THE FUTURE OF OUR COTTON MANUFACTURE. 293 



sumes hens' eggs at the rate of consumption in your own factory 

 boarding-houses, the hen-yards of the country now supply about 

 one hundred and twenty-five million dollars' worth of eggs a year, 

 and by exchange and conversion into capital this sum would suffice 

 to build all these cotton-factories and to supply the working capi- 

 tal as well, year by year. 



Again, in two years only out of this ten ensuing, as much capi- 

 tal will be expended in the construction of new railroads in this 

 country as the whole five million spindles which we may need in 

 ten years will cost. 



Or, again, if we assign only five hundred dollars to the con- 

 struction of a dwelling-place to each five persons comprised in this 

 increase of population, the capital which will be needed to house 

 them will come to two hundred and twenty-five million dollars a 

 year, or $2,250,000,000 in all. 



So the world wags on, always within one year of starvation, 

 within two years or so of being naked, and within a few years of 

 being houseless and homeless, except for the work which we must 

 do to supply the products which we must exchange with each 

 other eggs for cottons and cottons for eggs, etc. 



This may be a pleasant prospect for our machine-shops. They 

 will also have a good deal of work to do in substituting new 

 spindles for old, and perhaps new looms for old, if the double- 

 faced, fast-running, vertical loom does the work which is expected 

 of it. How soon will your present noisy, cumbrous, and unscien- 

 tific loom be invented out of existence ? When will it be dis- 

 placed by a smooth-running, circular loom ? How about your 

 carding-engines, your drawing and your combing machines? Are 

 we to go on importing them ? Yes, until the taxes are taken from 

 the metals and from the other crude materials which are needed 

 to make them. Iron has cost you for ten years previous to the 

 present year (1889) ten dollars per ton on the common grades, 

 and steel fifteen to twenty-five dollars per ton more than the 

 same materials cost the machinists of Great Britain ; thus enhanc- 

 ing the cost of your capital, and placing you at a disadvantage in 

 competition with the manufacturers of Great Britain, Germany, 

 Belgium, Switzerland, and almost all the other manufacturing 

 countries in which such materials are free from taxes. The lower 

 the prices of metal the greater this disparity. 



I think we shall not even secure our home market, much less 

 extend our foreign sale, so long as the prices of crude materials 

 are kept by taxation far above those of our competitors. If, 

 however, there should be a change in the policy of the country, 

 to which all events appear to be tending, and to which the advo- 

 cates of both sides of the tariff question appear to be moving, and 

 it should be decided that the crude materials, commonly called 



