6l6 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



The result must be one of two things: 



1. The American manufacturer must shut down and 

 go out of the business; or, 



2. He must reduce the wages of American labor to a 

 foreign basis. 



One of these two results is inevitable. None will 

 favor the adoption of the latter; but there are some who 

 will say : ' * If the American manufacturer cannot compete 

 with the foreign manufacturer let him 'close up' his business, 

 and the people buy where they can get goods cheapest. " 



At first glance this looks like a reasonable and sensible 

 view of the* matter; but if we trace its results to a final 

 termination we will, perhaps, arrive at a different conclusion. 



We have already seen that, without foreign competi- 

 tion, in many cases our own manufacturers have combined 

 to break down home competition. 



If we, then, permit our home industries to be 

 destroyed, we are wholly dependent on and at the mercy 

 of foreign manufacturers. Have we any guarantee, then, 

 after we have permitted them, with the aid of their 

 cheap labor, to break down our domestic industries, that 

 they will not do as our own manufacturers are now doing 

 form combinations and trusts, and put a price on their 

 goods as high or perhaps higher than we are now compelled 

 to pay? And what remedy could we resort to to prevent 

 it? We would have no legal jurisdiction over them as we 

 have over our own manufacturers. The only remedy 

 would be to again revive our own industries. And, in view 

 of the fact that protection might again be withdrawn by 

 the government, many years would elapse before our own 

 manufactories would reach their present proportions. 



Another feature we have to take into consideration is, 

 that if we permit our own factories to be closed, the two 

 and one-half millions of people therein engaged will be 





