Puslapio vaizdai
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clined to see in existing legislation the cause of the farmer's complaint. There can be no doubt that our present tariff system takes from the profits of the farmer and adds to those of the manufacturer. The products of the farm are exchanged for those of the factory. If "protection " raises the price of the latter, it means that more wheat, or corn, or potatoes, must be given for the same quantity of manufactures; if it does not raise the price, it is of no advantage to the manufacturer. Whether it raises the price or not, can be determined by comparing the amount of cloth, say, which can be obtained for a bushel of wheat in Europe with what can be obtained in this country for the same wheat.

We find two causes, then, for the present condition of American farming, and they are not mutually exclusive. The farmer sells part of his produce in Europe, where it has to compete with the produce of the world, and the price he can get for it there determines the price he can get for it at home. This is the natural condition he has to contend with. But he is not allowed to buy the manufactured goods in a market where they compete with like goods from all over the world; or, rather, if he does this, he is obliged to pay from thirty to one hundred per cent in addition to their price before he is permitted to take them home. This is an artificial, a congressional, condition he has to contend with. His home market, in which, of course, he does most of his trading, is a cheap market for what he has to sell, from natural causes; but a dear market for what he has to buy, from artificial causes. wonder that times are hard for him?

Is it any

The average farmer is not a very intelligent being; his notion of causation is probably defective; the railroad which runs through his town, the syndicates and pools in Chicago, the middleman in any place whatever, are all nearer to him than Congress; there are not wanting false prophets to delude him as to the causes of his hardships; but he may be trusted to discover in

the end both the natural and the artificial cause, and to decide which one he will "buck against."

Perhaps one of the worst effects produced by political interference with industrial development, is that emphasized by the protests of the importers against changes in the various tariff schedules. In the first place, the habit of making contracts is one of the essential accompaniments of what we call civilization. Anything that tends to check the extension, either in space or time, of this method of doing business is a bar across the very path of development. It is evident that the insecurity given to foreign contracts, therefore, will have much more serious effects than are expressed by mere hindrance to trade. It is hindrance to a method of trade, and one which will react on all business methods.

In the second place, every check on foreign intercourse, especially on industrial intercourse, is a positive injury to the cause of peace. The more the people of different nations have to do with one another, the more their prejudices and antipathies are diminished and their ignorance dispelled. Free trade between nations would prove a powerful conservative force, strong enough to resist the tendency to make war on many occasions.

The Times, Chicago, alludes to the capriciousness of juries, in connection with the contrast between the verdicts given in two recent criminal cases in Chicago. A man (Purdy) has been condemned to death on what seems to every one very much slighter evidence than that on which the Cronin murderers were only imprisoned for life. But there is nothing remarkable about this caprice. It results from the stupid practice of letting juries pass sentence. The sentencing of convicted prisoners is a matter requiring, if it is to be done reasonably, and with an approach to uniformity, knowledge, practice, and judicial equanimity. But this is not a question likely to receive consideration by a people bent on nothing but prostituting politics to profit.

"THE RIGHTS OF THE CITIZEN."

Two of the promised papers on the Rights of the Citizen have appeared in Scribner's, the first of which deals with his rights as a householder, the second with his rights as a user of the streets. We are glad to see attention called to this matter; it is interesting to observe how many, or rather how few, of the rights of the

American citizen remain to him. To be sure, it appears in the second paper that the individual has gained a little in the right to obstruct a street; but the most striking thing about the first paper is the enumeration of rights which the householder possessed formerly, but which he has now lost.

It was in their households that our ancestors enjoyed the most complete freedom, and even now a man has some liberties on his own premises which he has not on a public highway or in a public building; he may swear freely in Boston, for instance, or drink intoxicating liquor in Maine or Kansas, provided, of course, he succeeds in getting it into his house. But he is very far from being allowed to construct his house after his own pleasure. In New York, before he can begin to build he must submit a complete copy of the plans to the Bureau of Inspection of Buildings, and swear to it, or get his agent to do so. Moreover, in certain parts of the city the materials he may use are prescribed, the mode of excavations, the kind of wall, the quality of brick and mortar, the manner of introducing steam, water, and gas pipes, etc. He must file in the Health Department descriptions of the plumbing and drainage he wishes to have; and an attempt to proceed with this part of the house without this formality, constitutes a misdemeanor. After the house is built the owner is not free from intrusion. "The fire marshal, or any of his officers, may also enter any building in the city for the purpose of examining the stoves, pipes, ranges, furnaces, and heating apparatus of every kind, including chimneys or other things which in his opinion may be dangerous." And if he finds anything objectionable, the Board of Fire Commissioners may direct the owner to alter or remove it within such time as they see fit. Still greater powers are given to the Board of Health. It is possible to arrive at the rights of householders by a method of exhaustion, subtracting from all possible rights the rights which they have not, but it is much briefer to enumerate directly the rights which they have.

There are two classes of rights, the author tells us, which the citizen has acquired in compensation for those which have been taken away from him: First, the right to see that no other citizen has any more rights than he has himself -in other words, "the right to compel others to comply with these restrictions"; second, "the right to have those things done for him by the city which, in his castle, a man did for himself." Rights of the first class are exemplified as follows: "If my neighbor keeps a parrot, or dogs, or plays his cornet-à-piston in his yard, or if I suspect that microbes are escaping from

his sewer-pipes into mine, I may complain to the Board [of Health], and it may thereupon send a man who, without let or hindrance, may enter my neighbor's house to examine the justice of my complaint; and if he thinks it well founded, the Board may order and compel my neighbor to give up his pets and his playing, or to have his pipes repaired." Rights of the second class are those of police protection, to the advantages of public sewers, aqueducts, parks, streets lighted and paved or otherwise kept in good condition. The city collects by taxation money with which to furnish these conveniences, but much of the money is used for corrupt purposes, and the remainder is not applied efficiently, so that citizens are largely defrauded of rights of this class after paying for them. The author relates a characteristic incident. He saw a dead cat lying in the street near his house and called the attention of the policeman in the street to it, but without avail; then he applied successively to the captain of the police precinct, to the Commissioner of Street Cleaning, to the Bureau of Street Incumbrances, to the commissioner of Public Works, to the Board of Health. The last two replied that the matter did not come within their scope. Then he stated all the facts to the Mayor. The dead cat disappeared, and he was officially informed that his complaint was groundless, and that no cat's body was to be found.

The incident has its ludicrous side, but the class of facts of which it is a type seriously raises the question in the mind of one who reflects upon them, whether it would not be better for citizens to retain their rights and pay their money to private servants, instead of supporting such a horde of public servants who are so careless in performing the duties they take upon themselves to perform. The proposition which city governments make by implication when they urge an extension of their powers, would not seem to be very captivating to a man fond of freedom: "If you will resign to us the control of this portion of your affairs, we will administer it in the interests of the public, and you shall have the pleasure of seeing us control a like portion of your neighbor's affairs." But after seeing men submit to such governments as are most municipal governments in this country in cities of over 200,000 inhabitants, it is difficult to avoid entertaining an uncomplimentary opinion of their intelligence, as well as of their public spirit and love of freedom.

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