Speech #480003706

The effect of the repeal of the corn laws was that when the wheat of our country and the beef and the pork went into Great Britain it competed there with their beeft and their wheat. and their pork. and the workman got his food cheaper by reason of the repeal of the corn laws. At the same tinme the tax on the various manufacturing industries was repealed also. and the result showed the fallacy of tle idea that protection protects labor. In the State in which I live the laboring men. white and black. raising cotton in the field compete with the lowestpaid pauper labor on the face of Gods green earth. they contend with the pauper labor of Egypt. they contend with the pauper labor of India. and yet the white men and the black men of Texas raise cotton in defiance of all this pauper labor. and ask no protection from this Government in the way of tariff. They boldly defy competition on the markets of the world. and only ask that their Government shallnot by an unwise and unijust system of laws take part of the money resulting from the crop Ieye raise and market in competition with the pauper labor of Egypt and India. and by force of law turn it over to the owner of some protected f etory. England admitstheir corn. wheat. pork. beef. and cotton free. but if they want to buy something to bring home this Government taxes them heavily. to protect American labor against the pauper labor of Europe! Discrimination with a vengeance! The sturdy farmers of the Western States are rising in their might and are intelligently studying this proposition. They raise wheat in competition with the pauper labor of Poland. of Austria. of Turkey. of Russia. and all the country around the Black Sea. where laborcommands a mere pittance. and yet those bold. hardy. industrious men of the West demand no protection. We only hear of it in other parts. and let me say today the handwritingis upon the wall. the time will come. and come speedily. when you. sir . will be opposed to protection. the time wilt come when the factories of your country will shift themselves and place their machinery for manufacturing down in our country side by side with the cotton. with the wool. with the hides. and with the raw produce that they manufacture. because you now not only have to transport all the raw material. but the food that feeds your hands while at work. whereas we have cattle upon a thousand hills. pork. wheat. and mutton to feed our hands down there. and we have the cotton and the wool and all the raw materials needed to manufacture. Sir. the whole theory is wrong.