an cities, the authors and promoters of it will be entitled to the
highest praise. We have had in our history several experiences of the
contrasted effects of a revenue and of a protective tariff, but this
generation has not felt them, and the experience of one generation is
not highly instructive to the next. The friends of the protective system
with undiminished confidence in the principles they have advocated will
await the results of the new experiment.

The strained and too often disturbed relations existing between the
employees and the employers in our great manufacturing establishments
have not been favorable to a calm consideration by the wage earner of
the effect upon wages of the protective system. The facts that his
wages were the highest paid in like callings in the world and that a
maintenance of this rate of wages in the absence of protective duties
upon the product of his labor was impossible were obscured by the
passion evoked by these contests. He may now be able to review the
question in the light of his personal experience under the operation of
a tariff for revenue only. If that experience shall demonstrate that
present rates of wages are thereby maintained or increased, either
absolutely or in their purchasing power, and that the aggregate volume
of work to be done in this country is increased or even maintained, so
that there are more or as many days' work in a year, at as good or
better wages, for the American workmen as has been the case under the
protective system, everyone will rejoice. A general process of wage
reduction can not be contemplated by any patriotic citizen without the
gravest apprehension. It may be, indeed I believe is, possible for the
American manufacturer to compete successfully with his foreign rival in
many branches of production without the defense of protective duties if
the pay rolls are equalized; but the conflict that stands between the
producer and that result and the distress of our working people when
it is attained are not pleasant to contemplate. The Society of the
Unemployed, now holding its frequent and threatening parades in the
streets of foreign cities, should not be allowed to acquire an American
domicile.

The reports of the heads of the several Executive Departments which are
herewith submitted, have very naturally included a resume of the whole
work of the Administration with the transactions of the last fiscal
year. The attention not only of Congress bu