Times change and men change with them. Situated as we are on a yet sparsely settled continent. with every variety of soil and climate. surrounded by oceans. gulfs. and lakes. with great navigable rivers traversing our land in every direction. with a railroad system more extensive than that of all Europe. and with a people at least the peers of any other in all that constitutes greatness. individually and collectively. it is a shame and disgrace to have all our commercial energies so crippled by our own legislation that we are prostrate at the feet of even halfivilized countries. We might as well insist on manufacturing our clothing with the handloom of the last century. and reject steam and all its appliances as destructive of human labor. exclude the light of the sun from our homes and shops as a foreign pauper and a freetrader in light and heat. and yet seek to compete with people in production and transportation who had seized upon and appropriated every newly discovered force in nature and every invention in art and science to lessen human efforts in cheapening productswith any reasonable hope of success as to insist on competing with other people fbr the oceancarrying trade successfully under the miserable navigation laws of past centuries to which we still cling after all the world has discarded them. The people I have the honor in part to represent are greatly interested in safe and cheap transportation. they know that all the cost of carrying the products of their labor to the markets of the world by land and sea is deducted from the (foreign) market price. This cost falls upon the producer. when he is compelled to meet competition in foreign markets.
Keywords matched
foreign pauper