relations with Cuba. The most immediate source from which a declaration for Cuban reciprocity could come was, of course, the various state conventions whose meetings were scheduled to take place from and after the opening of July, 1902. Even before the close of Congress, a few of these conventions had occurred. They continued at intervals throughout the early summer and while they in general renominated the men who had opposed Cuban reciprocity, they also issued declarations favoring the President's policy on that topic. The verdict of the conventions, in the main, was peculiarly strong and clear in its support of the President's reciprocity policy. This was precisely as every administration man would have wished. The renomination of the beet sugar Republicans took away a principal source of friction and ill-feeling, while at the same time it was made clear by the state platforms that the people did not approve of their ultra-protectionist attitude at least on this subject. It was earnestly desired by the administration that candidates elected on these platforms should succeed and that a Republican majority in Congress should be maintained. At the same time, it was not to be regretted if that Republican majority should be slightly curtailed. The administration would then have the whiphand in enforcing party discipline. It could say to the beet sugar Republicans that the time had come for them to throw aside their opposition and obey the mandate served upon them during the summer. It was, however, desirable to do something which would relieve the beet sugar Republicans of the humiliation of voting for a measure they had vigorously opposed. In Washington it was felt, therefore, that the best course would be to prepare a treaty with Cuba. It would then be possible for the defeated beet sugar men to vote for the treaty, saying as they did so that they had never opposed a plan of that description, and that their only ground of hostility was found in the fact that the reciprocity proposition had been embodied in statutory form. To this end therefore, negotiations were pushed forward.

The elections turned out in a way to satisfy even the most ardent of Republicans. True, the Republican majority was cut down in the House of Representatives with every prospect of losing some seats in the Senate. But, as we have just seen, this situation was not at all to be regretted from the administration standpoint. Beet sugar men who succeeded in getting back into Congress, although in some instances with reduced majorities, had received such a warning that within a month after the elections the prospects for reciprocity with Cuba were brighter than they had been for a long time past, and reciprocity advocates were even anticipating that other reciprocity treaties would perhaps be accepted during the session 19021903. Yet there were some clouds on the horizon. In spite of the terrible misery and suffering impending over Cuba, which was loudly trumpeted about during the Spring of 1902, little was heard after the close of Congress concerning the Cuban situation. A few discontented outcries from "Cuban planters," and a few "high-minded" complaints from men who were in the employ of American interests in Cuba, was substantially all. The Cuban question in its acute form sank almost as suddenly from view as it had appeared. There were several reasons for this result. In the first place, the powerful American interests which were behind Cuban reciprocity never for an instant lost faith in their ability ultimately to secure control in the Island. They went on building railways and investing capital in spite of their threat not to do so. Moreover, Cuba, with her marvellously fertile soil might produce to advantage, even without any reduction in our tariff. The enforcement of the Brussels Convention, although rather far off, at all events prevented sugar prices from falling lower. Moreover, the acreage of sugar beets in Europe had been cut down somewhat, partly as the result of low prices, and partly on account of the work of the Brussels convention. The price of sugar during August, September and October, 1902, did not materially decline and toward the end of that period took an upward trend. Esti

mates of the beet sugar production for the year, made about the end of October, showed a decrease in beet sugar yield from something like 6.8 million tons to about 5.8 million tons, a notable falling off. The stock carried over from the preceding year was exceedingly large and the cane crop of the world had increased slightly, but on the whole the prospect for sugar, in 1902-1903, was that the supply would be somewhat smaller than during the preceding year. The Cubans themselves had slightly recovered their courage and partly discontinued their attitude of mendicancy. That there was considerable dissatisfaction in the minds of annexationists and extreme reciprocity advocates as a result of this situation, goes without saying. The "ward of the United States" theory seemed to be fading away, and the prospect of annexation as a consequence of Cuban necessities was less favorable than it had been. It seemed that Cuba was "drifting away" from the United States and was "looking to England." These things displeased many politicians who had previously been favorable to the Cuban cause, but it also led them to see that we had better make haste in granting reciprocity, or perhaps Cuba would not want it. There had always been a controversy as to the amount of the concession to be granted by us to the Island. Estimates on this subject had varied from fifteen to fifty per cent. as the minimum. We have seen that the Payne bill had specified twenty per cent. Late in the summer of 1902, Cuba manifested a renewed disposition to demand fifty per cent., and showed no particular desire to continue the negotiation of the treaty. While the terms of this document were, of course, not made public at the time it was taken for granted that the rates specified by it were twenty per cent. Cuba plainly indicated a feeling that the concessions asked by us, and the requirement that our immigration and exclusion laws should be enforced, were too high a price to pay. There was a prospect that the session of Congress would open and that no treaty would be ready to place before it. If it should turn out that Cuba

