i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



year. While our population has only increased five times since 

 then, and our area doubled in extent, the Government spends 

 twenty-five times as much. Extravagance has permeated every 

 department of Government. Perhaps $150,000,000 is wasted in 

 this way every yqar. Aside from this, however, we have to 

 notice a few of the ridiculous schemes which have been ad- 

 vanced to dispose of the surplus. The worst is probably the 

 proposal to use it to bring up the price of silver, advanced in a 

 congressional speech against the Mills bill.* This was devotion 

 to " labor " with a vengeance. Then it is proposed to use it in 

 educating the South, in defiance of the Constitution and of every 

 healthful dictate of expediency. Another proposition, likewise 

 well supported in Congress, has been to dig the Hennepin Canal, 

 which can not be soberly regarded as anything more than a local 

 enterprise of so poor a commercial character that no private com- 

 pany would think of going into it. And in the improvement of 

 harbors, the supporters of protection have encouraged the waste 

 of enough money seriously to diminish the surplus, f Governor 

 Foraker proposes that the Government buy land and put up pub- 

 lic buildings in every town of three thousand inhabitants and 

 over. Then there are innumerable people who want bounties and 

 subsidies for their enterprises. Not to speak of the extravagance 

 and heedlessness of our present pension legislation, we are dan- 

 gerously near the institution of civil pensions. Lastly, there are 

 schemes to spend any imaginable surplus in fortifications against 

 imaginary enemies and on a navy, which, amounting to nothing 

 with $400,000,000 put upon it since the war, might possibly amount 

 to something if twice that amount were expended. The surplus 

 has also attracted the attention of one of the Labor parties, which 

 thinks the Government ought to " loan '' it to " the people." Other 

 protection countries have had the same experience. Canada has 

 been given over to profligate government ever since she adopted 

 a protection policy. Where the Government goes on the theory 

 that the more money taken from the peojDle the better for every- 

 body, it will not be very careful of its expenditures. 



One further serious effect to be apprehended, if the protection 

 idea obtains sway, must be mentioned. This is a demand for 

 State and local protection. No logic that makes it advantageous 

 for Kansas to protect herself against England can long resist the 

 conclusion that it would also be well to protect her against Penn- 

 sylvania. This idea would the more readily spread because it is 

 obvious that the tariff is a tax on the Western States for the bene- 

 fit of the Eastern, it being as certain as anything can well be that 



* By Congressman Cheadle. 



f One harbor within my knowledge has had more spent upon it by the Government 

 than the entire town is worth. 



