Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-11-06

people that We could supply it. America
furnished the best example that he knew
of the futil!ty of protection to protect,
the moment that the supply of protected
goods overlook the home demand.
America at the present moment looked
IN vain for q profitable outlet for its
overplus of textiles, particularly cot
ton goods, and large quantities were
frequently shipped to England to be sold
at any price they would fetch. Yet no
country was more favored than America
for taking the lead in the cotton trade.
Their machinery was now mostly made
in the States from English models. They
had unsurpassed water and steam power,
their cotton grew at home, in fact in the
South he had seen it growing within
sight of the factory. They were favored
also by the highest import duties in the
world, while their operatives
worked longer hours than the
their experts claimed that although
in the aggregate their wages were higher
because they worked harder yet they
minded more looms at lower rate of
pay by piece than those of Lancashire.
Yet with all these advantages thew were
unable to compete with Lancashire even
the higher-class goods that their people
bought. They were importing cotton
goods of the value of about f6, 900, 200
year, and only a month ago arrange
ments were reported for temporarily
"shutting down. fifty cotton mills con-
tanning 3 200, 900 spindles (one-ffth of
the totaD and 60, coo looms. What
strange irony that English mills should
get nearly the whole of their cotiCp.from
the United States, pay carriage Ssth
ways, work shorter hours and pay Us
good wages. keep their mills going az
the year round at full pay, exposed ID.
the open compel ton of the world, avn
send back their best goods V#ot
America under fire of 80 4$pers
cent. duty, while the protected $nillS
of America had to shut down perio3eallyE
because they make more goods than thek
could sell at profit! To what femedE
did these and other manufactures lo&
for lettering their condition? Nd TO H.
creased energy, skill, and efficiN cYsbn
their part, but TO more protecttAs-to
the salvation of the Mckinley bill. We
must meet protection by increased
efficiency, and we must begin in our
schools. Our battle was not so much
with America as with the highly skilled
and tastefully educated French and
Germans, whose technical schools
we were paying for by buying their
products, and whose education we should
continue to pay for till we gave as useful
and appropriate an education to our own
people. The Mckinley bill would not
shut out all our manufactures, but il
ought effectually TO shut all American
manufactures in. Under such a system
of protection the Americans, who were
destined some day to become the great
would not be serious competitors in the
world g markets. The population of the
United States was said to be 20 900, 600,
but the population of the world was esti-
mated at 400, 600, 900. or twenty times
as many, of whom it was said that not
more than one-third had yet been reached
by machine made fabrics. Let them
consider the rapidity of development that
was going on all over the world, the ex-
tension of railways and other means of
communication, the march of civiliza-
ton in the old world countries, the new
wants and cravings for comfort that
everywhere had to be satisfied, aud they
would realize that never in the world s
history had there been greater demand
for the products of labor, and that those
who were most painstaking and assidu-
lectual faculties with which they were
endowed would merit and receive the best
rewards the world had to offer.