THE political and financial condition of the United States at the present time is so complicated and in the opinion of many so critical, that it gives to the coming Presidential election more than usual interest, and some remarks on the causes which have produced it and the results to which it is likely to lead may prove of interest to English readers.

The origin of all the evil may probably be summed up in the one word-party. It may be, and possibly always will be, necessary that there should be at least two parties in the government of all states; but when these parties have advanced to the point that they are willing to sacrifice public safety and public morality to their own advantage in the struggle for supremacy, the situation cannot fail to be fraught with much danger to the commonwealth. Such is the position at the present moment. The Republican party, which, NEW SERIES.-VOL. LVII., No. 1.

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with the single exception of the Cleveland Administration, has been in power since the War of Secession, now finds itself in great danger. Its chief weapon, both of offence and defence, has been the tariff, but this is now proving itself a two-edged sword, as dangerous to those who wield it as it has hitherto been to their opponents. As a means to pay off the expenses of the war and to re-establish the credit of the country it was most effective; and we doubt if any party in any country can compare with the Republican party in the United States for the stupendous nature of the work it undertook, and the success which. crowned its efforts. That the wonderful prosperity which followed the war should have been claimed by that party as the direct result of their policy was, perhaps, not unnatural. While their leaders could justly point to the reduction. of, the national.debt as one of the

greatest achievements of any government, they could also point to an equally rapid increase in manufactures, in population, and in wealth generally, which had taken place at the same time, as the direct results of a protective policy; and for more than twenty-five years their claim has been accepted without question by a majority

of the nation.

Fortunately it is not necessary to explain to English readers the folly of protection; but it has one inherent characteristic, which I may point out: it can never be satisfied. Like the daughter of the horse-leech, its cry is, and ever must be, "Give! give!" Industries which are not protected demand protection, those already protected find the ever-increasing competition, both from within and without, has curtailed their profits, and clamor for higher duties. Thus, as some poisonous reptiles were supposed to do, protection may be said to carry its antidote with it; for it is evident that it may, and in the end will, be carried to a point where even the most ignorant and the most longsuffering must rebel.

The last Presidential election, therefore, was fought on the question of protection; but, unfortunately for the Democratic party, toward the close of the campaign the cause of free, or at least freer trade, became involved with other issues. The battle was lost and protection was victorious, not, perhaps, entirely on its own merits. But the axiom, 66 To the victors the spoils," holds good in America, even outside of office-holding, and the manufacturers now demanded more protection as the price of their support in the contest, insisting that the result of the election proved that the people were in favor of such a policy. More protection they got in the shape of the now famous McKinley Bill, passed, I believe, with very considerable misgivings by a majority of the party, which had no alternative but to quarrel with the most powerful section of its supporters or to accept the measure. They had, however, not long to wait for the verdict of the country. At the elections of 1890 it spoke out with no uncertain sound, and if, as seems not improbable, the Democratic party is successful at the next election, Major McKinley will probably descend to posterity as one of the great benefactors of his country-the man who in his day and generation did

more for free trade than any other man in America. Let us hope, for the sake of his descendants, that posterity will never know that the benefit was quite unintentional. Should this anticipation prove correct, it will then be seen that protection, which has carried the Republican party to repeated victories for the last twenty five years, will at last prove the cause of its downfall. On this question the Democratic party is solid, and is pledged, if not to absolute free-trade, at least to a very considerable approach to it.

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There has, however, recently come upon the stage another, and practically an entirely new factor in American politicsthe American farmer. We have heard a great deal in late years of the depression in English agriculture and the miserable condition of the English farmer. coinplained of the American competition, and has asked with apparent reason how he could be expected to compete with a man who owns his own land while he has to pay his landlord a heavy rent. Unfortunately this is all too true. It might prove some satisfaction, if not to him, at least to others, if some good had come out of so much evil, and if the American farmer had made the money which he has lost. Such is, however, not the case. That there are farmers in America who have made money, even in recent years, is beyond doubt, but this is equally the case with English farmers. There are some who from exceptional circumstances have done well; but I speak of the great majority of farmers in both countries, and I have no hesitation in saying that the position of the English farmer to-day is immeasurably superior to that of his competitor in America. As regards the rent, the difference between them is rather apparent than real. It is true that the English farmer pays rent, but it is equally true that no landlord can afford (to put it on no higher grounds) to see his farmers ruined, and in bad years, whether he wishes it or not, he has to take his share of the loss, by making some abatement in the rent, while any permanent reduction in the prices of agricultural produce must be borne altogether by the landlord, who has to make an equivalent permanent reduction of rent. In the meantime the English farmer lives well, perhaps too well, all things considered; he pays only. his fair share of taxation, and he pays his

laborers rather under than over what may be considered fair wages, as gauged either by his own expenditure or by the wages paid in other industries. He does little or no work with his own hands. His wife and daughters are well educated, and live in comfort, at the most superintending the dairy and henhouse, and having a servant, or perhaps two, to cook and do all the work of a comfortable, well appointed English farmhouse. I do not blame him. Long may he continue so to live, and with the returning prosperity which I venture to predict for him, it is not improbable that he will do so. But let him not envy his American rival, at least not until he knows something more about him.

It is true that the American farmer pays no rent; but as a rule he pays a much worse thing-interest on his mortgage. In every state in the Union mortgages are increasing with amazing rapidity, and, fast as they are increasing, they are not keeping pace with the necessities of the farmer. Ordinary lenders, who require a regular income from their investments, are beginning to get rather shy of farming land as a security for their money. Farmers are too often unable to pay the interest when it is due; and too often it has to be added to the principal, and then wiped out by a further loan at a higher rate of interest. In bad seasons the American farmer has no landlord to share the loss with him. The mortgagee cares nothing about him or his land as long as he receives his 10, 12, or even 18 per cent., which, if not paid at due date, runs at compound interest until payment is made. When there is a permanent reduction in prices, which naturally affects the value of the land, there is no landlord by whom the loss must eventually be borne. When such a fall takes place, the mortgagee either calls in his money at the first opportunity, or, if he is still satisfied with the security, probably contents himself with raising the rate of interest. If the former course is adopted, it generally results in foreclosure; if the latter, it as often as not leads to the same thing at a later period.

