Jeffersonian Republican. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1840-1853, 1849-02-15
a., From the Ne,o York Tribune.
Wages and Profits i'm ManufactO-
ricS..SOCial Anarchy.

| wages and Profits in ManufactO.
rics-.SOcial Anarchy.
The fact that many, if not most Manufacturing
Establishments throughout the country have re-
Gently reduced the Rates of Wages paid to their
Workers is attracting, it should attract, gener-
al attention. Let US consider it.
That the prices of our Domestic Manufactures
generally are lower and the difficulty Of selling
them greater than formerly, certainly needs no
demonstration. The Price Currents, the official
statements of importatons, furnish abundant proof
OF the fact. That iron-masters, for example, can
not afford to pay wages when their product is dull
at $40 per ton which they could very we'll afford
when the same article was quick at $50, surely
needs no intrinsic proof. And if former prices
were somehow maintained as quotations, yet the
home made fabrics were elhowed and jostled in
our markets by rival Foreign products, SO as to
render sales slow and difficult which formerly were
prompt and easy, that would operate as disadvan-
tageously as reduction of prices. A man en-
poying capital of 100000 in making Cotton
Sheetings, for instance, and able to sell every
yard at net profit of one mill as soon as it reach
es the market, can live and often thrive, when by
selling the same goods at five times that profit
but being obliged to wait year for market, he
would be ruined. An eager market, small profits
and quick returns are the elements of a healthy
and prosperous business.
But our markets are now glutted with foreign
fabrics sales are slowly and with difficulty eff
fected our warehouses are docked with unsod
products many factories are Stacking off their
! IL. L., i
already in the keeping of the Sheriff. All the
manufacturing establishments in the country could
to-day be bought for cost, and but for the hope of
National policy affecting them, could be bought
for great deal less. In this state Of things
with heavy stocks of their produts on hand and
unsaleabe, with scanty or no dividends on the
last years business, their books often showing
heavy losses instead, many of them have resorted
to the expedient of reducing the Wages of Labor.
This is in precise accordance with the theories
Of Political Economy which for some years have
prevailed in this country. All along it has been
proclaimed (see Buchanans speech in 1S40) that
the great obstacle to Manufacturing success and
stability here was the initiation of our Currency
and Prices-that the one way to protect and
money cost of the elements of Production so that
they might compete with their European rivals in
all the open markets of the world. Thus Says
Mr.. Buchanan) if piece of German cloth costs
$50, while a like piece Of American costs but
500, the only way to give the American maker a
| fair chance is TO reduce the cost of making the
article here to $50, and then he may defy compe-
tion. Of course, the partsans of this theory sell
dom say. in so many words, {" You must reduce
the Wages of Labor but they can't mean any
thing else. 70 reduce the cost of piece Of A.
merican cloth from 500 to $50 you must reduce
the cost of the Wool. the Carding, Spinning,
Weaving, Dyeing, &C. There is no other way.
Shutting out foreign competition will often reduce
prices by securing to our producers an ample
and quick market instead of partial and dull one
but to this the free traders are averse. They
could not have failed to see throughout that the
adoption of their theories involved serious re-
duction of the Wages of Labor.
/ But the moment that reduction becomes imper-
alive and begins to be effected, they set up gen.
eral howl at the iniquity and repacity of those on
whom is imposed the necessity of effecting it =!
| lney 1elgn Inauguration al NOSE Oh WHOM tlley
have cast the burhen of carrying this feature, this
essential result. of their policy into effect. Read
ing their journals listening to their speeches,
you would suppose that they had always opposed
and resisted the policy which renders this reduc-
ton inevitable.
To make this necessity manifest, only the sim
plest exercise, of honesty and common sense is
requisite Over in England, separated from us
but by ferry of eleven or twelve days, there are
thousands engaged in making cloths, which ripper
experience larger capitals, lower rates of interest
more extensive and therefore more economical
establishments, and in the average superior ma
chinery to those at the command of our manu-
facturers. The cost of whisking over fabrics is
scarcely worth mentioning. Now abolish. as near
ly as may be, the duties-and our thirty, twenty
FIVE and twenty per cent. advarloems, comes very
near especially in view ofthe thirty per cent
duty on Hemp and the coarse Foreign Wool from
which large portion of our coalser fabrics are
manufactured--and how is it possible that Amer
lean Wages should remain as they have been
from forty 10 one hundred per cent higher than