State Agricultural Society. 79 



earth from ten to fifteen dollars a day each — when the merchant could 

 realize from fifty to two hundred per cent profit every time he turned 

 his capital over, and money was worth from sixty to one hundred per 

 cent per annum, all seemed to go harmoniously on, for then wo had no 

 formidable competitor in our great and only staple export, and the 

 favors of fortune were so fickle and uncertain that none of the rules 

 that generally regulate the relation's of capital, enterprise, and labor, 

 seemed applicable to us. 



Since that time changes have been gradually taking place in our 

 ivhole industrial system and in our relations to and with the outer 

 world. The product of the mines has been gradually falling off, and 

 enterprise and labor have been seeking other channels of occupation. 

 The facilities of travel and comnferce and general intercommunication 

 between our State and other countries have been gradually increasing, 

 until with the completion of the overland railroad the revolution is 

 thorough and complete. To-day our great staple products are those of 

 agriculture and manufactures, and wherever, in whatever country, 

 whether at home or abroad, on the eastern or western continent, those 

 products seek a market, then they meet face to face and come in sharp 

 competition with similar products from other portions of the world. 



Our wheat has to compete with wheat from South America, the 

 Atlantic States, Eussia, the Mediterranean, and all other wheat grow- 

 ing countries. Our wines find competitors in the Avines of Germany, 

 France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Our wool comes in contact princi- 

 pally with the wools of the Eastern States, Europe, and Australia, while 

 our silks have to make their way against the old silk growing countries 

 of Southern Europe and Asia; and our manufactures have to combat 

 the manufacturing capital, facilities, and skill of the Eastern States and 

 England. 



Thus, nothing we now produce, nothing we now manufacture, can find 

 a market except against the ever present and ever pressing competition 

 of the world. 



What then, I ask, must be the necessary conditions of prosperity and 

 success to our agriculture, our manufactures, and our commerce? 



Our natural advantages for these great industries are not excelled by 

 any other country in the world. We have a soil and climate unsur- 

 passed, our manufacturing facilities are equal to those of any other 

 country, and our location is in the direct path of the commerce of the 

 world. The skill and energy of our people is proverbial. Then what 

 more do we want to prosper, to excel? My answer is: cheap capital 

 and cheap labor. 



Give us the former and the latter will follow, for whenever there is 

 energy and enterprise in a country, and plenty of money at low rates of 

 interest, then all the necessary expenses of living will be cheap, and 

 labor will find constant employment and will be readily and cheaply 

 obtained. Capital in all ages and in all countries is proverbially timid 

 and slow to move, and in this State it seems willfully and stupidly blind 

 to the changes and improvements that a few }'ears have brought about. 

 What reason or sense is there that enterprise and industry in California 

 should be taxed for the use of capital from twelve to eighteen per cent, 

 while the same capital in Europe and the Atlantic States or any other 

 portion of the world cannot command but from three to six per cent 

 with the same classes of security? None whatever. And yet such is 

 the stubborn fact. And in this fact, above all others, lies the greatest 

 impediment to California's rapid settlement — to the development of her 



