The lower he can get every article he can consume the better fur him.
He need not buy a single article in this country. He can invest his
money in foreign countries and live upon the interest, and
then it will be said that the country is growing richer because he is
growing richer. But what about the working-men ? They cannot do
without work, and yet the work cannot exist if the article is not
produced in this country. This is the state of things against which I
am protesting. You have suffered here in Greenock, and in many
other parts of the country ; but your suffering has been nothing to what
it' is going to be. I raise this question, not without some boldness, in a
time of prosperity. But a time- of depression is at hand, and what is
going to happen then ?

Now, I call your attention to a matter of the greatest

American interest and importance which has just come to my

Steel Trust, knowledge. In a letter recently published in the

Times, a. correspondent calls attention to an interview

which was held in Philadelphia, and published in the Philadelphia

Ledger, the great newspaper of that city, between a diiector of the

American Steel Trust and the reporter. The American Steel Trust

ii the greatest of all the American Trusts. It produces at the

present tiihe 2b,ooo;ooo tons of steel per annum— a very much j;,reater

quantity than is prbdaced in this country. The . director told the

reporter that trade was faUing off. There are many reasons for that.
52

Financial difficulties in America seem likely to hasten the result.
