458 OLEOMARGARINE. 



Mr. HEWES. But the correlative also follows that is, that the trend 

 of taste over there oftentimes is toward uncolored butter, and in France 

 particularly. 



Mr. TILLINGHAST. Where you have uncolored butter you have 

 uncolored oleomargarine? 



Mr. HEWES. Oftentimes. 



Mr. TILLINGHAST. And where you have colored butter you have 

 colored oleomargarine? 



Mr. HEWES. That is the case oftentimes, but that is neither here 

 nor there. 



Mr. JELKE. Mr. Hewes appears to be familiar with the laws of 

 foreign countries. In which country in Europe is there a tax on 

 oleomargarine? 



Mr. HEWES. None that I know of. I do not think even in Germany 

 there is a tax. 



Mr. KNIGHT. May I interpose here, and say that those countries 

 have stations and are enabled to handle this matter from a central 

 point without the use of a tax ? 



Mr. HEWES. If you are going to introduce these international ques- 

 tions, 1 would like the privilege of reading to this committee right now 

 the report of the speed of Von Buelow yesterday. I do not know 

 whether you have read it or not, but it is very apropos, and I think 

 it ought to govern our Congress as well as theirs : 



VON BUELOW FAVORS THE CANAL BILL HIS ARGUMENT IN THE LOWER HOUSE OF 

 THE DIET FOR THE MEASURE. 



[By cable to the American.] 



BERLIN, January 9. 



The imperial chancellor (Count von Buelow), in the lower house of the Diet, 

 to-day strongly supported the claims for the protection of agriculture. He said: 



"I consider it the foremost duty of the Government to effect a reconciliation in the 

 existing economic difficulties and the adjustment of the varying interests supporting 

 those who are unable to help themselves through their own strength. 1 shall abide 

 by the opinion that when one member of a social body suifers all the others suffer, 

 and especially that as long as such an important member as agriculture is unhealth- 

 ful the entire organism must be undermined. I am convinced that it is the duty of 

 the Government to afford trade, industry, and agriculture an equal measure of pro- 

 tection, but that one of them, agriculture, absolutely needs strong protection. It is 

 in pursuance of this principle of even-handed justice that the bill for the comple- 

 tion and improvement of the canals has been drawn up. If the measure favored 

 industry at the expense of agriculture, or the west monarchy to the detriment of 

 the east, I would not have supported it. 



"With the view to solidify the agriculture of the east and the industry of the 

 west, a series of further schemes had been bound up in the Rhine-Elbe Canal project, 

 of some interest to navigation, but chiefly for the benefit of the tillers of the soil, 

 by the establishment of a continuous network of waterways, advantageous to all 

 parts of the empire, opening the industrial territory of the west to the agricultural 

 products of the east. 



"It is my deliberate conviction," said the chancellor, "that the agricultural 

 products of the east, with these cheap means of transit, aided by an assured protective 

 tariff', for which we must provide and for which we will provide, will be enabled to 

 hold their own in the west, which in turn will secure facilities for the distribution 

 of the products of the factories." 



Yon Buelow's idea here is that you must protect agriculture. Why I 

 Because the wealth of the nation lies in the laud, and the strength of 

 the land is in agriculture. That is an economic principle that has been 

 established from the foundation of this Government, and Von Buelow 

 only echoes that. It is one of the agrarian maxims of foreign govern- 

 ments that if you do not protect agriculture your country must decay, 

 and that is the reason why he is in favor of it. 



