COMMON SENSE AND THE TARIFF QUESTION 449 



ness. In the factories I have known cases where all the looms 

 were watched, and every weaver who did not reach a certain 

 standard in her earnings was discharged because the mill could 

 not afford to have poor weavers employed in it. 



Yet, although we possess so many advantages within the limits 

 of our own domain, there are some parts of the world which hold 

 an advantage over us, especially in the production of some of 

 the crude materials which are necessary in the processes of do- 

 mestic industry. There are also many arts from which science has 

 not yet removed the noxious conditions or the excessive labor. 

 These arts we had better not undertake so long as we can buy 

 their product with the excess of our crops of grain and cotton. 



Again, there are some sections of this country which could 

 be more adequately supplied with crude materials from Canada 

 than they can be from Pennsylvania ; New England, for instance, 

 in respect to iron and coal. Our members of Congress sustain 

 the policy which deprives us of the vast deposits of iron, coal, 

 and even of other materials, which are lying unused in the Mari- 

 time Provinces. They tax the wool of Australia and South 

 America ; they propose to double the tax on tin plates ; and they 

 endeavor to promote the manufacture of burlaps and other coarse 

 fabrics made of jute within our own limits. 



The question of crude materials I have treated. The noxious 

 conditions under which tin plates are made, I have referred to. 

 The making of burlaps as it is now conducted in Dundee is one 

 of the least desirable occupations that human beings can be 

 called upon to follow ; until it has been improved, we had better 

 buy our burlaps with cotton than try to make them ourselves. 



Even the finest fabrics which are suitable for taxation for 

 revenue, such as Brussels laces and the like, are made by hand 

 at the lowest wages and under the most abject conditions of life. 

 The finest silks must be woven by hand, because the silk-worm 

 does not spin his thread so evenly as to make it possible to weave 

 it on the positive power-loom. In fact, in respect to many of these 

 finer articles, which are perfectly suitable subjects for a tariff for 

 revenue rather than for protection, there are elements to which no 

 attention has been given ; they specialize themselves even accord- 

 ing to heredity or to peculiar conditions. The finest cotton yarns 

 are spun in England, sent to France to be woven, sometimes 

 transferred to Germany to be dyed ; and brought back to Eng- 

 land to be sold. Some of the finest linens are made by growing 

 the flax in one place, spinning it in another, and weaving it in 

 another, all far apart. We can not force the manufacture of flax 

 in this country until we have a great surplus of population which 

 shall be compelled to do the work which the Irish, the Belgians, 

 and the French are now forced to do for us even at the lowest 



VOL. XXXTII. — 33 



