So many interlocking interests are involved in the cotton industry that it is hard to draw a line to show where the effect of radical downward tariff revision would stop. One fact which is worth keeping in mind in all of this discussion is that fractional changes in the tariff schedule would not result in a decrease in the cost of the goods to the ultimate consumer. A gingham or chambray which retails at 12 cents would not be changed to 10 cents were there a reduction in the tariff of goods of this character of 2 or 3 cents a yard. This would result from the fact that the price from the manufacturer to the jobber and from the jobber to the retailer are matters that fit within an arbitrary scale and the loss in the transaction of selling a cheaper fabric would have to be sustained by the retailer. This would throw the goods out of range and they would be dropped and a substitute of inferior quality would be taken on. So with goods that are used by the cutting-up trade a difference of 2, 3, or 5 cents a yard in finished shirtings or goods for shirt waists would not change the retail price of a $1 shirt or shirt waists to the 75-cent level. Manufacturers of shirts which are made to retail at 50 cents, 75 cents, $1, $1.50, $2, and $2.50 alone would benefit. These arbitrary figures are arrived at in a way similar to the pricing of shoes at retail. They do not allow for fractional differences, and the manufacturer has only his own conscience to dictate what quality of goods he shall put in made-up articles of a given grade. Self interest naturally dictates that the best quality possible which will leave a fair business profit shall be used, for there is open domestic competition in all lines of the textile trade. On made-up sheets a difference of 1 or 2 cents a yard on the cloth would not figure in the finished product as offered in a 4-4, 7-4, or 10-4 fabric made up into sheets of these standard sizes. The same is true of pillow slips, bolster covers, towels, and all classes of household cottons. There is no natural monopoly in the cotton-manufacturing trade and the rivalry between existing plants and the incentive to develop is such that the prevailing prices on all classes of cottons is kept remarkably even.

The working margin on prints, for example, can be figured when it is shown that standard fancy prints are sold on a basis of 5 cents a yard for the finished goods when the manufacturer is compelled to pay 4 cents for his gray cloth. This 14 cents margin has to be drawn upon for all expenses incident to the conduct of the printing business and for the sale of the goods and the procurement of a fair profit. There is hardly any other line of industry in which the working margin is so close. Similarly the margin on the sale of standard ginghams is held down close, for when standard fancy prints are selling at 51 cents, ginghams, which are a fancy woven fabric, are sold at 64 cents. And so it is with all the multitude of products in the way of fancy cottons for all purposes. The converter who makes a business of buying goods in the gray and converting them nearly a year in advance of possible sale, does so in the expectation of receiving only a moderate compensation in the way of profit. Deterioration in the value of cotton goods of the fancy type can be shown from examples where cotton-goods converters, who have taken fine cottons and dyed them to meet popular demand in fugitive colors, had goods which were made to retail at 40 cents held over a season and finally sold them at 16 to 18 cents. This wipes out the profit on business

for two or more seasons if he were successful in selling 5,000 to 10,000 pieces to offset the loss sustained on a similar quantity on an off year. There is a feature of the cotton goods trade which is similar to that to be found in all branches of the textile industry in the United States, and that is the recognition of arbitrary labor regulations largely brought about by the political activity of labor unions. These restrictions limit the number of operatives that can be engaged to perform certain fixed processes in the manufacture of goods, regulates the hours per day and for the week, fixes the wage to be paid for all classes of labor incident to the textile manufacture and compels shutdowns at set intervals in the year. Thus a manufacturer may estimate the normal production of his mill at so many hundred thousand yards only to find that the labor restrictions and enforced increment of much of his machinery has reduced this from 15 to 25 or even a greater percentage. Overhead charges and all other fixed expenses continue, and the loss must be made up out of possible profits. Here again the American industry is fundamentally based upon some measure of protection which will help it to overcome this obstacle and the competition from foreign mills where no such labor regulations are enforced. It is not possible to regard any one industry in the United States as isolated and distinct because the theory of the free trade in the States at once gives a common isolation to all industries within the borders of the United States. This in itself furnished a wide and wonderfully responsive market. It was never within the contemplation of the founders of the Government or up to the present time the wish of the dominant portion of the people to lower the scale of American life, and to prevent this being done it has been the unalterable policy of the Government, with but slight and temporary deviation, to maintain a protective tariff policy under one form or another. The chief complaint that is made of the operation of the cotton schedules now in force comes from a few importers who handle Scotch, English, and French fine fancy cottons, and who protest against the necessarily high duties that are imposed on goods of this character. They go exclusively to the custom shirt manufacturers, and the total yardage of these goods is negligible. The loud protestations of these importers, however, fill the land. There is something higher than politics in the entire present discussion of the tariff question, and the purpose of these articles is to present in a series various important industries that are founded upon proper tariff protection, and which maintain the hundreds of thousands of American operatives.