Dudley.] ^d4 [Oct. 1, 



disparity between the imports and exports, the figures of their dealings 

 confirming what I have said about the import and the export, and that one 

 very rarely, if ever, follows the other. An export does not always follow 

 an import. And there is no reciprocity in trade between nation and 

 nation, each buying from the other what it requires and nothing more, 

 and that without regard to which side the balance of trade is on in their 

 dealings. 



Next after ourselves England raises more revenue from custom duties 

 under her tariff laws than any other country in the world ; notwithstand- 

 ing this it has been and is a source of continual complaint on the part of 

 Englishmen that we have tariff laws, and that we make an effort to pro- 

 tect our laboring people and develop our own resources. The English 

 claim that this interferes with their trade, and that we ought to repeal our 

 tariff laws and admit their manufactured commodities into our country 

 free of duty ; and one of the tasks which the Cobden Club of England 

 has undertaken is to break down our protective system and establish free 

 trade in its place ; yet, notwithstanding our tariff laws and restrictions 

 about which they so much complain, we buy more of her manufactured 

 commodities than any other nation, and this has been the case for the last 

 five years. During the whole of this period no nation has bought so 

 much of her as we. 



We are to-day and have been the best customer England has. 



In India England has abolished the tariff so that there is absolute free 

 trade, at least so far as her manufactured commodities are concerned ; and 

 she can send and is sending her manufactured commodities there free of 

 Suty and of all tariff restrictions, and yet the two hundred and fifty-three 

 millions of people in India, with free trade so far as English commodities 

 are concerned, take less of England than we do. Our fifty-six millions of 

 people in the United States buy more of England than the two hundred 

 and fifty-three millions of people in India, and more than the ninety-eight 

 millions of people living in the Russian empire. 



Why is this ? The answer is very easily given. It lies in the fact that 

 the people of the United States consume or use of the manufactured com- 

 modities of the world nearly twice as much as the people of any other 

 country or nation, I mean per capita, man for man. If asked for an ex- 

 planation why we use or consume more goods, &c, in this couutry than 

 they do in England, France or any other country, it is easily given. Un- 

 der our protective system we pay our people double the wages that are 

 paid to the work people of any country in Europe, and this enables them 

 to buy more. Their power to buy depends upon what they receive for 

 their labor. It is the laboring people of a country who more largely than 

 others consume the products of the mills as well as of the earth. In con- 

 sequence our laboring people are better fed, better housed, better clothed 

 than the working people of any other country ; have the means to buy 

 and do buy not only the necessaries of life, but many of the luxuries as 

 well. They thus live better than the working people of other countries, 



