Speech #480052299

The Senator now goes back to the partisan cry that we hear in every campaign and whenever the tariff question is touched directly or incidentally. that we are trying to prostrate American labor or to draw a contrast between the highpriced labor of America and the pauper labor of Europe. I have always said. and I believe today. that the skilled labor. the intelligent labor. and the highpriced labor of the United States will always successully compete with the pauper labor of Europe. and the history of Germany and Great Britain shows it. because with all her cheap labor Germany was fbrced to go to the highpriced labor of Great Britain. relatively highpriced compared to her own. in order to purchase her merchant marine. We are told. today by Mr. John Roach and the school to which lie belongs and of which he is the chief exponent that the real reason of the decline of American shipping lies in the fact that 90 per cent. of what goes into the construction of an iron ship is labor. and that the high price of labor in this country compels the fact that we can not coinpete with Great Britain in the construction of these steamships. Yet the historic fact remains. which the Senator from Mainehimself knows. and every intelligent man who has examined this question knows. that notwithstanding the cheap labor of Germany compared with that of Great Britain. onehalf in fact of that of Great Britain. Germany was forced to go to Great Britain for the purhase of her merchant marine. XV232 showing that the skilled labor. the highpriced labor of Great Britain. was superior to the pauper labor of Germany. as the highpriced labor of the United States will always be to pauper labor when brought in competition with it. But I go back to the statement. which is an absolutely true one. that Germany initiated her present system of shipyards by purchasing her vessels in the beginning from Great Britain. and I supplement it with the other historic statement. which can not be successfully denied. that Russia today is indebted for her merchant marine. and for her respectable navy that carries her flag in pride all over the world. to the fact that at the end of the Crimean war she bought from her adversary and opponent in that war. Great Britain. in order to establish her merchant marine.