Speech #610020591

I simply address myself to the proposition that the arguments presented by the gentlemen on the other side were absolutely unreliable when they referred to the difference in the wage scale as a justification for increasing duties. I have no doubt that in some countries the labor cost per unit of production is very much less than in our own. but I should like to get it accurately. and the only way to get it accurately is through properly ascertained statistics as to the cost of production of each unit. and not as to the wage of the particular laborers employed in that industry. The Senator from Massachusetts says that the people of the State of Nevada are opposed to Chinese immigration. That is true. The people of the entire Pacific coast are opposed to Chinese immigration. We do not contend for a moment that Japanese labor is as efficient upon our own soil as is American labor. It is. however. more efficient probably than it is upon Japanese soil. for the reason that our manufacturing industries here employing Japanese would also probably employ all the laborsaving devices that are employed in the enterprises that employ entirely American laborers.