races and sparsely populated regions, but with the exception of Africa such conditions no longer obtain. Races must work out their own destiny. India can not be ruled indefinitely for the support of the younger sons of the upper classes of England. Conditions have been inherited from a barbarous past, and we must make the best of them. But hereafter no race and no section of a nation should be held in subjugation by force, except for humanitarian reasons, which appear sufficient to neutral nations. Fortunately our own complications are practically limited to the Philippines and are not insoluble. Political conditions and social relations should be independent of race and color.
11. Gradual reduction of the existing tariff. The protective tariff has been one of our most disastrous adventures; the present opposition to it is a gratifying sign of national health. The tariff has not only caused boundless political corruption and waste of economic resources, but has forced people from a healthy life in the country into the cities, the manufactories and the mines, and has supplanted our native population with immigrants. It is largely responsible for inequality of wealth and industrial slavery. To meddle with the schedules of the tariff will cause further corruption and industrial disorder. It should be abolished gradually by a five or ten per cent, reduction annually on all schedules. Desirable import taxes can be separately imposed.
12. The government to regulate the value of money, hut not to engage in borrowing or lending. If any one supposes the first part of this proposition to be due to Mr. Bryan, he is referred to the constitution of the United States. Mr. Bryan is essentially conservative, as are the people; but in his sympathies at least he is the best leader for a democracy that the country has had since Lincoln. In the bimetallic campaign he was not wrong in his aims, but only in his calculations. The present increase in prices—the cost of living is another matter—is in the main due to the depreciation of the value of gold, and is evidence of the inadequacy of a monometallic standard. The net result of this depreciation may not be bad, as it decreases the wealth of the passively exploiting classes, though it increases the wealth of the actively predatory classes and is unjust to those living on wages and salaries. But an unstable monetary standard is a bad business. The nation should fix a standard of value, based on the more important products of the country, and be prepared to redeem its paper currency in these products. It would not of course need to redeem it; the property of the nation is ample physical security. We have in fact a paper currency—checks and drafts being its most important part—but we need a fixed standard of value, first national and then international. A national bank is as objectionable as are the other activities of the author of the scheme. Postal savings may be of use as a temporary piece of paternalism, but should not be permanent. The banks, the bankers.
