the Senate on Sept. 9th. It reads:

SECT. 2. That, with a desire to secure reciprocal trade with countries producing the following articles, and for this purpose, on and after the first day of July, 1891, whenever and so often as the President shall be satisfied that the government of any country producing and exporting sugars, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, raw and uncured, or any of such articles, imposes duties or other exactions upon the agricultural or other products of the United States, which, in view of the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides into the United States, he may deem to be reciprocally unequal and unreasonable, he shall have the power, and it shall be his duty to suspend, by proclamation to that effect, the provisions of this act relating to the free introduction of such sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the production of such country, for such time as he shall deem just, and in such case and during such suspension, duties shall be levied, collected, and paid upon sugar, molasses, coffee, tea, and hides, the product of, or exported from, such designated country.

On the same day the amendment lowering the sugar standard to be admitted free of duty from No. 16 to No. 13 was adopted by the Senate.

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Senator Plumb offered an amendment for the appointment of a ommission of five disinterested(!) persons to be known as the customs commission." It was adopted. The commissioners' duty will be to collect facts and statistics relating to commerce, industry, wages, manufactures, and production in the United States and other countries, and to draw inferences from these facts with a view to the effects of legislation. In detail, the commissioners' business will be,

First. To examine into and ascertain the average price of commodities imported into the United States, both at wholesale and retail in the United States, and both in the United States and in the foreign places of production, sale, or shipment, for the period of twelve months preceding and six months following any change in the rate of customs duties imposed upon such commodities, and this inquiry shall be carried back for a period of twentyfive years and more, if deemed advisable by such commission, and shall extend to all facts relating to

demand and supply, domestic and foreign, which tend to influence prices of such commodities, foreign and domestic, and to aid in determining the true effect of the import duty or of the change therein in the several cases, upon domestic and foreign prices, and upon productions of the same, or of other commodities, upon revenue, upon immigration, upon profits of capital, rates of wages, and the general welfare.

Second. To ascertain the amounts, in quantity and value, of the importation of the principal commodities during each of said periods of twelve months preceding and succeding any such change in custom duties.

Third. To ascertain, as far as practicable, the quantity and value of the same or similar commodiities produced in the United States during the same respective periods.

Fourth. To ascertain whether in any and what instances the particular rates of customs duties have operated to increase or diminish production in the United States, and to cause a reduction of the first cost of articles produced for consumption, and what other causes, if any, have operated similarly.

Fifth. To ascertain in what particulars rates of customs duties existing from time to time operate injuriously or favorably to the development and increase of American manufactures and productions, or operate injuriously or favorably to the consumers of such manufactured articles and productions in respect of causing or contributing to the payment of unreasonable prices by consumers, or the removal or reduction of the same.

Sixth. To ascertain the effect of the customs duties upon the price of agricultural productions of the country and their sale in the United States markets, and their consumption in the United States.

Seventh. To ascertain the effect of such customs duties, both actual and relative, in respect of the employment and the payment of remunerative wages, both actual and relative, to labor in the United States, and a comparison of the same with the labor and wages in other countries.

Eighth. To consider the effect of customs duties, or the absence of them upon the agricultural, commercial, manufacturing, mining, and other industrial interests of the people of the United States.

Ninth. To ascertain and compare the actual cost and the selling price, both at wholesale and retail, of similar manufactured commodities, reduced to American weights, measures, and money, in the United States and elsewhere.

Tenth. To ascertain the growth and development of the principal manufacturing industries affected by the tariff schedules in England, France, Germany, and the United States for the last twentyfive years, and to ascertain the relative cost of transportation in those countries and the United States.

The Tariff Bill passed the Senate, by eleven majority, on Sept. 11th. Senator Aldrich moved that the Senate insist on its amendments and ask for a committee of conference, which motion was agreed to.

Besides the Aldrich reciprocity amendment, adopted by the Senate, there were other amendments before that body, aud it is expected that they will come up for discussion during the next session. One is that offered by Senator Hale (Schedule E), authorizing the President of the United States to

declare the ports of the United States free and open to all products of any nation of the American hemisphere upon which no export duties are imposed, whenever and so long as such nation shall admit to its ports, free of all national, provincial (State), municipal, and other taxes, flour, corn-meal, and other breadstuffs, preserved meats, fish, vegetables, and fruits, cotton-seed oil, rice, and other provisions, including all articles of food, lumber, furniture, and all other articles of wood, agricultural implements and machinery, mining and mechanical machinery, structural steel and iron, steel rails, locomotives, railway cars and supplies, street-cars, refined petroleum, or such other products of the United States as may be agreed upon.

Another amendment was that of Senator Sherman, providing that, whenever it shall be duly certified to the President of the United States that the Government of the Dominion of Canada has declared a desire to enter into such commercial arrangements with the United States as will result in the complete or partial removal of duties upon trade between Canada and the United States, he shall appoint three commissioners, to meet those who may be designated to represent the Government of Canada, to consider the best method of extending the trade relations between Canada and the United States, and to ascertain on what terms greater freedom of intercourse between the two countries can best be secured, and said commissioners shall report to the President, who shall lay the report before Congress.

IN GENERAL.

The State Department has discovered a very serious error in the law recently passed providing an international code of signals designed for the prevention of collisions at sea. This bill was the most important and practical outcome of the marine conference that met here last winter, and after it had passed the Senate and gone to the House, an error was discovered in its engrossment which required its return to the Senate. The mistake was rectified and the bill was passed in the House and became a law. Now the State Department has found out that in enrolling the bill in the Senate an error was made of such a serious character as practically to nullify the most important part of the bill.

