OF AMERICA. 1 9 



under Si 40, while a man over the water offers me the 

 same article for sioo. I want to deal with the latter, 

 but to prevent that, they clap $140 duty on to the 100, 

 and then tell me that, as now, in either case, I shall have to 

 pay Si 40 for the article, I may as well buy of the man 

 down East, because he's a kind of brother, whereas, the 

 man over the water is only a cousin. All I see in it is, that 

 I am done out of S40." 



That the Eastern manufacturers only make the average 

 profit, and their men the average wages, of other occupa- 

 tions, is the necessary result of internal competition. No 

 trade can for any length of time maintain higher rates of 

 profit or of wages than the average, because people soon 

 flock from other trades into that, and thus they all settle down 

 to about the same level. There does, indeed, at intervals 

 occur a sudden spurt of demand, causing for a brief period 

 high prices, high profits, and high wages, but these bright^ 

 short flashes of prosperity cost the manufacturers and their 

 men very dear. Fresh capital and fresh labour are thereby 

 freely enticed into the trade, and when the spurt is over, 

 there is not sufllicient vent for the increased supply. The 

 result is, ruin to many, loss to all. Such a spurt occurred 

 in 1872-3. In 1874 the reaction came, and there followed 

 five years of commercial depression and suffering. An 

 immense body of American workmen were thrown out of 

 employ, and in the course of those five years (mostly in 

 1877 and 1878) upwards of 600,000 persons left the East 

 to seek a living in the West. During those five years a 

 large number of industrial establishments closed their doors, 

 and in the iron trade alone 250 blast furnaces were blown 

 out, and 60 to 70 rolling mills ceased work. In the six years 

 1873 to 1S78, the average number of commercial failures in 

 the United States per year was 7,866, against an average of 

 2,889 the previous seven years. In short, those five years 

 were the worst that American commerce had ever expe- 

 rienced. Yet during all that time the farmers were yearly 

 disbursing ^340,000,000 to support the manufacturers. 

 So far, however, from enriching them, this large sum was 



