OCR Text |
Show portations made cheap by cheapening ! the workers whose toil enters into: these commodities. To seek to remedy j this unemployment by seeking foreign j markets, is to enter into world-wide j competition with these same cheap labor products. To do this is to come into commercial conflict the world around with other industrial nations, and thus to breed the causes of war. The World War would probably not have come except, as the result of the j keen commercial world-wide . rivalry of the great industrial powers of Europe. They sought special ' zones j of influence, colonies, special favors in sales in foreign markets. Their competition in sales and in shipping became intense. This caused Vhe ill will which eventuated in the war. Now it is proposed we shall follow this course. We are told that if we protect our own markets, we cannot successfully fight for markets abroad. We are told that we must make large exports of capital. We must become entangled in world economics and world polotics to a degree hitherto unknown to us. In following such a course we are wajking straight into the jaws of war. We have a world of our own, as yet far from being fully developed. There ire ample calls fpr the capital, here it home that we are exporting in vast quantities abroad, all the time conomic rivalries of foreign industrial indus-trial powers. We are even told that ' we' cannot in view of our position as i competitor for world trade, afford to so formulate our tariff rates that our own employment and standard of 'iving may be maintained. To turn aside from the national policies pol-icies which have given us such prosperity pros-perity and peace, to enter the unequal conflict for world markets while surrendering sur-rendering our own, at the . risk of maintaining established standards of living for our own people, is to leave a comfortable home in pursuit of a mirage. PROTECTION AGAINST WAR. The policy of developing domestic' resources and domestic commerce, rather than that of seeking prosper- j ity in world markets, has been a vital factor in preserving the peace of the United States. We have in this country coun-try the greatest free trade area in the world. We have resources sufficient suffic-ient to serve as the basis of wealth creation adequate for our population. We have created here a high standard stand-ard of living for the masses, and we have preserved it by preventing the destructive competition of foreign industry in-dustry based upon labor costs insufficient insuf-ficient to maintain working populations popula-tions above the level of mere subsistence. sub-sistence. To surrender this home market to the cheap labor exploiters in foreign : lands, whether foreign or domestic in ownership, would be first of all to paralyze our own industry. All the unemployment existing in the United States today is due to excessive im- |