er day, if he wishes,
toward the setting sun, unvexed by custom house, and free from the
inquisition which attends the stranger in Europe, as he flits from one
petty State to another. The great national policy of encouraging the
extension of railway and water communication is grandly vindicated in the
America of to-day. When the Nicaragua Canal shall have been completed the
American people will have a new waterway joining the Atlantic and Pacific
coasts of the Republic, as important to the commerce of the Union as the
Erie Canal was fifty years ago.

To describe the progress of the United States in the industries and arts
would be a work requiring many volumes, including the census reports of
1890, and catalogues of the Centennial and Chicago Fairs. The Republic is
not only the greatest of agricultural nations, but also leads Great
Britain in manufactures. In the quality of our textile fabrics we are
outstripping Europe, and the statement that cloth is imported is a
temptation now only to ignorant purchasers. In the more refined arts
America is also gaining upon the older world, and it is absurd to see
Americans purchasing silverware, for instance, abroad when they can get a
much finer article at home. The low wages and keen competition of Europe
have a degrading effect not only upon the workingman, but also in some
degree upon his product, whereas here the artist and the artisan are
encouraged by fair compensation and comfortable surroundings to do their
best. The principle upon which American employers act--to give good pay
for good work--is the secret of American success; it is the reason why
even the semi-barbarians are learning that American goods are made to
wear, while those of Europe are often made only to sell.

Manufactures are flourishing in the South as well as the North, and it is
wonderful to relate that, while the hum of busy factories can be heard in
nearly every city, town and village of the former Confederacy, the cotton
crop--which the Southern people in 1860 believed it impossible to produce
without slave labor--has already reached with free labor about double the
figures of 1860.

It is true that we do not have a large share of the foreign carrying
trade, but it is also true that our merchant marine, including the
vessels engaged in foreign and domestic trade and river and lake
navigation, is second only to that of Great Britain. The domestic
commerce of the United States, a free trade extending f