American Reciprocity

     A well-informed correspondent of the Times in Washington, writing on this subject, relates how the late President McKinley’s views on trade-protection underwent modification during the years he was in White House [sic], so that latterly he considered that it was necessary for the integrity of American export-trade that there should be some alteration of the heavy tariff on imported manufactured articles. Mr. McKinley realised that the United States cannot continue to sell its natural produce to countries, such as the United Kingdom, engaged almost exclusively in manufacturing industries, without opening the American markets to their manufactures on the most favourable terms. The Senate was against him, but he hoped by talking to the country about reciprocity to secure, in spite of the Senate, some relaxation of the tariff. Mr. Roosevelt, according to the correspondent, is of the same way of thinking as his predecessor, but his power with the Senate is still an unknown quantity; still reciprocity, or whatever a modified tariff may be called, has to be faced by the American people in the near future.