obvious reply to it was an effort to show that the working of reciprocity under the McKinley Act had not been satisfactory. That claim was urged upon three different grounds:

(1) That the reciprocity of the McKinley Act conferred an unconstitutional power upon the President-a claim which, as we have already seen,29 had been denied by the Supreme Court.

(2) That it was bad policy to recognize the principle of retaliation, since by so doing we should tacitly countenance the action of other countries in retaliating against our tariff duties. (3) That, in its actual operation, reciprocity had proved a commercial delusion.

Of course, it is impossible in practice to reduce the debate to a clear and distinct controversy upon any of these points, although they were the central ideas advanced in the course of the argument. The claims put forward concerning the unconstitutionality of the act were merely the old familiar arguments that had been going the rounds in Congress for more than forty years on every occasion when a reciprocity treaty had made its appearance. The contention that foreign countries would, through our retaliation, gain some warrant for similar action of their own, was supported by discussions of contemporary European legislation. Thus, for example, Mr. Tawney quoted at great length from English newspaper articles, giving statistics concerning our trade relations with South America, and further citing a speech of Lord Salisbury to the effect that a serious decline in British exports to South America had been produced by McKinley reciprocity, and that British retaliation was being agitated.80

But the most controverted question was that which had already been raised by Mr. McCleary-namely, who was benefited by the reciprocity policy, and to what extent?

Some Democrats conceded that our trade with South

29 See p. 208 ante.

20 Ibid., p. 1419.

America had actually been improved under reciprocity. According to Mr. Turner, of Georgia:

"It is true that some of the countries to which this provision applies have given us increased traffic, but that increase is not due to any such commercial agreements, so much as it is to the fact that the law containing the reciprocity provision puts upon the free list the articles which they chiefly produce and unfetters our commerce with those countries." "

Others contended that there had been no such gains. According to Mr. Brookshire (Independent):

"The fact is * * that statistics show that of our exports to Great Britain and Ireland eighty-five per cent. were purely agricultural products for the year 1891; of our exports to South America, twenty-six per cent, consisted of purely agricultural products. If these treaties have any effect of increasing our trade abroad, it is to give additional markets for manufactured goods."

The same claim was also put in very clear language by Representative Warner, of New York, who was inclined to repudiate the whole reciprocity idea on the ground that it was opposed to Democratic conceptions on the tariff:

*

*

"The whole idea of reciprocity," said Mr. Warner, "looked at from a Democratic standpoint, consists in resolving that we will make the mass of people continue bearing the burdens which we admit they should not be required to bear, until some foreign nation consents to favor certain others of our people by giving them commercial advantages." *

"In other words, from a Democratic standpoint, reciprocity looks like selling the great mass of the consumers in order to help a small quota of exporters; while from a Republican standpoint it seems to me like selling old friends to buy new ones.'

" 33

The Republicans, of course, returned a reply to the claim made by Democratic members that reciprocity had proved an actual failure, by saying that its failures, whatever they were, were due to depressed conditions in South America, which had happened to prevail during the life of the treaties. Thus Mr. Tawney argued, with reference to Brazil, that:

"Had there been a condition of peace and domestic tranquility in 33 Ibid., p. 1423.

31 Ibid., p. 1422.

32 Ibid., p. 1422.

* * *

that country [Brazil] during this time (April 1, 1891, to June 30, 1892) the improvement in our trade would no doubt have been much greater. This increase is divided among the several classes of our exports to that country, as follows: In breadstuffs, over eighteen per cent.; in manufactures of iron and steel, over ninety-three per cent.; in manufactures of wood, over eighteen per cent.; in glassware, over nineteen per cent.; and in general trade, twenty-s en per cent. When the authority for these agreements have once been destroyed, and foreign nations know that they can enjoy the advantages of our markets without granting to the American producers the concessions in their own market, which, by the terms of these agreements, they have already made, these concessions will very soon be withdrawn and the American producer practically excluded from these markets again, as he was prior to the adoption of the policy of reciprocity."