A careful investigation is being made, and it will probably be found necessary to act on the subject again in both Houses of Congress.

The United States Superintendent of Census, R. P. Porter, is making arrangements for the gathering of statistics of manufactures throughout the country. The questions to be answered relate to the amount of capital invested in manufacturing, average number of hands employed, value of material used annually, value of products, amount annually paid out in wages, average number of hours of labor, etc. One question is in reference to the capital invested by colored people.

The coming census will be made under the term of "productive industry," and the agents are instructed that this is understood "in its broadest sense to embrace not only all factories and large works, but also the mechanical trades, as blacksmithing, coopering, carpentering, etc. The smallest shop should not be omitted. Enumerators and special agents will take pains to reach all of the productive establishments, large and small, within their districts.

It was charged before the House Sub-Committee on the Judiciary, which recently investigated alleged illegal practices in the United States Courts, that,

"In the Northern District of New York, the United States Commissioners and Deputy Marshals manufacture business for the purpose of making fees. Trivial prosecutions are brought, and, after the fees are made for the officers, a settlement with the Government is recommended, as a result of which the United States Government is obliged to pay many thousands of dollars annually for the benefit of officials. In Alabama, this system has reached such a degree of perfection that the committee found large numbers of persons who had for their only occupation that of professional defendants, professional witnesses, and professional bail. The character of the cases is confined almost exclusively to violations of the internal revenue laws, except in Alabama, where, in addition to revenue cases, are prosecutions for cutting timber on Government lands."

A plank of the platform adopted by the Democratic convention at San Antonio, Texas, demands the State regulation of railroads. In the same platform, State ownership of railways, telegraphs, etc., is opposed as paternal, and vicious in principal. The Texas Secretary of State, Mr. Moore, criticises the plat

form, and points out the inconsistency between the two planks. He says:·

There certainly cannot be any more paternalism in the ownership and control of such by the State than in the mere regulation thereof, because you vindicate the regulation on the ground that the roads discharge a public duty; that such duties were committed to private corporations simply as a matter of policy, it being conceived to be better for the State to farm out this function rather than to undertake the performance itself. And so, after all, to justify regulation at all, we predicate it on the fact that the railroad corporations are simply a part of the public functions of the State. If this be correct, how can it be said that the ownership of such companies and the operation thereof by officers more directly responsible to the State than corporate officers is paternalism? But if it be insisted and can be maintained that railroading is private business, then legislative interference therein is the highest order of paternalism. As a matter of fact, the railroads are private property. They are the representatives of the investment of private capital, and entitled to respect as such. Therefore, upon principles of justice, the State should rather own and operate her own roads than to adopt the policy of meddlesome interference and espionage upon the roads and the business of private investors.

Three subjects chiefly engage the attention of the Kentucky Constitutional Convention, now in session at Frankfort. They are: 1. Reform of the Judiciary.

2. Reform of the Ballot.

3. Restriction of the power of counties and cities to contract debts.

The Leaf Tobacco Board of Trade held a meeting and adopted the following resolution:

Whereas, several million dollars would be due the Government in duties on the large quantities of imported tobacco lying in the United States bonded warehouses at the time of the passage of the McKinley Tariff Bill should the same become a law; and in the present stringency of the money market, it would be difficult for the importers to release the large amount, and then only by paying exorbitant rates of interest, their financial status being thereby jeopardized; and whereas there is a danger that the sudden withdrawal from circulation of from fifty to one hundred million dollars, the estimated amount of duties for the various classes of merchandise now lying in the United States warehouses, must cause a panic in financial circles; and, whereas, the object of the McKinley Tariff Bill would in no way be affected by the granting of our petition; therefore, be it

Resolved, that the United States Senate and House of Representatives shall be petitioned to so

amend the Tariff Bill that the rate of duty as proposed in the McKinley Tariff Bill shall not apply to merchandise imported into this country prior to the passage of the bill, and lying in bonded warehouses at that time.

In the Experiment Station Record, for July, a publication issued by the Federal Department of Agriculture, there is a notice of the amended Weed Law of Wisconsin. This law directs every person and corporation in the State to destroy, upon lands owned or occupied by them, all white or ox-eyed daisies, snap-dragon, burdock, yellow-dock, and Canada thistles. There are commissioners whose duty it is to destroy these plants, on the hands of those who neglect to obey the law, and the expense is added to the taxes levied upon the property of the owners. A similar regulation exists in New York where it is lawful

"for any person to cut the same between the twenty-fifth day of June and the fifth day of July inclusive, and between the twenty-fifth day of August and the fifth day of September inclusive, at the expense of the corporation on whose lands said Canada thistles, white and yellow daisies, or other noxious weeds shall be so cut, at the rate of three dollars per day for the time so occupied in cutting, to be recovered in any court of justice in this State."

The law requiring liquor dealers to provide food, tables, and chairs for the use of their customers is openly violated in Massachusetts, and in Boston it is only partially enforced. The public authorities are absolutely indifferent, and the dealers are taking advantage of the circumstance.

Last July the Philadelphia Board of Health condemned several of the city's school-houses as unfit for occupation, and ordered repairs and improvements for the benefit of the children's health. Lack of money, however, prevented compliance with this request. The condemned school-houses are now reopened, and the 7,500 children returning to them will be exposed to the dangers of malaria, fever, and diphtheria.

A bill was filed in the circuit court recently on behalf of the City of Chicago against the City Treasurer and several banks for an

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