s a start and enable them to establish themselves, they
will improve all these natural advantages which we possess; and with the
abundance of raw material in our mines and farms and forests, with our
ingenuity and Yankee enterprise and skill, who can doubt that our
manufacturers, once established, can produce goods more cheaply than
they could ever be brought across from foreign countries? This
protection from foreign competition will be a great incentive to the
establishment of manufacturing enterprises. Everywhere mills and
factories will spring up; a brisk home competition will be created; and
that will finally reduce prices lower than they could ever go if we
remained dependent on foreign countries for our manufactured goods."

It was a wise and well-founded plan, and only as to its final result did
it fail. The protective tariff did make manufacturing more profitable
than any other business, and mills and factories of every sort have
sprung up in all parts of the country. But the expected extreme
competition which was to reduce manufacturers' profits and the price of
manufactured goods to a basis in accordance with the profits in
agricultural and other branches of industry has been long delayed. The
wonderful development of the country has kept up prices and profits, and
has furnished a market for our manufacturers which has long kept in
advance of their capacity to supply it. At last, however, the result
which was expected by the founders of the protective tariff has come to
pass. Our domestic mills and factories have a capacity beyond the
present demand for their products. The home competition which was
predicted has come; and if it had operated to reduce prices as was
expected, there would now be employment for all our mills, for it is an
axiom that every reduction in price increases the demand.

But the manufacturers who had been making enormous profits of ten,
twenty, and thirty per cent. on their capital for these many years, were
far from willing to accept calmly the situation and reduce their profits
to a reasonable figure. They have tried combinations of many sorts to
keep up prices, and at last have found in the trust a strong and
effective means of killing home competition and keeping up their
profits, if they choose, to the highest point which the tariff permits.

It is not to be argued that the manufacturers were especially worse than
the general run of men in taking this action. It is the most natura