As has already been suggested, the debate in the Senate almost inevitably assumed a different form in consequence of the changed outlook for reciprocity, owing to the alteration in the sugar schedule. It was early seen that with the sugar schedule as it stood, there was no outlook whatever, even for the maintenance of existing reciprocity. Regardless of the fact that the sugar schedule had been reintroduced into the bill, largely through the efforts of the well-known "sugar trust Senators," there was speedily built up a beautiful legend concerning the markets conquered by the McKinley policy, and which were now to be thrown away under the Wilson Act. In his speech, Senator Lodge argued 35 that free trade could secure no foreign market, but would destroy the home market, while entrance into foreign countries was properly to be obtained through a reciprocity policy like that of the McKinley bill which, he said, had resulted in building up a trade in manufactured articles. So, also, there appeared a group of men declaiming against the sacrifice of reciprocity because of the harm thereby done to the enormous trade in wheat and flour, built up on behalf of the northwestern wheat-raisers and flour-millers under the act of 1890. Said Senator Hale:

"The provisions of the bill which strike down the whole scheme of

34 Ibid., p. 1418.

85 Ibid., p. 3622.

reciprocity *

strike most severely at the northern wheatgrower and the northern miller, and will at one blow destroy the trade which has grown up with Cuba, and will besides shut out from the German market the already established and increasing exportation from the northern packing establishments of pork to that country."

But the most vigorous plea from the flour-milling interests was offered by Senator Washburn of Minnesota, April 23, 1894. In this speech, he pointed out that the principal benefit of reciprocity had been reaped by the northwestern farmer and flour-miller and that the abrogation of the treaties would be likely to put this class of the population in a worse position than that which it had occupied before the McKinley Act, for the reason that the abrogation would inevitably be followed by retaliatory legislation on the part of Latin-American countries, to say nothing of Germany and Austria. This retaliation, said Mr. Washburn, would almost certainly be directed against the American farmer, because it was chiefly in farm products that our trade with Europe and the reciprocity countries of South America had existed. It was an absolute necessity, he maintained," that something should be done to keep open the markets of the world to the products of the American farmer. Ignoring the claims of Senators who had just been regretting the terrible sacrifice to be suffered by our manufacturers to the loss of reciprocity, he argued that the American manufacturer was able to compete with that of any country in the world. Moreover, said Mr. Washburn, the repeal of the reciprocity clause was a great opportunity thrown away. We were giving away advantages for nothing and destroying a trade which furnished the sole instance of recent increase in exports. In spite of these large claims, the advocate for the flour-milling interests was compelled to admit that the results of the test of reciprocity already made had been unsatisfactory. This, however, he attributed to the interference with industry caused by revolutions in Honduras, Nicaragua and

38 Ibid., p. 3663.

87 Ibid., p. 3967.

Brazil, to poor crops in the British Colonies and to the low price of silver elsewhere."

The trade with Cuba and some other countries, he held, had been most profitable in consequence of the treaty. The intercourse with Brazil was an unfair test, because of revolutionary movements and bad industrial conditions.39 Congress, moreover, could not in good faith terminate the treaties, nor should it be willing to do so, since many European countries were reaching out by means of a similar policy, and were endeavoring to capture the trade of South America and to drive us from those markets.40 Senator Washburn also ignored the history of reciprocity efforts in the past, for he predicted great possibilities in the development of our commerce through a reciprocity system which should include Mexico, Argentina, Chili, Uruguay, Australasia and Canada.11

A group of naive historical speakers also appeared, interpreting history "not with their eyes but with their prejudices." The McKinley mythus grew with astonishing speed, and the attempt was made to show that it was our free and generous policy in removing the duty on sugar which had opened to us the South American market. Nothing was said of the revenue considerations nor of the political motives which together had determined the removal of the sugar tariff in the House Ways and Means Committee long before reciprocity was ever thought of the reciprocity clause in the McKinley Act having, as we have seen, been inserted at the last moment in the Senate. Thus Senator Proctor, on the 29th of May, restated the old argument about the sacrifice of markets, and the wisdom of the McKinley Act in opening foreign countries to our manufactured goods; while Senator Gallinger, a little earlier, had maintained that the origin of reciprocity was to be found in the fact that European and Oriental competition had been driving our agricultural products out of European markets.

38 Ibid., p. 3975.

39 Ibid., p. 3976.

Ibid., p. 3981. 41 Ibid., pp. 3982-84.