labor finds in the Republican party its earnest and sympathetic advocate. That party has done more for the protection and development of labor than any other.

Our Constitution and laws guarantee to every man equal civil and political rights. Property is more equally distributed here than elsewhere, except in France; and, excluding the negroes who but recently acquired the right to vote, a greater proportion of our citizens are property-holders. More than two thirds of our voters, with this exception, are property-holders, and the rest want to be, hope to be, and can be.

This country of ours is not a permanent field for tramps and communists. Our laws for the distribution of property tend directly and rapidly to distribute large estates.

Property here is required to pay more tribute to labor than in any country in the world.

Property educates the children, maintains all your charitable institutions, your streets, roads, and local improvements, and all parts of National, State, and local government.

The very few taxes that attach to those who have no property are on whisky, tobacco, and beer, which are voluntary taxes.

If the Government can do more to protect labor, it will. It offers to every citizen a homestead on the public lands. It offers every man an equal chance. Every office and honor is open to equal competition, and it gives to no man rank, title, or advantage except what he himself acquires.

This is all that a free government can do. It can not take the property of the rich and divide it among the poor. It can not, as is proposed, take the public treasure, collected by taxes, and distribute it in any other way than for the limited proper objects provided for by the Constitution. It can not control contracts men make with each other, except where they are grossly immoral or violate public policy. Its office is spent when it secures freedom, equality, and an equal chance in the race of life.

While the sympathies of the Republican party must ever be with the laboring man, it can not violate the fundamental principles of free government, in order to favor any class, or refuse to protect any class in the enjoyment of life, property, and the fruits of labor.

In the general management of your affairs the Republican party has done all that it could do to develop the national resources and maintain the national honor, to protect all men in equal rights, to secure to all men equal privileges and an equal chance in life; and it is ready to adopt any proper and constitutional mode of relieving distress and advancing the interests of any portion of the people. I can safely appeal to all of you who have shared in the honors and labors of this party, to still stand by its flag, now that the difficulties of the recent past are passing away, with the full hope that our country, always advancing and prospering since liberty was first proclaimed by our Revolutionary fathers, is still destined to advance, under the guidance of the Republican party, to higher honor and greater prosperity.

APPENDIX A.

Values of the principal commodities of domestic production, the exportation of which greatly increased from June 30, 1868, to June 30, 1878.

Values of the principal commodities of foreign production, the importation of which greatly decreased from June 30, 1873, to June 30, 1878.

CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY.

SPEECH AT CUMBERLAND, MARYLAND, OCTOBER 24, 1878.

I

THE best return for the kind reception you have given the President and his associates will be to confine myself, in the brief speech he desires me to make, to a statement of such facts as will exhibit the financial condition of our country. I take it that most of you are farmers, and that all, including the lawyers and doctors-who, though not good producers, are very good consumers are interested in the growth and development of the trade, commerce, and industries of our country. wish to state some facts, taken mainly from the records of the Treasury Department, which will tend, I think, to show you that our business condition is improving, and that though we have, in common with other nations, suffered from depressed trade and industry, yet that the causes for this are passing away, and that now the signs are hopeful and cheering.

One mode of testing the condition of a country is by its foreign trade. There are a good many theories about the balance of trade, but one thing we all understand to be as true of a nation as of an individual. If one sells more than he buys, he grows richer-especially is this true of the products of a farm if it is all the time improving; if he buys more than he sells, he grows poorer. Tested by this simple rule, the condition of our country is now very satisfactory-more so than ever before in our history. We have imported goods from foreign countries during the last twelve months to the value of $430,855,017; we have sold to foreign countries during the same period goods to the value of $720,484,171; thus leaving a balance in our favor of $289,629,154. This is a much larger balance in our favor than has ever occurred before in our history, and this balance is represented either by debts paid by us or money paid to us-mostly by debts paid by us. All this sum has been returned to us from Europe either in bonds of the United States or in other securities held abroad, or in money; and this favorable balance of trade has now continued for four or five years, so that our debt to Europe is mostly paid, and our country is rapidly ceasing to be a debtor nation except to its own citizens,

Another simple mode of testing our financial condition is by the increase or decrease of our domestic productions. Here again we are in a satisfactory condition. Nearly all domestic productions have largely increased, and especially those of the farm and workshop. Compared with 1870, when our domestic productions were stated at $6,800,000,000, they have largely increased.

