TARIFF REVISION 465 



lative function of consumption. But protection, as a theory, certainly 

 is not directly responsible for all the indifference to the consumer. 

 Honest and consistent protection, assuming that there may be such, 

 would not in every case forbid the consumer to purchase cheaply abroad ; 

 but would, before levying a tax on the importation of an article, give 

 some consideration to the question whether it can be produced in this 

 country with reasonable advantage. In like manner, honest protection 

 would give to producing interests only such a duty as would enable 

 them fairly to compete with foreign producers, not an excessive duty 

 which will exclude the foreign article and enable manufacturers in this 

 country to exact, by combination or otherwise, unreasonable or monop- 

 oly prices from consumers. 



It can not be doubted that congress has departed very widely from 

 honest or consistent protection. That this is the inevitable result of 

 the system of protecting private industries is my own belief; but that 

 it is a necessary consequence of that system conjoined with our un- 

 representative scheme of government, I think no observer at Wash- 

 ington can fail to see. Not only do selfish private interests nominate 

 and elect congressmen and control their course in regard to legisla- 

 tion, but congressmen themselves do not blush to have it known that 

 they are personally and pecuniarily interested in the levying of certain 

 tariff duties for which they vote as public legislators and for which they 

 work and lobby with all the skill at their command. If we had a high 

 and honest standard of public morals in congress, it would be much 

 easier to get an honest tariS, and the consumer would not be plundered 

 as he is now. Whatever may be said of the personal character of con- 

 gressmen as compared with the personal character of city councilmen, 

 I venture to say that the publicly established moral code in congress 

 is lower than in most city councils. In nearly all city councils a mem- 

 ber is not allowed to vote upon any contract or other question in which 

 he is known to have a pecuniary interest; and in many cities all mem- 

 bers of the council are absolutely forbidden to have any pecuniary 

 interest in any contract awarded by that body. In Washington it is 

 common gossip, that, out of the nineteen members of the ways and 

 means committee which will frame a new tariff, various ones are 

 pecuniarily interested in this or that schedule; that one is interested 

 in tobacco, another in olives, a third in lumber, and so on. Some of 

 these personal interests cropped out at the hearings. Representative 

 Fordney stated that he was engaged in the manufacturing of lumber, 

 and he bitterly opposed all proposals to remove the duty from that 

 necessity in the interest of 80,000,000 consumers and the conservation 

 of the country's forests. Ex-Eepresentative Rhodes, of Missouri, told 

 how he had introduced a bill in a former congress, increasing the duty 

 on barytes, while he was personally engaged in producing this mineral. 

 A considerable number of congressmen appeared before tiie com- 



