The greater part of the Message is taken up with
business affairs. The President wishes for a Minister of Commerce with a seat in the Cabinet, and demurs to any " dislocation " of the Protectionist system, under which, he says, the country has always prospered. There must always be a duty on imports sufficient to cover the difference between wages abroad and wages at home, and there must "never be any change jeopardising the comfort and wages of the American worker." Nevertheless, he favours "reciprocity," which may sometimes be obtained by lowering duties by internal legisla- tion. As to Trusts, it is folly, he says, to suppose that there Will not be great combinations ; but "monopolies are unjust discriminations preventing or crippling competition." Trusts, therefore, must be regulated, and publicity could do them no harm. The task of regulation belongs to the National Government; or if it does not, then the Constitution should be amended so as to confer the power. The Trust managers, who were alarmed, are, it is said, greatly relieved by these uttersacee; but it is quits possible that the plans of the President see more definite than they think, though more moderate. He says himself that "insistence on the im- possible means delay in achieving the possible,"—a very wise apophthegm which will be quoted hereafter.
The Report of the American Secretary of the Treasury • contains a remarkable account of the fiscal prosperity of the Union. Taking the dollar as four shillings, the Revenue receipts of 1901-1902 were £136,800,000, and the expenditure 2118,600,000, leaving a surplus of £18,200,000. The Navy cost £13,560,000, and the Army, including the war with the Philippines, only £22,400,000, but we have to add to this the astounding sum of £27,600,000 for pensions, chiefly military. A surplus of £8,600,000 is expected for next year, though tho war taxes have been repealed. The gold reserve in the Treasury amounts to £30,000,000, and the total reserve to £72,400,000, probably the largest ever held in the Treasury of any State. The National Debt amounted to little more than £197,000,000. No wonder that foreign Chancellors of the Exchequer are envious, or that Continental Governments, loaded down with deficits, are ready to lend credulous ears to wild stories of American designs. If they had half such a surplus at disposal, they would multiply fleets and armies till war would be a necessity merely to justify them to their peoples. It is, they say, the wealth of the United States which is such a danger to Europe.
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