could not be brought to accept our terms, the administration would find itself in a strange position, after its expressed sympathy for the sufferings of the Island. In order to obviate any such disagreeable outcome, Major Tasker H. Bliss was ordered, about the middle of November, to proceed to Cuba in order to investigate the situation there prevailing and to promote a general feeling of solidarity with the United States.

The tendency of Cuba to "drift” was not the only alarming feature of the reciprocity situation. Very early in the campaign, there had appeared a strong disposition in certain parts of the country to demand either extensive tariff revision, or else greatly extended reciprocity. In Iowa, a platform was adopted by the Republican convention of that State which declared against a permanent maintenance of the existing tariff, when it appeared that the schedules were sheltering and promoting monopoly. So heavy a blow was this to earnest Republicans of the strong protectionist type that Speaker Henderson felt himself compelled to resign from his candidacy for re-election to Congress in his Iowa district. Secretary Shaw actively took the stump, and by his interpretation showed very clearly that the Iowa platform meant nothing at all, or if it meant anything was favorable to the protective idea. Secretary Wilson also stood firmly for protection in speeches and in more direct political work. It seemed, however, that "the Iowa idea" had thoroughly infected large sections of the West. A year earlier, Congressman Babcock, of Wisconsin, had introduced into Congress a bill designed to take the tariff off from heavy products of the furnace, in steel and iron, and though he had been temporarily cowed by Chairman Payne, of the Ways and Means Committee, with the threat that if Mr. Babcock persisted they would "go up into Wisconsin and take the tariff off lumber," he had seemed to stick firmly to his favorite measure. A disavowal of the principles embodied in this bill was made by Mr. Babcock during the campaign of 1902; but the free trade and anti-trust leaven was doing its

work among the Wisconsin Republicans. Elsewhere in the West the same tendency was observable.

Nor was the liberal movement confined to the West. In New England there grew up a vigorous demand for free raw materials, including hides. A strong demand for reciprocity with Canada was also felt. Secretary Hay concluded a fishing treaty with the province of Newfoundland (on the same basis as the one previously negotiated by Secretary Blaine), for presentation to Congress. The discussion of Canadian reciprocity assumed a prominence throughout the Congressional campaign in New England, although Senator Lodge made efforts to obscure the issue by claiming that the real obstacle in the way of Canadian reciprocity was the unfriendly attitude of Canada on the Alaskan boundary question. The success of certain candidates at the polls showed that these ideas were vigorously at work. Moreover, Representative Lovering, of Massachusetts, had introduced in Congress during the Winter of 1901-1902 a bill for the liberalization of our customs drawback legislation. In this measure it was sought to render it easy for manufacturers to import foreign raw materials into this country, manufacture and re-export them without being subjected, on such applications, to the embarrassing delays arising from technicalities enforced by the Treasury. This, of course, was merely another symptom of the demand among manufacturers for better tariff conditions. All over the United States, in fact, there rose an outcry for tariff reform. Probably nothing but the popularity acquired by President Roosevelt in settling, for the time being, a troublesome and dangerous coal strike in the autumn of 1902, gave the Republicans a victory. President Roosevelt himself understood how public opinion was going. He had very early made a definite statement, conveyed through Cabinet officers, to the effect that he had no intention whatever of curbing the trust evil by a reduction of tariffs, or of revising the old tariff schedules in the immediate future. After a tariff conference at Oyster Bay during the