A Tariff Hearing

We hear occasional eomplaints from Democratie sourees abput the rapacity of the manufacturera and agricultorists who appear before the ways and means committee of congress in advoeacy of inereased duties upon the producís iu whïeh they are interested. This must, to some of them, be strong reminder of the treatment they received f rom the Wilson eommittee whi'ii the tariff was nader consideré" tion in 1804. It is not often, in a rep'.esentative governmrnt, that a law affeeting the economie iuterests of the whole people is framed in secrecy and reported for passage, without giving cpportunity for any of the interests to be heard, either in remonstrance or argument. Yet that is precisely what was done by the mnjority of the waya and means committee in f raming the Wilson bul. From most of the meetInga tlieir associates, the miuority of the eommittee, were excluded, and manufacturers stood no show at all. In the senate committee the' same course was adopted. Mr. E. C. Lewis, of Waterbury, Conn., an ex-candidate for eongress, and one of the lea ding manufacturers iu the state, told at the time of his efforts to see the senate fommittee, as a representative of the manufacturers' of horseshoe nails, and his story is worth reproduoing now. - He tirst went to Senator Hawley, of his ovvn state, and said the senator must do something to get a hearing for him. The reply was. "Wby, my dear Mr. Lewis, I would do for you any favor in the world, but this is ont of the question; so secret are they that I' do not believe Grover Cleveland himself could get you inside tlrat committee room." Jlr. Lewis then applied to Senator Platt, of Connecticut, who said: "Impossible. You are wild to think of trying it." He tried a number of other senators and politicians with the same result. Flnally Mr. Lewis went to Senator Mills who was under personal obligatious to liim. and wlio, after much urgtng, gave him a letter to Senator Voorhees who was on the committee. Armed wlth this and with a letter, also from the assistant secretary of the treasury, he succeeded in making liis way Into the committee room, only to be told that the committee granted no hearings and would listen to no arguments. That was about the way the Wilson act was framed throughout. Kefusing all information as well as argument, the committee went blindly ahead with an act that wrought universal havoc among the industries of the nation. There is no ground for the apprehension which some of the Democratie papers expresa, that the Dingley committee will yield to every request that is made for a high rate of duty. The composition of the eommittee is a guarantee that the bill which they report will be moderate and just. Fortunately the committee has the fairness to give the industries of the country a hearing, in the effort to ascertain whether the legislation that is sought will go toward their upbullding or their destruction.