admitted that, in the last resort, these resolve themselves into the one great fact of its high productive power.... I must, therefore, contend that the high scale of industrial remuneration in America, instead of being evidence of a high cost of production in that country, is distinctly evidence of a low cost of production—of a low cost of production, that is to say, in the first place, of gold, and, in the next, of the commodities which mainly constitute the real wages of labor—a description which embraces at once the most important raw materials of industry and the most important articles of general consumption. As regards commodities not included in this description, the criterion of wages stands in no constant relation of any kind to their cost, and is, therefore, [pg 617] simply irrelevant to the point at issue. And now we may see what this claim for protection to American industry, founded on the high scale of American remuneration, really comes to: it is a demand for special legislative aid in consideration of the possession of special industrial facilities—a complaint, in short, against the exceptional bounty of nature.
“Perhaps I shall here be asked, How, if the case be so—if the high rate of industrial remuneration in America be only evidence of a low cost of production—the fact is to be explained, since fact it undoubtedly is, that the people of the United States are unable to compete in neutral markets, in the sale of certain important wares, with England and other European countries?367 No one will say that the people of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, are deficient in any industrial qualities possessed by the workmen of any country in the world. How happens it, then, that, enjoying industrial advantages superior to other countries, they are yet unable to hold their own against them in the general markets of commerce? I shall endeavor to meet this objection fairly, and, in