of our people are engaged in agriculture, when thirty per cent, would raise all we need. See to it then that Democratic free trade does not come in and close the workshops. '' CHEAP TRANSPORTATION. Twenty years ago the railroads were so much less in number than now, that, while products were high at the seaboard, they were often low in the interior. But protection has enabled us to make our own steel rails, and build great lines of railway. In i860 we had about 30,000 miles of railroads; which before the close of 1884 will exceed 120,000 miles—a mileage equal to the railway mileage of the rest of the world. Freight rates are two-thirds cheaper, and more uniform. In 1868 the charge for freight from Chicago to New York was forty-two cents per bushel; last year it was sixteen cents. Mr. Edward Atkinson, of Boston, has recently shown that the freight charges for the movement from Chicago to Boston, a distance of 1,000 miles, of one year’s subsistence of grain and meat for an adult workingman amounts to about $1.25, which sum is only one day’s wages of a common laborer, or half the daily wages of a good carpenter or mason. GOODS CHEAPER UNDER PROTECTION, To farmers, and everybody else. Cotton goods, which we used to import at fifty cents a yard, before we had cotton mills, have since then been exported at six cents. Cotton hosiery has been reduced one-half in price under the protection of twenty years. Delaines, which we used to import at thirty-five cents, are now sold at twenty, and better in quality. And why? Because England, with no competition, charges high. When we build mills, and compete with each other in. our own country, she is obliged to lower her prices. If a man desire a suit of broadcloth, it is cheaper abroad than here. If he be rich, he can afford to pay for luxuries; if poor, he will buy more substantial and cheaper goods. If our woolen and cotton mills are closed by foreign goods coming in, and men and women are thrown out of work, of what use is broadcloth, if they have no money with which to buy it? The laborers of England never buy broadcloth, nor will laboring men here, when English- Democratic “tariff for revenue exclusively” is obtained, with low wages. Woolen goods for daily wear are as cheap here, or cheaper, than in any other country. Boots and shoes are cheaper than abroad. “ Protection ” says Mr. Porter, of the Tariff Com-
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