The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1870-06-23
TIE CHINESE cORDWALNERS.
The Free Trade Question In New
Light.
From the New York World, June 2o.]

From the New York World, June 2ol
Among the revolutions wrought by the
wonderful expansion of the means of commu
nication and transit which is the most marvel
lous achievement Of our era, one of the most
striking is the emigration, now evidently set
ting in, from the most eastern East' to the
newest West. OF all the episodes In this great
epic which Is now beginning to be wrought
and which will not, for many generations, be
ready to be written, not one ls more startling
nor more Impressive than that Of which the
World this morning continues the chronicle
and which presents to us the disciples OF Con-
fucius as coming into joint tenancy with the
disciples of Calvin of the soil OF New England.
It Is not, however, alone by the strange con-
trast it calls up, nor by It's remoteness from
ordinary experience, THAT this initial incident
must give US pause. 1t is useless to endeavor
as yet to discern sRhat changes this inevitable
tide of an illimitable sea, Of which hardly the
first billow has as yet broken upon our shores,
will ultimately work In America. But there Is
which forces itself upon minds altogether dead
70 all sentimental aspects of the situation.
It is clear that these Cinnamon are imported
simply because they furnish cheap labor. They
do furnish the cheapest skilled labor In the
world. Whatever their hands find to do they
can do. And they can work, for . number OF
hours impossible to an American laborer or an
an American laborer would starve. This labor,
the cheanest in the world, available in unlim-
tied quantity and tor an unlimited period OF
time.to come, Is now brought, by the act OF
those who have been instrumental In import
ing these seventy-dve Chinese laborers into
Massachusetts,, into direct competition with
the dearest labor In the world, In that only
portion of the American continent which is SO
thlckly settled that the supply Of native labor
is so nearly adequate to the demand that the
Labor question" has already come to be q
practical and vexatious problem.
One of the most curious circumstances OF
this curious transaction is that the Massachu-
sets manufacturers are the most camorous
and greedy of all the clamorous and greedy
persons who demand, under pretence Of s'pro-
tecting American industry that Americans
shall not be permitted to buy their wares OF
those who will sell them cheaper than them
selves. These manufacturers are continually
calling upon Congress to handicap with an
enormous tax those products Of the "pauper
labor OF Europe which compete with their
own. And the particular Massachusetts manu-
facturers who have now brought into competi-
ton with the sspauper labor of Europe" the
immeasurably cheaper ''pauper labor" Of Asia,
have still the hardihood to call themselves
sspretectionists," and next winter we may
look to see them the loudest of any in insist
ing upon the raising Of the tariff In Ostensibe
behalf of that American labor which they are
at the same time doing their best 10 degrade
not only to an European, but to an Asatic
level. This shameless greed is Lne reductt0 dd
GbsurduDa Of protection.