The protectionist who answers every criticism of his rates by conjuring a picture of “pauper labor” is equally conscienceless in his attitude towards the relation of protection to the two most disquieting industrial phenomena of our day, the increase in the cost of living and the multiplicity of corporations which aim to become and often are monopolies. For instance, Mr. Whitman, whose forty years of garrulous and successful defence of the present wool schedule has made him the perfect type of the lay stand-patter, does not admit that there is such a problem as the increased cost of living. He speaks of it as “alleged.” According to Mr. Whitman, the newspapers have talked so much about the subject that people have been deluded into believing that the condition is actual. If there is an increased cost in living, however, the tariff has nothing to do with it. It is due to the cost of the second-class mail! “I believe it to be absolutely true,” says Mr. Whitman, “that the entire cost of publishing and distributing the newspapers of the United States and the magazines is one of the great contributory causes to the cost of merchandise, and is borne by the consumer.” Senator Lodge who, in his way, is as typical as Mr. Whitman, denies that the tariff is materially related to this problem. In 1910 Mr. Lodge was chairman of a Senate committee investigating the cost of living. He did not go quite as far as Mr. Whitman—that is, he did not dismiss the subject by declaring it merely a newspaper yarn. But he did find that “the tariff was no material factor.” His chief reason for this conclusion amounted to this: The increased cost of living is world-wide. There are several causes, therefore the tariff is not a material factor. It is much like saying that because a log jam is made up of several logs no one log has anything to do with the jam. Another curious bit of reasoning in Mr. Lodge’s report was this: He had offered a list of 257 articles—almost all of them protected to some extent—the prices of which he had shown to have increased between 1900 and 1909 by 14.5 per cent. Out of this list Mr. Lodge selected fourteen articles on which the duty was highest. He found that the average increase on these fourteen articles was only 13.1 per cent. Therefore, he concluded, the tariff is no material factor in the increased cost of living! Still another reason for exonerating the tariff from any guilt in the matter was this: The increase of cost in all kinds of farm products between 1900 and 1909 has been much greater than the increase of manufactured products. Now, says Mr. Lodge, there has been practically no change in the tariffs on farm products in this period, therefore the tariff has nothing to do with increased prices.