The great increase in some of the principal productions which constitute the basis of our material prosperity is shown by the following

table:

By comparing the figures of 1877 with those of the census year of 1870, it appears that the total production of coal.in the United States rose from 32,860,690 tons in 1870 to 54,308,000 tons in 1877, and that the production of pig iron in the United States increased from 1,865,000 tons in 1870 to 2,314,585 tons in 1877.

The production of petroleum (now constituting one of the most important articles of exportation) increased from 5,673,195 barrels in 1870 to 13,135,671 barrels in 1877.

Compared with any former year, the aggregate of these productions has very largely increased. We are blessed by Divine Providence with fruitful seasons, and these have been improved by the industry of our people. This vast aggregate of wealth, though won by hard labor not very well paid, greatly improves our financial condition, and enables us to look into the future without fear of want, and with an abundance with which to pay our debts and supply the wants of Europe.

Another good sign is in the growing diversity of our productions. The wealth of a country depends upon this. No country can be prosperous whose industry is confined to one pursuit. We are now making at home many articles that we formerly imported. The fact that, with respect to certain of the great manufacturing industries, we have obtained control of our own markets, is shown by the great falling off in the importation of certain commodities from 1873 to 1878. This is indicated by the following table:

And so I might go on through an immense category of the products of our industries.

While the importation of railroad bars fell off to the extent shown above, from $19,000,000 to $530, the production of iron and steel bars in the United States increased from 2,958,141 tons during the five years from 1867 to 1871 to 4,056,340 tons during the five years from 1873 to

1877-an increase of thirty-seven per cent. Now we supply our own wants of the same articles by domestic manufacture.

Not only this, but we have so increased our skill in the industrial arts that we are largely supplying our home markets with certain of the more important articles of manufacture, which but a few years ago we imported in large quantities, and this in face of the hard times of the last six years.

We have also greatly increased the exportation of certain commodities to foreign countries.

I will mention a few of the principal of these commodities:

The exportation of manufactures of cotton increased from $2,947,528 during the year ending June 30, 1873, to $11,435,628 during the year ending June 30, 1878.

Our exports of iron and manufactures of iron, including steel, rose from $10,000,000 in 1873 to $12,000,000 in 1878.

Our exports of leather and manufactures of leather increased from $5,305,000 in 1873 to $8,077,000 in 1878; and our exports of copper and brass and manufactures thereof rose from $753,000 during the year 1873 to $3,078,000 during the year 1878.

The schedule might be extended so as to embrace many highly wrought products of industry, including watches, clocks, sewing-machines, locomotives, cars, steam-machinery, etc., etc. We are now competing with our productions in the different marts of the world in all the leading articles of manufacture.

Another hopeful sign is the better distribution of our population. The tendency since the war has been to concentrate into cities. All the large cities grew rapidly, but the farms and villages were deserted. While the waste of war and the excitement of inflated prices lasted, cities flourished; but when the bubble burst and reverses came, the blow fell mainly upon the cities. Corner lots fell and paper fortunes disappeared in a day. Thousands of men were thrown out of work. They could not comprehend the cause. Many of these, by reviving business, are now again employed; but tens of thousands have bettered their condition by seeking new homes in the West and South, where rich land and fruitful harvests invite them to the cultivation of the soil, the highest employment of life. All accounts concur that the population of Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota has very largely increased during the last two years. In these Western homes. some of your old comrades have found the star of their life.

Another hopeful sign is the advancing credit of our country. Certainly every American citizen will take pride in the fact that our four per cent. bonds are daily taken at par in coin. Though the rate of interest is low, yet the feeling of trust and security in the good faith and honor of our people makes every one feel safe when he holds a Government bond. The amount of these bonds sold last year was $74,900,000, and this year, thus far, $83,359,850; in all, $158,259,850. All of these bonds are held by our own citizens, and three fourths of them by small investors, or by savings banks and insurance companies. This process enables us rapidly to pay off our six per cent. bonds, and reduce the interest paid by the Government one third.