80 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



countries the price of meats and domestic animals, are not now unusually 

 high, the memorial goes on to declare that according to the reports of 

 the Imperial Bureau of Statistics — certainly a conservative and unbiased 

 authority — during the winter months of 1900, the average wholesale 

 price of live hogs was $21.42 per 220 pounds, whereas they are now scarce 

 and difficult to obtain at $30.94, or more than 14 cents per pound avoir- 

 dupois. Fat oxen, which cost on an average, in the period from January 

 to March 1900, $24 per 220 pounds, are now scarce and of inferior qual- 

 ity at an everage cost of $32.75, or about 15 cents live weight per pound 

 avoirdupois. Fat cattle of superior quality are still higher. Calves have 

 likewise risen in price from $31.65 to $39.03 per 220 pounds, and lambs 

 from $25.70 to $32.50 per centner. The memorial will be laid before the 

 Ministry of the Interior and, if satisfactory action is not taken in the 

 form of a ministerial decree, the subject will be brought before the 

 Bichstag at its coming session, with a view of repealing or radically modi- 

 fying that portion of the present meat inspection law, which regulates 

 and restricts the importation of meat producing animals." 



There is the situation. On this side an enormous surplus, an enormous 

 increase in quantity, and an improvement in quality, because we are 

 producing better now than we ever did before. On the other side, taking 

 Germany as an extreme illustration, but the same conditions practically 

 apply to France, Italy, Spain, and Austria-Hungary to a certain extent, 

 how are we to bring these two great problems together? There a de- 

 ficiency and Here a surplus. 



Commence is an exchange of commodities, and it is an admitted fact 

 that no country has prospered without commerce. We must have com- 

 merce with all the world, the world is growing smaller every day, we 

 have to re-adjust our relations with other nations just as we do when 

 one locality becomes crowded each neighbor has to re-adjust his situa- 

 tion so as not to infringe on the rights of each other neighbor. As we 

 get crowded we must change our relations. As we get farther advanced 

 in civilization, arts and sciences, those things which may have been ne- 

 cessary in the infancy of the arts and sciences, cease to be necessaiy. 

 New conditions, radical changes, frequently are absolutely necessary in 

 order for their continuance and their prosperity. We have a theory in 

 this country, and I most thoroughly and earnestly believed in it, 

 because as a boy, I got my politicial impressions largely from reading 

 the speeches of Henry Clay, the great Father of what is called the Ameri- 

 can system of protection, and I remember well the impression which was 

 made upon my boyish mind the eloquent appeals that he made to the pa- 

 triotism of his fellow citizens, to endure this burden for a little while. 

 He said it was absolutely necessary that the great mass of the con- 

 sumers should be willing to carry a burden of higher prices, in order that 

 our manufacturing interests might become independent of foreign 

 domination, that they might get upon their feet. That has been the key 

 note. And in addition to that there has been the principle underlying 

 protection, which is that we must be willing, as a matter of self interest 

 to see a higher scale of wages maintained, among the operatives of the 



