only aggravate the difficulty by adding to the aggregate stock in the
home market. * * * The American demand cannot consume what they produce.
They must therefore enlarge their market or stop production. To adopt
the latter course is to invite ruin. The market cannot be increased in
this country. It must be found in other countries. Foreign markets must
be sought. But these cannot be opened as long as we close our markets
to their products, with which alone, in most instances, they can buy; in
other words, as long as we continue the protective system.

I say, therefore, to the American manufacturer, sooner or later you
must choose between the alternatives of ruin or the abandonment of
protection. Why hesitate in the decision? Are not Canada and South
America and Mexico your natural markets? England now supplies them with
almost all the foreign goods they buy. Why should not you? Your coal
and iron lie together in the mountain side, and can almost be dropped
without carriage into your furnaces; while in England the miners must
go thousands of feet under the earth for those products. * * * The
situation is yours. Break down your protective barrier. All the world
will soon do the same. Their walls will disappear when ours fall. Open
every market of the world to your products; give steady employment to
your laborers. In a little while you will have the reward which nature
always gives to those who obey her laws, and will escape the ruin
which many of your most intelligent opera-tors see impending over your
industries.

I have not time to-day to more than refer to the ruinous effect of
protection upon our carrying trade. In 1856, seventy-five per cent.
of the total value of our imports and exports was carried in American
vessels; while in 1879 but seventeen per cent. was carried in such
vessels, and in 1880 the proportion was still less. In 1855, 381 ships