This is so important a point in connection with our ability to compete with the cheap labor manufactures of Europe. and it seems at first thought so strange. that I will trouble you with somewhat lengthy quotations from the reports in support thereof. * * * For the first timeour manufactures are now assuming international proportions. At a time of universal depression we have met those nations which held a monopoly of the worlds markets. met them in their strongholds. etc. * * * Within the last fifteen years we have demonstrated our ability by the brilliant development of our own resources to exclude by honest competition foreign manufactures to a large extent from our shores. But if this superiority of American labor over the pauper labor of Europe did not more than account for the difference in wages. still the American manufacturer would have no cause of complaint against the pending bill. as the per cent of duty imposed on every article is in every instance largely in excess of the per cent. which the labor represents in the article produced in this country. Making protection to American labor the leading ground for asking laws protecting them from foreign competition with the cheap products of pauper labor. the American people have consented to take upon themselves the great burden of adding. as the law stands at present. 47 per cent. to the price of the whole range of dutiable articles. which. taking the estimated value of such articles at $2.500.000.000. and one-. half the duty as added to the price. we have the enormous sum. in round numbers.of about $600.000.000 that the American laborer should receive. The following table of statistics. prepared by Mr. Seaton.
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pauper labor