Carnegie relates that In the same conversation reference was made to John Stuart Mills declaration already referred to. that his theoretical system of economics. based upon the fundamental declaration that the people should buy in the cheapest market. was subject to be complicated by another consideration. to wit. that it could not be known except by experiment what market would eventually be the cheapest. This whole controversy might some day be solved if we could get the American disciples of the Cobden school to think over the tremendous importance of that exception. and then to remember that they fail to apply the logic of their own reasoning from the law of supply and demand when they fail to comprehend that the question is one of the worlds supply and the worlds demand. and that American protection by increasing the worlds supply may and.. as a rule. does decrease the worlds cost. The evidence before the Ways and Means Committee shows that labor is paid in this country from two to four times as much as similar labor is paid in England and from six to fifteen times as much as similar labor is paid in Asiatic countries. But it is argued that as a matter of fact the wage cost to the American manufacturer is not greater than the wage cost in the foreign factory. This is only apparently true in any case.