610 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Arci. 1. 



raer stands. That being the case, it is impor- 

 tant, even at this early date, to know how to 

 construct a cellar that will give such results as 

 that of Mr. Lathrop. The view of the apiary 

 is interesting. It shows that the hives are ev- 

 idently well painted, and in good repair. We 

 presume that the little building beside the bee- 

 house is the shop or honey-house.— Ed.] 



HONEY TARIFFS. 



INTERNATIONAL AMITY. 



By Alle7i Pringle. 



In the issue of Gleanings for April 1, pp. 

 •.iCA-6 and '7, Dr. Miller and Mr. P. H. Elwood 

 both touch on the above subjects as between 

 the United States and Canada. Dr. Miller says, 

 " Canadian bee-keepers are looking with long- 

 ing eyes in this direction '"—that is, to the 

 United States, as a honey market. Dr. Miller 

 might be surprised to learn that, with the tariff- 

 bars up high on both sides, much more United 

 States honey is imported into Canada than 

 Canadian honey into the United States. Dr. 

 M. further says, that, while wo Canadians are 

 thus looking over there for a market, " England 

 is at the same time kicking vigorously against 

 our" (the United States) "sending any honey 

 there." Isn't Dr. M. here making the mistake 

 of calling a few British bee-keepers "Eng- 

 land "? These few — with rather narrow views, 

 it must be confessed— have been, it is true, 

 making a clamor in the British Bee Journal to 

 have United States honey shut out; but the 

 Journal itself is making no such clamor, but 

 has, on the contrary, properly rebuked the 

 clamor; and the Journal, not the few dissatis- 

 fied ones, is certainly the proper representative 

 of British bee-keepers, or "England," if you 

 like. 



The facetious doctor also asseverate-; that 

 "that altitudinous Canuck, Pringle" (now, 

 Mr. Editor, I shall call that Stray Straw blower 

 of yours a short Dutch Yankee, just to match 

 him), " worked hard to establish a market at 

 the big show; and if his compatriots can't eat 

 ail the honey they can raise, I believe in giving 

 them an open market on tliis side." 



Now, that is good — very good. While I find 

 myself diifering with Dr. Miller every now and 

 then, I agree with him most heartily' on that 

 point— not because I personally want or need 

 the " open market" he is willing to give, as I 

 can sell my honey at an excellent price at home 

 and near home; but the principle of the thing 

 is what I admire, and what I agree with, and 

 what I have been advocating for years in Can- 

 ada. The United States has a lot of knavish 

 politicians and monopolists who are trying to 

 persuade the people that the way to make 

 them rich is to tax them— to tax them on what 

 they sell and what tliey buy, on what they cat, 

 drink, wear, and read. Canada lias a lot of 

 knavish politicians and monopolists who are 



doing exactly the same thing; and these two 

 precious lots of knaves (they are not fools) have 

 built and kept up a high Chinese tariff wall on 

 both sides of the international line. Both 

 walls ought to be razed to the ground, with not 

 a single stone left standing on another 1 And 

 they icifl be leveled, as sure as time goes on; 

 for a battle against the laws of nature is sure 

 to lose in the end. And so long as these com- 

 mercial barricades remain, in defiance of social 

 as well as economic law, there can be nothing 

 like international amity, in the true sense, be- 

 tween the two nations. Let them, therefore, 

 be broken down; and the nation that first sets 

 itself about the work will be leading in the 

 van of human progress. 



It has often been a matter of amazement to 

 me how intelligent people can be so readily 

 misled— how the party knave and demagogue 

 can bamboozle the people on this tariff question, 

 especially the farmer and other producers who 

 suffer the most. They slip a penny into one of 

 his pockets, and that he sees and keeps his eye 

 on; while out of the other pocket they pick a 

 pound, and that he never notices. They draw 

 his particular attention to the first part of the 

 trick— the penny performance— but knavishly 

 cover up the latter maneuver— the pound rob- 

 bery; and the poor fool goes away chuckling 

 over his penny when his pound is gone! The 

 average Yankee prides himself on his native 

 shrewdness; the average Canuck prides him- 

 self on his native common sense; the tariff 

 protectionist knave dupes them both. 



Mr. P. H. Elwood. in some issue of (Clean- 

 ings, as indicated above, refers to the proposal 

 in the Wilson bill to reduce the duty on honey, 

 and strongly deprecates such a movement 

 toward tariff reduction. Mr. Elwood is evi- 

 dently a high-tariff protectionist; and as he is, 

 I believe, a producer, he must be set down as 

 one of those dupes above referred to. I regret 

 to have to make such a classification. But Mr. 

 Elwood need not feel bad about it. He has a 

 lot of highly respectable company in his eco- 

 nomic fallacies. Many good and intelligent 

 people, no doubt, honestly believe that the self- 

 ish sophistries of the monopolist and protec- 

 tionist are gospel truths. Common-sense peo- 

 ple find it hard to account for such a fact; but 

 I account for it in the same way that I account 

 for the anomaly of the learned English judges 

 (aye, and New England people too) of a cen- 

 tury or two ago who sat solemnly and sapiently 

 in their places on the bench and condemned 

 "witches" to be burned, and Quakers to be 

 hanged. These judges had been educated that 

 way; and as they honestly believed in witch- 

 craft and persecution "in the name of God," 

 they thought they were doing just right, 

 not only in burning so-called witches, but in 

 hanging Quakers too. than whom there were 

 no more exemplary citizens. Some people still 

 believe in witchcraft, though physical science 



