National Prosperity and High Wages. 137 



organization and the use of machinery, all backed with 

 abundance of energy, brains and opportunity— with all 

 these requisites in plenty, is it surprising that our situa- 

 tion is the wonder and envy of the world?'' 



Yet with everything in its favor, this, the largest agri- 

 cultural and manufacturing nation, is threatened with 

 bankruptcy and ruin if its citizens are allowed to trade 

 on an even footing with the people of other nations ! 

 How, then, in the old colonial days, when there was lack 

 of everything, and when the English Parliament sought 

 by strict legislative enactments to crush out manufactur- 

 ing enterprise, did industrial progress go steadily for- 

 ward! 



Whence came the ability to create the condition 

 described by Mr. Clews ! A large part is inherited from 

 way back before the first tariff act. In Bishop 's History 

 of American Manufactures it is said of the colonists : 

 ''They were gathered from the most productive and 

 ingenious nations of Europe." 



High wages are due to the great demand for and 

 efficiency of labor. From what has immediately pre- 

 ceded, it is evident that the call for labor in developing the 

 resources of the nation must have immensely exceeded 

 that ever known by any nation in any age. High wages 

 were here before the first tariff act, and were the reason 

 given for the need of such legislation. The talk that 

 under free trade wages would fall to the European level 

 is merely for pohtical effect. For some fifty years free- 

 trade England has been in a few hours ' sail of Germany, 

 with its far lower rate of wages. Have English wages 

 fallen to the German level! No, and we doubt if there 

 has been relatively any approach to the higher level. 

 The United States with its vast population of 80,000,- 



