Agriculturally Minnesota, Nebraska, and
Kansas are already formidable competitors with England, France, and
Germany; but this is but the beginning. It is but the first spray from
the tremendous wave of economic competition that is gathering in the
Mississippi valley. By and by, when our shameful tariff--falsely called
"protective"--shall have been done away with, and our manufacturers
shall produce superior articles at less cost of raw material, we shall
begin to compete with European countries in all the markets of the
world; and the competition in manufactures will become as keen as it is
now beginning to be in agriculture. This time will not be long in
coming, for our tariff-system has already begun to be discussed, and in
the light of our present knowledge discussion means its doom. Born of
crass ignorance and self-defeating greed, it cannot bear the light. When
this curse to American labour--scarcely less blighting than the; curse
of negro slavery--shall have been once removed, the economic pressure
exerted upon Europe by the United States will soon become very great
indeed. It will not be long before this economic pressure will make it
simply impossible for the states of Europe to keep up such military
armaments as they are now maintaining. The disparity between the United
States, with a standing army of only twenty-five thousand men withdrawn
from industrial pursuits, and the states of Europe, with their standing
armies amounting to four millions of men, is something that cannot
possibly be kept up.
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