136 The Tariff and the Farmer. 



and was the connecting link between the farmers and 

 those who toil in the shops, bringing food and raw manu- 

 facturing material to the latter, and carrying back to the 

 farms clothing, farm machinery, etc. To whom are we 

 most indebted for the steam engine ? To an Englishman. 

 Whose inventive mind caused steel rails to be substituted 

 for iron and greatly cheapened the cost! Another 

 Englishman. Who or what greatly increased the cost of 

 building railroads? Our protective system, by the heavy 

 duties imposed on rails. 



The factory system did not have its beginning here. 

 Mr. Carroll D. Wright affirms : ^ ^ The inauguration of the 

 factory system in the United States was some fifteen 

 years later than its birth in England. ' ' 



Mr. 0. P. Austin, chief of the Bureau of Statistics of 

 the United States, after giving credit to our great rail- 

 road system as the chief cause of our wonderful develop- 

 ment, states that "the value of the manufactures of the 

 United States is nearly double that of the United King- 

 dom, and about equal to that of G-ermany, France and 

 Eussia combined." 



Yet this giant dare not face its weak opponents in the 

 open field. 



The industrial situation cannot be better described 

 than in the words of Mr. Henry Clews ' ' ' Special Weekly 

 Market" letter of Dec. 28, 1901: ''Since 1896 the growth 

 of our manufacturing enterprises has many times 

 exceeded the growth of agriculture, and we are rapidly 

 changing from an agricultural to a manufacturing nation. 

 With our magnificent mineral resources, with unequalled 

 facilities for transportation, with unlimited supply of 

 capital to aid enterprise, with a better supply of skilled 

 labor than any competitor, with unrivaled capacity for 



