Perfecting Protection

The senate is now engaging in remedying the small imperfections of the Dingley bilí, which. as all good protectionists assert, is one of the best tariff bilis ever drafted. It distributes its blessings to all- farmer, laborer, and manufacturcr. Without doubt ing the good intentions of the makers, we wish to suggest one or tv.-o minor details which might possibly help the bill to fulflll the expectationa of its authors: First - Lubin's export bounty scheme might enable the farmer to get a small slice of the beneflts cf protection. Of eourse the farmer doesn't expeet - especially at first- to get as much of the benefits as the manufaoturers have been getting for thirty years. A protection at about 20 per eent- that is 10 cents per bushei on wheat, 5 cents on corn, etc.- would satisfy him, while it takes four times as mucta to satisfy ordlnaxy tariiï Infanta. This small export duty would uot niake good the farmer's loss because of import duties on manufacturad producís, saying nothing about past losses, but in course of time, after his industry had feit the stimulating effectB of real protection "what protects." the farmer might muster up courage ehough to follow the èxample of Oliver Twist - which example lias grown into a custom with protected interests - and ask for "more." Possibly also he might ferm political trusts or combines to demand "more" and raise millioní of dollars to send lobbies to Washington to bribe congress. While protection is in order export duties are the farmer's only hope. With theni he may hope nat only to cbange his losses to profits. but also to regain that power and position which were once his, but which have long since passed into the hands of the manufacturero. Second- It is also fitting to recognize the laborer in the distribution of tariff profits. Llke the farmer, he now puts his hand into his pocket to help swell the profits of protection, practically none of which come;-; his way. It is not an easy matter to equalize the beneflts of protection so that the ngman shall get his ful! share. A prohibitlve duty on imported labor might n the course of time aiïord some protection by restricting the supply of abor, so that manufacturers could carry out their good intentions (expressed when asking lor higher duties) and pay "American wages to American workingmen." At present the condition of workingmen in the protected industries is pitiabie in the extreme. The Philadelpbia Ledger, a good republican paper, told us about May 1 that in the protected iron and coal industries of Pennsylvania the wage rate has been reduced so low "that it is scaicaly sufflcient to provide the necessaries of cent sanitary living." It says "the lowest classes of alien cbeap labor swarm In the iron and coal districts of tho rtate," and the eompetition for work is so fieroe "th:it they contend. not against the employers ior the highest wages, but among eaeh other for the lowest." As appears by the testimony presented to the legislative committee m they herd in squalor, subjects of abject penury, and are beset by disease, dirt and hunger." Tha Ledger thinks our lmmlgnatlon laws are "detective and improvident" and suggests that "to properly protect American workmen congress should pass an immigration as well as a tariff bill." This is a good idea and should be acted upon at onc?. The only wonder is that some of the good manufacturers, in their anxiety to protect and raise the wages of their workingmen, did not think of this plan before. Then, if they should have a law passed which should mako it compulsory for them to give at least one-half of their protection an.1 monopoly profits to their employés, protection would begin to be an all-around blessing. The turers might still be getting the lion's share, but they would not get all. When these changes are made in the bill, it will undoubtedly be what the New York Tribune declarod lts prototype, the McKinley bill, to be - "the bravest and best tariff bill ever