The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-06

cial term, travelled all over the Union and |
Europe, had interviews with everybody, ex-
cphered incessantly, discussed all sorts of
subjects, digested an infnity of statistics,
employed host of adopts, published volumes
of pamphlets counselled Congress and the
country, made himself an authority, turned
his Office into a tract society, and in the end
turned up revenue reformer and rene
gade; and now he leaves the service with a
budget of statistics on his back, and an array
Of reasons for kicking at our confidence
which leaves us nothing to wonder at or
doubt about, when we reflect upon the trials
he has been exposed to, except the weight of
the motives which have determined him to
so over bodily to the enemy.
We cannot help remembering now with
what an innocent hopefulness we accepted
the appointment of a Revenue Commissioner
and how patiently we had long borne our
ignorance of the industries, the resources
and the commercial movements of the coun-
try, and how full of confidence we felt when
Congress at last made provision for obtaining
official information of our home affairs, with
their relations to our foreign commerce,
which up to that time was the only thing that
we knew of the business on which our well
fare depends, and the last report Of the COM
mission is the issue.
1t was printed last December and pub
Gshed far and wide under the official frank,
and republished and distributed by the Free
Trade League throughout the United States;
and again it is sent freshly upon its travels
through Europe by the allied anti-Amercan
propagandists of Great Britain. This history
is of itself enough to put the public of this
country on its guard But thousands of per-
sons interested in almost every department of
our home industries early appealed to Con-
gress for an authoritative exposition of its
and its mischievous recommendations of
legislative policy. The Committee on Manu-
factares of the House of Representatives
have attended to this duty, and done it with
a funess and effectiveness that challenge
our admiration. In the Judgment OF any
qualified and candid reader of their
report, we venture to believe, never
was man more completely demolished,
and never was Indictment containing so many
counts charging official malversation so fully
proved. The committee, indeed, have not
exhausted their subject. They necessarily
passed over with no notice, or slight allu-
sions, many of the most formidable and as
sailable offenses of the document but they
have avoided exhaustion of the reader of their
report; and of the multitude of topics on
which they have joined issue with the Com
missioner, not one have they left inconclusive
against him. They have taken him and terri
topics as these:-The farmers question, as it
involves prices under the existing tariff and
state of the currency. On this point they con-
vict him of exaggeration and partial
pose to cultivate discomfort with with
the manufacturing capitalists and laborers of
the country; with the additional charge of
arraying the laborer against the farmer in
his report of 1868, and now in 1869 provok-
inc tha farmer apaiDSt their labOrinu cOn-
sumers by similar misstatements, needless
alike of self contradiction and of honest full
ness of facts in both instances On wool
and woollens they meet him with the unim-
peached facts and figures which the Tribune
has SO frequently given in refutatlon of the
Commissioner Report. On our cotton man
ufactures the Commissioner mas written with
the malignity of partizan, and adduced sta
tistics, and indulgedin in estimates, with all the
prejudice of an enemy. The half-dozen pages
of the Committee devoted to him on this one
subject have more demolishing force than
anything but his official authority could pos
| sibly warrant. On prices, production-cost,
| and quantities of gunny bags, SALT coal, lum-
| Der, the protective force of freight, the char
| acter of our steel trade, and of a number of
| other commodities and special SUBJ ects of
vast Importance, which the Commissioner
manipulates in the interest of foreign i'm
| ports, and in antagonism to domestic proiuc-
| ton, searching and conclusive investigation
| overwhelms every position taken by him; and
all this so clearly and plainly that the general
| reader is made competent to judge, and ex-
| perts are only surprised that such a mixture
| of cunning and incompetency could be con-
densed into any man in the position and
having the four years training Of the Com
| missioner.