ExiiiniTiox Addresses. 191 



"VVg at present import raw silk to the amount of al)ont ^>r>,00(),M()0 

 per annum, and tlie value of silk i^oods made in the United States 

 may safely be taken at ^20,000,000. 



The greatest silk center is Paterson, N^. J., where tlierc are now 

 sixteen factories, running 75,000 spindles, preparing silk threads, 

 that is, throwing silk, mostly for weaving. 



The hands em[)loyc(l are r>,r»00. 'Jlic wages paid per annum, 

 $500,000. The capital invested, •S2,O()O,000. 



In Philadelphia, there are twenty factories, emphiiying 400 men 

 and 1,500 girls and women, whose wages amount annually to 

 $350,000. The capital invested is estimated at $1,500,000. 



In the city of Xew York, there are 7,000 to 8,000 hands employed 

 in makiiig trinunings, weaving ribbons and dress-goods; the invested 

 ca|)iral being $2,500,000. 



Besides these, we have factories at Yonkers, Schoharie, and other 

 places in Xew York State ; at Hartford, Manchester, Mansfield, AV'il- 

 limantic, and other towns and cities in Connecticut ; at Xorthamp- 

 t(.>n, Florence, Williamsburg, Canton, and other towns in Massa- 

 chu>etts. 



"We said just now that the silk weavers of the United States can 

 make dress goods e(jual to those imported ; but if the American 

 weaver pays his hands one dollar for the same work for which the 

 foreign vv'eaver pays one franc or one shilling (as a schedule which I 

 have before me shows to be the case), of course he camiot make 

 goods as cheaply as the foreign weaver. 



Tom Hood sings of cheapness in his Song of the Shirt, but it is 

 the cheapness of flesh and blood — alas! Sir Morton Peto, in his 

 Iitsonrces of America, speakirig of the burdens borne and the men 

 raised in our gigantic struggle, says, " To what are we to trace all 

 this, to what are \xq to attribute this? First of all, I must tliink to 

 the absence of pauperism in the United States, where every nuin has 

 somethijig to defend.'' 



It is not desirable that the operatives of this country should be 

 reduced to the level of the pauper o))eratives of Europe, whose pal- 

 try wages have to be eked out l)y public uid ; neither is it desir;il)le 

 that a young and gr<:)wiug inten>>t. such as the silk trade, should be 

 crippled or destroyed. The silk mamifacturers, therefore, ask for 

 such protection as will enable them, when they expend their capital 

 in. and devote their energies to the trade, to compete successfully 

 with the foreiiru manufacturers in this market. 



