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 660 Tariff reform. The Sackville incident. [isss that there existed "an organised combination all along the line to maintain their advantages." With regard to the question of wages, he argued that any advantage gained by the labourer on that score was destroyed by the artificial enhancement of the cost of living. He disclaimed, however, any desire to dwell upon the theories of Protection and Free Trade. It was, he declared, " a condition which confronts us not a theory." To the subject of tariff reform President Cleveland devoted his whole message, the usual review of foreign affairs and of the general domestic situation being altogether omitted. The Republican leaders were not slow to take up the gauntlet. As representatives of the party identified with the policy of Protection, they knew when the system was assailed, and they accepted the challenge. Elaine, who was then in Europe, answered the President's argument in a public statement, which was afterwards known as the " Paris message." A measure to give effect to the President's views was prepared in the House of Representatives, and bore the name of Mills, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means. It passed the House July 21, 1888. The national campaign was then in progress. President Cleveland had been re- nominated by the Democrats, while the Republicans, when Elaine declined to be a candidate, had nominated Benjamin Harrison. The great issue was the tariff. The Democratic platform expressly endorsed the views enunciated in President Cleveland's message, while a separate resolution, unanimously adopted by the convention, approved the Mills Bill. The answer of the Republican National Convention was unmistak- able. It declared that the Republican party was " uncompromisingly in favour of the American system of Protection," and denounced the Mills Bill as destructive to general business, and to the labour and farming interests of the country. The President's proposal to place wool on the free list was condemned. It was declared to be the policy of the Republican party to effect all needed reduction of revenue by repealing internal taxes, and by such revision of the tariff as would "tend to check imports" of articles produced in the United States. Should a surplus of revenue still remain, a preference was declared for the " entire repeal of internal taxes, rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system." The campaign, though conducted with great energy, was not attended with any unusual incident till near the close, when a sensation was created by the publication of a letter written by Lord Sackville, the British minister, to a stranger in California, who, falsely representing himself as a naturalised American citizen of English origin, had sought his advice as to how he should vote at the approaching election. While expressing gratification that President Cleveland had, by his advocacy of " free trade," preferred the interests of the " mother-country " to those of the United States, the writer anxiously solicited Lord Sackville's opinion