210 LAND AND LABOR. 



engineers and spinners in Germany to establish cotton mills in 

 China, so as to free that country from dependence upon English 

 and Russian imports." 



Though China is somewhat tardy in her action we 

 may be certain that she will he thorough. Not only 

 the English and Russians, hut all others, will find that 

 market not closed to cottons alone, hut to everything 

 that that people consume. More than this ; the time 

 is not far distant when textiles from Chinese machine 

 looms ; iron, and steel, and cutlery, from Chinese fur- 

 naces, forges, and workshops, with everything that 

 machinery ,and cheap lahor can produce, will crowd 

 every market. The four hundred millions of China, 

 with the two hundred and fifty millions of India 

 the crowded and pauperized populations of Asia 

 will offer the cup of cheap machine lahor, filled to the 

 brim, to our lips, and^force us to drink it to the dregs, 

 if we do not learn wisdom. It is in Asia, if anywhere, 

 that the world is to find its workshop. There are the 

 masses all the conditions necessary to develop the 

 power of cheapness to perfection, and those conditions 

 will he used. For years we have been doing our ut- 

 most to teach the Chinese shoemaking, spinning and 

 weaving, engine driving, machine building, and other 

 arts, in California, Massachusetts, and other States, 

 and we may be sure they will make good use of their 

 lessons, all being under contract to be returned to 

 China, dead or alive. There is no people on earth 

 with more patient skill and better adapted to the use 

 of machinery than the Chinese ; and it is from that 

 people in particular, that the industrial world must 

 protect itself. What the Chinese government is 



