COMMON SENSE AND THE TARIFF QUESTION. 601 



The true change may now be readily brought about, because 

 the masters of the art of converting ore into iron have become 

 aware that, owing to the scarcity of the fine ores suitable for the 

 Bessemer metal, and of coal suitable for coking in Great Britain, 

 the paramount control of the metal industry is passing to this 

 country ; it needs only the maintenance of the prices on the other 

 side without a reduction of our own, to put us in a position of ad- 

 vantage for converting the crude metals into the higher forms in 

 which ten or twenty men may be called for as compared to one 

 in the production of pig-iron, copper, lead, and zinc. The pros- 

 perity which would ensue, as it did in Great Britain, after similar 

 changes in the tariff were made, would tend to increase the con- 

 suming power of our own people in respect to the dutiable goods 

 from which we should still derive a constantly increasing reve- 

 nue. In this way we might gain a true protection to our domes- 

 tic industry and the development of our home market ; we might 

 then take the paramount position in manufacturing arts as well 

 as in agriculture to which we are entitled and yet enjoy the full 

 benefit of low price and high wages. 



I have endeavored to bring out this point very conspicuously, 

 because many persons have looked upon those who are stigmatized 

 as free-traders as if they advocated radical and injudicious changes 

 in our revenue system, such as would launch us upon free trade 

 without warning and without preparation. It is time to lay aside 

 such prejudice with regard to those who advocate tariff reform in 

 the direction of freer trade. I can not name a man among my as- 

 sociates in the study of these economic questions whose views are 

 not substantially like my own and who is of any considerable in- 

 fluence or importance either as a student, economist, or legislator 

 —not one who would not deprecate radical and revolutionary 

 changes and who would not be guided by the most conservative 

 ideas in the measures by which an ultimate but very profound 

 change in our fiscal system would be brought about. 



So far as one may judge by the course which has been taken 

 in the House of Representatives and in the Senate, and by the 

 position taken by ex-President Cleveland, the advocates of tariff 

 reform and reduction first declared their adhesion to this proposed 

 method by putting wool, hemp, flax, and many other articles 

 which are most important products in the specific States from 

 which they have been elected at once into the free list. May not 

 men like the representatives from Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, 

 and Arkansas, who led off in the Committee of Ways and Means 

 in taking off the taxes from wool, hemp, and flax, well be sus- 

 tained in the brave stand which they have taken and on the lines 

 on which they have carried their constituents with them ? These 

 men have also been willing, even eager, to grant rates of duty 



