FINANCE, INDUSTRY, TRANSPORTATION. 



457 



From sales of Indian lands, $576,687.41 



From customs fees, fines, penalties, etc., 576,487.50 

 From payment of interest by Pacific 



railways, 526,286.13 



From immigrant fund, 306,992.86 



From sales of Government property. 224,331.32 

 From deposits for surveying public 



lands, 113,049.08 



From Soldiers' Home, permanent fund, 107,612.49 



From donations, . 102,394.87 



From sales of lands and buildings, 99,273.15 



From sales of ordnance material, 94,638.59 

 From reimbursement for cost of water 



supply, District of Columbia, 93,086.98 



From depredations on public lands, 29,154.30 



From sale of Kansas Pacific Railroad, 6,303,000.00 



From sale of Union Pacific Railroad, 58,448,223.75 



From Postal Service, 89,012.618.65 



Total receipts, $494,333,953.75 



Expenditures for the same period : 



For the civil establishment, including 

 foreign intercourse, public build- 

 ings, collecting the revenues, Dis- 

 trict of Columbia, and other miscel- 

 laneous expenses, $86,016,464.75 

 For the military establishment, includ- 

 ing rivers and harbors, forts, 

 arsenals, seacoast defenses, and 

 expenses of the Spanish war, 91,992,000.29 

 For the naval establishment, including 

 construction of new vessels, ma- 

 chinery, armament, equipment im- 

 provement at navy yards and ex- 

 penses of the Spanish war, 58,823,984.80 

 For Indian Service, 10,994,667.70 

 For pensions, 147,452,368.61 

 For interest on the public debt, 37,585,656.23 

 For deficiency in postal revenues, 10,504,040.42 

 For Postal Service, 89,012,618.55 

 Total expenditures, $532,381,201.35 



Showing a deficit of, 



$38,047,247.60 



Trades Unions. In one form or another, 

 combinations have always existed since the 

 employed and employing classes became dis- 

 tinguishable from each other. Trades unions, 

 organized for purposes such as those which 

 contemporary unions contend for, have existed 

 for more than three centuries. So early as 

 1548 a statute of Edward VI. is directed, 

 among other culprits, against certain " artific- 

 ers, handicraftsmen, and laborers,'* who had 

 "sworn mutual oaths" to do only certain 

 kinds of work, to regulate how much work 

 should be done in a day, and what hours and 

 times they should work. The usual penalties 

 of fines, pillory, and loss of ears were to follow 

 a breach of its enactments. Add the regula- 

 tion of wages and the employment of union or 

 non-union men to the objects enumerated in 

 this statute, and we have in effect the trades 

 unions of the present day. Many fruitless 

 acts were afterward passed to prevent combi- 

 nations for raising wages ; but since that time 

 the trades unions have increased in numbers 

 and membership, until they include nearly all 

 the laboring classes of England and America. 

 The advocates of the unions insist that they 

 are the only means by which workmen can de- 

 fend themselves against the aggressions of em- 

 ployers. -It is argued that the individual 

 laborer has no chance of resisting the capital- 



ist on equal terms ; that starvation treads too 

 closely on his heels to permit his successfully 

 opposing a reduction of his wages, no matter 

 how arbitrary or unjust. It is urged that 

 associations of employers are practically uni- 

 versal, and that their object is mainly to secure 

 for themselves the largest possible share of the 

 profits which are the product of capital and 

 labor united. Yet it cannot be denied that 

 against these uses may be set many serious evils. 

 Strikes are often determined upon by unions 

 at times when the condition of the market 

 renders success impossible, resulting in severe 

 and prolonged suffering. Unions undoubtedly 

 foster an unfortunate spirit of antagonism. 

 Being constantly and consciously on the defen- 

 sive, they come at last to suspect evil in every 

 movement and to put a sinister interpretation 

 on every action of employers, and in some 

 trades the practice of coercion has grown.into 

 systematic terrorism and crime. 



Mississippi Scheme. The gigantic 

 commercial scheme commonly known by this 

 name was projected in France by the celebrated 

 financier John Law of Edinburgh in 1717, 

 and collapsed in 1720. Its primary object was 

 to develop the resources of the Province of 

 Louisiana and the country bordering on the 

 Mississippi, a tract at that time believed to 

 abound in the precious metals. The company 

 was incorporated in August, 1717, under the 

 title of the " Company of the West," and 

 started with a capital of 200,000 shares of 500 

 livres each. They obtained the exclusive privi- 

 lege of trading to the Mississippi, farming 

 the taxes and coining money. The prospectus 

 was so inviting that shares were eagerly 

 bought; and when, in 1719, the company 

 obtained the monopoly of trading to the East 

 Indies, China, and the South Seas, and all the 

 possessions of the French East India Company, 

 the brilliant vision opened up to the public 

 gaze was irresistible. The "Company of the 

 Indies," as it was now called, created 50,000 

 additional shares ; but a rage for speculation 

 had seized all classes, and there were at least 

 300,000 applicants for the new shares, which 

 consequently rose to an enormous premium. 

 Law, as director general, promised an annual 

 dividend of 200 livres per share, which, as the- 

 shares were paid for in the depreciated billets 

 d'etat, amounted to an annual return of 120 

 per cent. The public enthusiasm now rose to 

 absolute frenzy, and Law's house and the 

 street in front of it were daily crowded by ap- 

 plicants of both sexes and of all ranks, who 

 were content to wait for hours nay, for days 

 together in order to obtain an interview with 

 the modern Plutus. While confidence lasted 

 a factitious impulse ^vas given to trade in 



