Speech #480035594

These are the issues we are now pressing. they are more urgent now than when the President presented them. I thought it best to refer to the message of the President and the report of the Secretary. which were sent to the last Congress at the opening of its last session in order to emphasize the demand for a substantial bona fide reduction of tariff taxation and not of increased burdens by prohibitory legislation which should amount to at least 20 or 25 per cent.. in order to make the failure to grant any substantial relief by the act of March 3. 1883. more prominent. The statement of the Secretary in his last report that the failure to give relief can not "be charged to the increase of importations keeping up the amount of the customs revenue. as the statistics show that there has not been an increase of imports." is the most damaging of all the facts shown. as the protectionists have always alarmed the country. and especially their workmen. with the cry that on a reduction of duties the products of foreign pauper labor would flood the country. force them to close their shops. and let their laborers starve. unless they worked at greatly reduced wages. Imports have diminished instead of increasing since the act of March 3. 1883. took effect. but wages have not increased. nor have the workmen been more constantly employed. Protectionists can not delude any man who has capacity to read or to think with that humbug or bugbear any longer.