Daily Davenport Democrat

Train on Free Trade.

George Francis Train delivered a lecture in Chicago, on free trade and protection, a few evenings since. In the course of his argument he used the following illustration: "To show the absurdity of this whole free trade idea, I will speak for Nebraska. I am now a resident of Omaha, Nebraska, and I am working to open the Platte Valley. There are splendid waterfalls there, on the Loup Fork and the Maple creek. Now, I say, let a farmer have a thousand sheep on the splendid pastures there. I kill them, get the wool, put it on board of the Pacific Railroad, take it to Omaha, and thence with change after change, to New York, where it is shipped on an English vessel, probably to Liverpool, whence it goes thirty miles to Manchester, from where they send it to Leeds and Bradford. Here it is manufactured, baled, and sent back to Nebraska, where the poor shepherd who grew the sheep has been waiting twelve months for coat, trousers, and vest. That is what these gentlemen are to-night recommending you to do. Do you recognize the picture?"

On another branch of the subject he said: There are 50,000 miles of rail in this country that will have to be re-rolled. Now the question is, are we to allow England to do this? I have been speaking to the working men of Pennsylvania on this subject; made thirty speeches in twelve days. In making the iron, 94 per cent. of the whole cost is absolute labor, wages to the working man. If we had wages as low as they are in Europe we could outsell them all, but that is not what I want. I want high wages. Certain people went to Washington and tried to have the clause stricken out of the Pacific Railroad bill requiring the rails to be of American iron, but I saw them, and said if they did anything of that sort I should defeat the bill."