t are economically and
factories that are not economically administered; factories that have
been long in the family, which have been allowed to run down, and
factories with all the new modern inventions. As soon as the combination
is effected the less efficient factories are generally put out of
operation. But the stock issued in payment for them has to pay dividends.
And the United States government guarantees profit on investment in
factories that have gone out of business. As soon as these combinations
see prices falling they reduce the hours of labor, they reduce production,
they reduce wages, they throw men out of employment,--in order to do what?
In order to keep the prices up in spite of their lack of efficiency.

There may have been a time when the tariff did not raise prices, but that
time is past; the tariff is now taken advantage of by the great
combinations in such a way as to give them control of prices. These things
do not happen by chance. It does not happen by chance that prices are and
have been rising faster here than in any other country. That river that
divides us from Canada divides us from much cheaper living,
notwithstanding that the Canadian Parliament levies duties on
importations.

* * * * *

But "Ah!" exclaim those who do not understand what is going on; "you will
ruin the country with your free trade!" Who said free trade? Who proposed
free trade? You can't have free trade in the United States, because the
government of the United States is of necessity, with our present division
of the field of taxation between the federal and state governments,
supported in large part by the duties collected at the ports. I should
like to ask some gentlemen if very much is collected in the way of duties
at the ports under the particular tariff schedules under which they
operate. Some of the duties are practically prohibitive, and there is no
tariff to be got from them.

When you buy an imported article, you pay a part of the price to the
Federal government in the form of customs duty. But, as a rule, what you
buy is, not the imported article, but a domestic article, the price of
which the manufacturer has been able to raise to a point equal to, or
higher than, the price of the foreign article _plus the duty_. But who
gets the tariff tax in this case? The government? Oh, no; not at all. The
manufacturer. The American manufacturer, who says that while he can't sell
goods as