The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1894-10-13
VIM. L. WILSON AT HOME.
The Author of the Wilson Bill Re
ceives an Ovation and Makes
Forcible Speech.

The Author OF the wilson Bill tie
ceives an Ovation and Makes
a Forcible Speech.
Hon. William L. Wilson arrived at his
home in Charlestown, W. Va, on Monday
after short trip to England, and was given
grand reception. Several thousand persons
gathered to greet him, and he made a strong
and forcible speech on the issues of the cam
paign, from which the following is an extract:
We have begun to learn something. too, as
to our manufactured products in the past few
years. Take mp the list of American exports
today Of the things of this country. Now you
find not only wheat and cotton, tobacco, corn,
beef and meat products, but you find a con-
stantly increasing export of American manu-
factures In contradiction to all the teachings
and all the theories of the protectionist you
find those are the very manufactures. in which
the highest wages are paid to American labor.
Why, fellow citizens, it is no longer question
of wages paid to the laboring man in the IN
dustries of the country, because the work Is
done by machinery, by steam and coal, which
work as cheaply for MS as for any people on
the globe, while the wages of human labor are
but a small and incidental part of the cost of
production. But, aside from that it has be-
come almost a trnsm today that the high
priced labor-which is always competent and
intelligent labor-and cheap products 20 to-
gether almost the world over. tits thus in the
watches made at Waltham, Mass. and at FL
gin, I'll. 1t is thus in our great locomotive
engines; it is thus in our carpets in New York,
furniture in Michigan; in iron and steel goods
in numberless varieties. 1t is in the very list
of products that we pay the highest daily wages
to our labor that we find we are able to go out
and compete with other people aud take from
them our share in their markets where such
things eau he sold. Talk about protection
being for the benefit of the laboring man and
securing higher wages when protection con-
fines him to the home market and robs him of
halfof his opportunity of employment. Years
ago Mr. Gladstone made the prophecy that
industrial supremacy might soon pass away
from England TO some other nation that sur
passed her in its resources and in the enter
prise and business intelligence of its people.
The manufacturing supremacy of the world
will soon come under the control OF whatever
country has the largest and cheapest supply OF
the great materials of industry, and can de-
velop and distribute them with the highest in
telligence and through the best business
methods We have today, so far as the fun
damental materials of industries are concern
ed coal and iron ore, supremacy which no
other other country in the world can dispute
or approach By the assemblage of the ma
terials close together in Alabama, we can
foundry pig cheaper than in Bel
GUM or England or elsewhere III the world.
By the use Of modern appliances Of mining,
the steam shovel and others, we can gather up
the ore that lies near the surface on the great
lakes, carry it by water transportation to the
cities of the East and produce Bessemer pig
and steel rails and other products cheaper than
in England and Belgium. If, under these
conditions; if with these bounties of Proyi-
dence in this new country. if with our skill of
inventing and adopting the inventions of all
the world; if with our cheaper transportation;
if witha buoyant enterprise and the enterprise
of a people developing a new country; if we
are hereafter to lag in production, it will be
because we desire to lag and it will be because
we do not desire to rise to the opportunities
Providence has bestowed upon us.
AN OLD REPUBLICAN FALIAcY.
But we are told by our protection opponents
that our attempt to get outside of the United
States and sell against other people, or toilet
other neonle core Inside of-the-Gnited States
to sell against u.s. means a degradation OF labor
and dimin1tion of the wages of the Ameri-
can working man. Does not every farmer in
this country know that for the price Of every
bushel of wheat in his own market he mnst
look to the markets of England where wheat
is sold in competition with the cheapest agri-
cultural labor of the world? The farmer in
Dakota pays ten times as much for his labor
as the farmer in India. The farmers in JEFF
ferson county pays FIVE to seven times as much
us the farmer in India and three times as much
as the farmers of Austria, Hungary and Russia,
but he puts down his wheat in England side
by side with Russia, India and Austria and
through the competition of all three the price
of wheat there is established, and is establish
ed for him in the markets of Charlestown and
Baltimore From the very beginning of our
expectation of cereal articles we had this com
petition, and so it is with our manufactured
products. We are able to sell our clocks and
watches to the railroads of India because we
can make watches cheaper at Waltham and
Elgin than they can be made III Switzerland.
We are able to sell locomotives to all the ma
ions of the world because we can make them
with high-priced skilled labor cheaper than |
any other country can with its cheaper labor. |
can HOLD OUR own ANYWHERE.
We have been told again that this phrase,
THE markets of the world, means nothing /
md is an empty delusion, and that there is no I
market in the world which can compare with I
he American market for the American people. I
Of course there is great deal in that. The /
lone market to every people is its largest
market Three fourths of all the products
lrOuuttu Nv lHe DtOplt tOusuiucu anu
must always be consumed where they are pro-
luced 1t is not that we mean to surrender
he home market. Our very ability to send
nut and sell in competition implies our ability
o STAY at home and sell them in competition
nth the same people and yet, fellow citizens,
ct us never lose sight of the fact that if we are
0 sell our products we must take in exchange
or them the products of the people to whom
re sell. There is no snch thing as a one-sided
rade between nations. 1t is the interchange
f product for product When they keep out
rom us the exports of other countries, they
eep ont from us the price, and the only price,
hat other countries can pay for what we pro-
uce. For years past We have been selling to
England two or three hundred million dollars
rorth of products more than bought, and
large part of our people have thought it a
atriotic duty to abuse her for taking all these
hings from u.s. | say, for years past she has
ought from us two or three hundred millions
iore than we have bought from her. Has
he paid us in money? The most surprising
hing about England, as walked down by the
sank of England and those other banking in
titutions which have branches in South
america, India, Australia, Africa and Canada,
he most surprising thing 20 me, say, was
hat the entire money of England is but a lit
lie more than seven hundred millions Of dol
ars in our currency. If England undertook
D pay us for what she buys we would have the
hole of her money in three years on this side
( the Atlantic. She exchanges, as far as
,ossible, her products for our products, her
in-pIate and manufactured goods for our
cheat, corn and other food products, and as
se buy coffee from Brazil. We pay her by or
ers on England; as we buy from other coun-
ries, tea, spices and silks from China and
nda we settle for them by drafts on the sur
,l,Is which E,a;fand owes u.s. If therefore,
re wish larger markets, we must accept and
eek larger importations to pay for what we
end out Why, fellow. citizens, suppose that
instead of in the year 1894 wool had been pui
pom the free list ten or twenty years ago, the
,eople fthe Argentine confederation would
lot be today pressing you so strong in the
cheat market Of England; would they not he
ending us the wool which we excluded from
america, and receiving from us in exchange
Dr that wool such prondcts as we make and
hey need2 Because we taxed their wool at
east 50 and more than 80 per cent, because
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