Free - List Favors Appreciated

The consumption of sugar since the adoption of the McKinley bill placing that article on the free list has increased about 25 per cent, the lowered price bringing it within the reach of some who formerly drank their coffee without sweetening and ate their berries as they came from the vines and bushes. A similar increase in the consumption of quinine followed the lowering of the price of that article after it was included in the free list. More of it was needed, more was therefore manufáctured, and as aresult additional labor wasrequired in its production. It is now proposed to put iron ore, lead ore, binding twine, tinplate, coal, wool and several other important raw materials of manufacture on the free list, but it is objected by some that to do so would bring ruin upon the country and starvation to American workmen. In the light of free sugar and free quinine it is not easy to see how an extensión of the free list as proposed by the present congress would involve disaster. It is easier to see that silch an extensión would enormously stimulate production and involve a consequent advance of wages all along the line. But then the senate has other views, and for the present, at least, the free list will remain just about as it is.