y influences the question of wages should
not be forgotten in the justifiable prominence given to the proper
maintenance of the supply and protection of well-paid labor. And these
considerations suggest such an arrangement of Government revenues as
shall reduce the expense of living, while it does not curtail the
opportunity for work nor reduce the compensation of American labor and
injuriously affect its condition and the dignified place it holds in the
estimation of our people.

But our farmers and agriculturists--those who from the soil produce the
things consumed by all--are perhaps more directly and plainly concerned
than any other of our citizens in a just and careful system of Federal
taxation. Those actually engaged in and more remotely connected with
this kind of work number nearly one-half of our population. None labor
harder or more continuously than they. No enactments limit their hours
of toil and no interposition of the Government enhances to any great
extent the value of their products. And yet for many of the necessaries
and comforts of life, which the most scrupulous economy enables them to
bring into their homes, and for their implements of husbandry, they are
obliged to pay a price largely increased by an unnatural profit, which
by the action of the Government is given to the more favored
manufacturer.

I recommend that, keeping in view all these considerations, the
increasing and unnecessary surplus of national income annually
accumulating be released to the people by an amendment to our revenue
laws which shall cheapen the price of the necessaries of life and give
freer entrance to such imported materials as by American labor may be
manufactured into marketable commodities.

Nothing can be accomplished, however, in the direction of this
much-needed reform unless the subject is approached in a patriotic
spirit of devotion to the interests of the entire country and with a
willingness to yield something for the public good.

The sum paid upon the public debt during the fiscal year ended June 30,
1886, was $44,551,043.36.

During the twelve months ended October 31, 1886, 3 per cent bonds were
called for redemption amounting to $127,283,100, of which $80,643,200
was so called to answer the requirements of the law relating to the
sinking fund and $46,639,900 for the purpose of reducing the public debt
by application of a part of the surplus in the Treasury to that object.
Of the bonds thus called $1