How much had the Dingley Bill to do with this great outpouring of wealth? It certainly did not cause it. A wave of prosperity was sweeping around the globe, as one of depression had from 1891 to 1897; England, Germany, France, and the Orient, shared in the blessings. The Dingley Bill could neither retard nor accelerate this. It could not and did not grow a potato or produce a gold nugget, but it no doubt did cause more of the materials we were producing to be manufactured at home than would have been done under the Wilson Bill. Without it much of the capital and labor given to manufacturing would have gone to agricultural uses and commerce. Sheltered from competition, men aimed to make in the country all that a highly prosperous home market would consume of necessaries, of novelties, of ingenious conveniences, and of luxuries. The Dingley Bill relieved the manufacturer of the necessity of considering what was doing in his trade in other nations. This enormous advantage enticed more capital proportionally than into other lines of industry. And as the industry expanded, immigration was excited. Manufacturing as conducted to-day requires much cheap labor. Save in the skilled work where comparatively few are needed, American labor—naturalized foreign labor, will not stay long. Immigration was necessary in order to supply the cheap labor the textile and the steel and iron industries needed. That is, the Dingley Bill may be credited with adding two or three hundred thousand consumers yearly to our domestic market. The value of this addition is doubtful when we examine the standard of living of the immigrants, the amount of their earnings sent home, and the large proportion of those who are transient, that is, who return to their native land to end their days: just what this proportion is, it is impossible to say, but something of its size may be judged from the steerage passengers sailing annually from the ports of the United States. In 1900, for instance, 448,572 persons came in by steerage, and 293,404 went out. In 1905 1,026,494 came in, and 536,151 went out. The value of the increase in the size of the domestic market, which may fairly be credited to the Dingley Bill, is less impressive also when it is compared with the value of the markets of many millions we might have been conquering at this time if we had had the shipping on the seas which we once had, and which, as already has been seen, we have destroyed by prohibitive tariffs on iron and steel and lumber, and by hampering navigation laws.