So much for the rent; let us now sec how the American farmer compares in other respects with his English rival. He certainly does not live well, unless a diet of salt pork and beans nearly all the year round can be considered good living.

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This diet he shares with his workmen, who, as a rule, live with him. The meals are cooked by his wife and family, who also do all the washing, baking, etc., and, hard as an American farmer works, I question if the women of his family do not work even harder. He himself labors with his men, and generally harder than any of them, for he has the impending mortgage ever before his eyes. wages he has to pay are out of all proportion to his own expenditure and that of his family, being necessarily regulated by the wages paid in protected industries in the neighboring town; nay more, he must pay even higher wages to induce men to leave the comforts and amusements of a town, to share his poor fare and hard lot in the country. For everything which he buys he has to pay a protected price. The village storekeeper who supplies him with groceries, the smith who mends his ploughs and wagons, the lawyer who draws his mortgage, the doctor who attends his family, even the undertaker who at last buries him, all require and obtain a protected price for their services. Ragged, or at best patched, he stands alone, the one unprotected man in all America.

Recently, when passing through one of the largest towns in the United States, in one of the principal thoroughfares I noticed a huge sign which stated that "fice land made free men," and that these were the offices of the Single Tax Association. We have heard a deal about Mr. Henry George and his theories during the past ten or fifteen years, and he is said to have. a considerable following both here and in America. We are told by some that Mr. George's idea will prove the panacea for all our social distresses, by others that it will prove the reverse; but while we have been wrangling over the question, it seems to have escaped our notice that Mr. George's theory is in full operation in the United States, and still the millennium bas not yet arrived. The whole of the taxation falls on the land, in other words on the farmers who own the land, and the result is the impending insolvency of the whole of the agricultural classes throughout the country. Manufacturers, shopkeepers, professional men, and laborers are all protected. They require and obtain from their employers a fair, and generally an exorbitant, remuneration for their services. If they have to pay protected

prices for what they buy, they also receive protected prices for what they have to sell, and protection makes little or no difference to them. But with the farmer it is different. The price he receives for his product is not fixed by the cost of production in his own protected country, but by the price he obtains for the surplas he has to export and sell in a foreign market in competition with India, Australia, Canada, Russia, and every other exporting country. The result is that he has been working (slaving would be a more appropriate term) for years, and every year, with perhaps a few exceptions, has seen him deeper in debt than the previous one. Not only have his debts been increasing, but his land has also been deteriorating. He has had no money to buy manure, and has therefore had no alternative but to go on cropping his land year after year, taking all he could get out of it, and putting nothing back, until, as a consequence, it is nearly worn out, and about ten bushels an acre is considered a fair average crop of wheat as against over thirty bushels in this country.

After all, the American farmers are, perhaps, not deserving of very much pity; for, if the burden has not been entirely of their own creation, it could only be imposed on them of their own free will, and had they scen fit to resist, they unquestionably had the power to transfer it to the shoulders of those better able to bear it. But the apathy and ignorance of the farming community in America are simply marvellous. It ought to be the most powerful, as it is the most numerous, class; but, while there is not a single manufacturing industry, no matter how small, which has not insisted on having its claims considered, the voice of the farmers has hitherto never been heard protesting against the flagrant injustice of which they are the victims. Even now it is doubtful if they could have been aroused from their lethargy were it not that the situation is becoming serious for other classes of the community, which have hitherto been willing to enjoy an apparent prosperity at their expense, and to profit by their misfortunes by investing their savings in mortgages on farming lands at high rates of interest. They are now beginning to find out that it is impossible for one section of the community to support all the others, and are getting anxious about their secu

rity. It is obvious that anything like general foreclosure is impossible, and, as the mortgages are largely held by the banks, and especially by the savings banks, anything approaching general insolvency among the farming classes would produce a financial crisis further reaching and more disastrous than America, or possibly any other country, has ever seen before. All classes, even the manufacturers, who have apparently benefited most by protection, would be affected by it; for, confined as they are by this policy to their own markets for the sale of their goods, the ruin of the largest consuming class would be at least as disastrous to them as it would be to any other section of the community. With certain exceptions, this is no exaggerated view of the condition of the agricultural classes in the United States, and of the complications which their ruin is likely to bring with it. People in England have often wondered how it was that America continued to flourish notwithstanding protection, and some have even doubted if free trade could be as desirable for a country as we were led to suppose. Americans, at least those of the Republican party, have never ceased to ridicule us for our slavish adherence to economical principles, which might be all right within the walls of a university, but were of no value in practical life; and they have pointed to their great prosperity as the best possible proof of the soundness of their policy. It may now turn out that their vaunted prosperity has been rather apparent than real, that the profits have been flourished in the face of the world, while the losses have been scrupulously kept out of sight, until now they have accumulated to such a point that they can no longer be hidden. It is impossible to make any trustworthy estimate of the profits of any business till both sides of the account have been seen; and if, as seems only too likely, it should turn out that these apparent profits of a protective policy, of which we have heard so much, are more than balanced by the lusses, it. will be found that there is something more in political economy than has generally. been supposed on the other side of the Atlantic.

While on this subject, I may point out that it would be extremely interesting to know to what extent Americans have been drawing on their capital during these