To Talk With Mars

Apropos of the announcement by Edi„on that it may be possible to converse ith the inhabitants of Mars, when that planet in August approaches to within about 35,000,000 miles of our humble sphere, Major McKinley has prepared a set of questions which he hopes the inhabitants of Mars wül kindly answer in time for campaign purposes here this fall. McKinley's absolute faith in "protection," with its reciprocity safety valves, as the promoter of civilization and the forerunner of the millennium has led hún to attempt the novel plan of going to Mars for campaign material. The following are some of the questions jiow ready to fire at the unsuspecting Marsarian statesmen: I am Major McKinley, author of the McKinley tariff bill - of course you have protective tariffs there? Yes. I supposed so, I wish to ask a few questions in regard to protective tariffs. Are those big marks which cross the gurface of your planet at right angels at intervals of every few hundred miles really canals to facilitate communication and commerce, as our free trade astronomers suppose, or are they immense tariff walls to obstruct trade and foster home industries? Do you make your tariff walls strong, high and absolutely prohibitive, or do yon leave reciprocity holes in the back door for tfce benefit of f oreigners who will opon similar "cat holes" in their walls? Do you put a high duty on wool to make it dear and on tkmed plate to make it cheap? Do you take duties off of sugar because they are taxes upon the consumer and leave them on steel rails because they are taxes upon the foreigner? I suppose each división on your planet Iets in a few foreign goods - just to give foreigners an opportunity to pay its taies. Can all countries get rich in this wav? What ones can? Do you ever admit that the consnmer paya any taxes at all? Do you encourage manufactures by putting a duty on raw material? Are your mauufacturers grateful f or the protection they get, or do you have to "fry the fat" out of them every campaign? Have you a "Fat Fryer's Guide" - that is, a list of protected millionaire manufacturers like our New York Tribune has published to aid in raising campaign fonds? Do you not find that competition will lower prices faster when restricted to small countries than when spread over the ertire planet? Do } oxii protected manuf acWöea:ever form combines or trusts to prevent 'competition, restrict production, raise prices, lower wages and bring your whole protected system into disrepute? Do these trusts then begin to sell gooda 25 or 30 per cent. cheaper to f oreigners than in your "protected home markets," depending upon the tariff to prevent home consumere f rom reimporting these goods? Do you ever aid manufacturera in selling cheaper to foreigners by paying drawback duties - i. e., refunding duties paid on raw materials when such materials are being exported in a manufactured form? Can you keep the farmers in line by giving them all the bogus protection and shoddy reciprocity they want, while their farms are declining in value and are mortgaged to death? Do you succeed in getting the people to believe tbat you are making nearly all of your own tinned plate and employing thousands of American workmen, when you are really making only 1 per cent. of all, and this mostly from imported plates and by imported workmen? Do you keep men on the free list and succeed in making laborers believe that they are protected by a tariff on what they consume? Why is it that labor in unprotected industries al ways gets better wages and has steadier employinent than labor in protected industries? Here in the United States we have protection against the pauper labor of Europe; but, strange to say, in Europe the low wage eountries all have protection against the high wage country - England. Have you got a good argument to explain away this apparent inconsistency? Do you have the same trouble on Mars, or do the facts there fit the protective theory? Is cheapness a curse? How do you make it appear consistent to encourage inventions to make things cheap and protection to avoid tlie curse of cheapness? Wouldn't it be better to destroy machinery. railroads and ships in order to prevent cheapness and to provide more 'employinent for labor? Is it possible that trade is beneficial - that is, to both parties? What is your remedy to prevent wage reductions, strikes and lockouts in protected industries like the Homestead works in the midst of a presidential unpaign? Have you ever increased the number f your millionaires more than 10,000 Per cent. in any thirty years, as we have doue? Do you allow any but millionaires in your cabinet and senate? Do the poor there really make laws, or oaly obey them? Some of these questions may seem trivial or even silly to your advanced minds, but please do not neglect to reply promptly on that account, for we want to enlighten the free traders here bef ore November, and some of them don't yet onderstand first principies- such as protection taxes the foreigner.