Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1888-10-10
MORE LOCAL.
Bennett and Burchard.

A fine audience filed the City Hall tc
its four corners and looked out from the
gallery, Saturday night, to greet Hon. j
| b. Bennett, of WATERFOWL, and Col. g Nv
Burchard. Mr.. Bennett is rapid speaker,
and will make many-column speech in
! an hour and half to three-quarters. But
his facts were clearly given, and his logic
so well drawn that every person in the
audience could easily follow him. He
began by saying that be was a hard
worker himself, and for that reason bad
little time to write addresses, and so would
try and give them little talk on what
had come to him in his business life, and
as he must say more of himself than be
liked, be hoped to be excused AS a ma
tive of England he wished to speak ofthe
tariff policy OF England. Since the abe
litiol of the corn laws in 1916 and the re-
movaI of some other duties Oh articles
that competed with our own industries,
her laboring people bad been anything
but prosperous. Her farms had decreased
in value until many were overgrown with
weeds. The effect of mpoverishment of
large classes of her laborers had been felt
in all. The unemployed had sought work
in other trades, already full, and the re-
suit was that all were out of employment
a great part of the year. He, himself,
had felt the weight of the disastrous
policy. For six years after his appren-
ticeship in the macbinists trade, his wages
aggregated out about 81 200, or about
5000 year. He then became dissatisfied
and visited this country, itself languishing
under free trade. He sought employ
ment all tbe way from New York to
Detroit and could get none. Returning
to England in 1858 he became two years
later sub-contractor of machine work
and employed thirty men. His earnings
then averaged about $3.50 year for some
over three years. This period carried him
to the middle of the civil war in the
United States, when high protective
tariff was in force. He had been stu
dent of the subject of protective tariff,
and wanted to remove to the United
States. But he did not do so right away.
What prevented him were the frequent
periods of lack of work when his earnings
would be swallowed up, and be had not
money to make the venture safe one
He soon saw that if he should wait till he
should have snug sum to go with he
would never reach America, and so re-
solved to leave the moment he had
enough money to pay the passage of him
self and family, and he did. Arriving in
Milwaukee he found work Immediately
within two weeks-and worked at the
lathe as common machinist for the Mil
waukee & ST. Paul Railroad company for
six years, receiving in that time about
$4,000. In year and quarter be had
managed to save enough to buy him s.
lot and build him home, ::something he
never would have been able to do in Eng
land, and in the SIX years had been able
to lay by enough money to start well in
business, thing he could not have done
had he remained working in England 100
years, so hard is the grip of capital of
centuries on every line of business, that
to venture in is but to be crushed cut. A
very strong point made by Mr.. Bennett
was that the wages of English laborers,
while nominally about half as much per
day as in America, were far less than
even that taken by the year, owing to the
long and frequent periods when the Ia
borer, of whatever trade, would be out oi
work. The sickly sentimentalism regard.
ing the philanthropy of England received
check in Mr.. Benefits expose OF hsl
financial policy. He succeeded in showing
to the satisfaction of all present, thai