Show S COMPETING WITH EUROPE Following the woolen shipments to Europe under the operation of the tariff reform law which Republicans predicted would ruin the industry is the exportation of apples to Europe The McKinley act protected the orchardists of the United States by a duty of 25 cents a bushel that this country might not be subjected to a flood of fruit from abroad The duty of 2 cents a pound was imposed upon dried fruit also When the Wilson bill went to the Senate it placed these products on the free list But a howl went up about the ruin that would come to the farmers farm-ers of America and so an ad valorem duty of 20 per cent was put upon apples whether green or dried But it appears that this wag not needed and that the McKinley duty was a humbug for during six months since the passage of the tariff law American apples growers have sent to I Europe no less than one million five hundred barrels of apples and official reports show that In one year the exports ex-ports of dried apples reached 2846645 pounds If apples can be sent abroad by American orchardists in competition with the pauper labor of Europe what need was there for the McKinley McKin-ley duty or even the reduced duty put upon fruit by the modified Wilson bill In other words is not the protection of apples like all protection an arrant humbug |