Speech #530125040

The .writer is a free trader.and yet ho makes the startling proposition which I propose to read with reference to the danger to this country. not merely in agricultural products like rice and sugar. but the danger to the manufacturing industries of the country as time progresses. I consider the statement significant because it comes from a free trader. He says: Some writers have asserted that civilization is liable to destruction by an armed invasion of Asiatic hordes. We need have no fear on that score. The probabilities are that th Asiatichordes would do themselves more mischief with modern devices of warfare than they would Inflict on the more civilized races. There is. however. everyreason to fear that the time is near at hand when civilization will be menaced with a danger more enduring and destructive than bloodshed. and that danger is in the economic changes that must occur as soon as laborsaving devices and machinery will be placed In the hands of the docile cheaplabor millions of Asiathe millions that have been contentfrom remote times to the present day to work for the lowest rate of wages in the world. Free traders are apt to overlook this danger. and yet it is real. The objection that this class of labor is not competent and can not work machinery will not hold. We see in California that a cooly. with a little experience. can operate a "McKay" machine. and turn out as many boots and shoes. and of as good a quality.as any other class of skilled labor. the difference being that in California the coolie receives $1 per day. but in China the same class of labor may be had at from 5 to 10 cents per day. and in almost unlimited numbers. Why it is that laborsaving machinery has not yet been introduced in China and India for the manufacture of goods I do not know. That these will be introduced there in time. there can be no question. If laborsaving machinery for the manufacture of goods has not yet been introduced into the Asiatic countries. the same can not be said of agricultural laborsaving devices and machinery. Here I take occasion to remark that possibly the reason why cleaned rice can be putdown in New York City from the Orient as cheap as uncleaned rice may be because the coolies have learned to use laborsaving machinery.