New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1871-12-28

In Great Britain, under the pressure OF
Christian efforts to improve the workmen, la
Dor is better to. day than ever before, but Brit
ish capitalists are struggling to retain control
of the iron markets of the world, and to crush
all foreign competition; and they are partially
succeeding in both, but only by exporting iron
Of the worst quality and cheapest cost, and 6y
grinding the price Of labor doton to the Lowest
possible hving point. Women are found In
the mills, doing mems work, at 80 cents day,
while men labor for 60 cents or less, and even
little children toll for few pennies, to help
keep the family above the swelling ranks Of
pauperism.
No wonder that the British workmen is des-
ponding and hopeless. He knows that he has
no chance in the race of life, and We can but
refer to his straw rooted howell, his black bread
and meagre fare, the habitual drunkenness OF
himself and often of his family; his ragged,
uneducated and vicious children, his ignorance
and gross superstition, his sbject poverty and
dependence, his deeply seated vices, and often
his fearful crimes
This is dark picture, and God forbid that
American workmen, by low wages and unsteady
employment should ever be so reduced. And
yet zoe cannot be blind to the fact that the
| whole tendency Of things today as to,oards a
reduction in the price IF labor 1t is evident,
therefore, that home products cannot compete
with the products of foreign labor, while home
labor receives twice the pay for the same work.
| The recent reduction OF 81 per ton on the
duty upon pig iron has done much to democrat
ize the iron business. just about enough iron
has been sent here at the reduced duty 10 break
down our market. Nearly the whole 81 ton
has been added to the profits OF the aristocratic
manufacturers of the country. Now, with a
prospective decline Of gold to par, and threat
ened further reduction of the tariff, with out
rageous evasions and violations of existing laws
| in our custom houses, constant fluctuations in
all values whenever it suits the purposes of the
| gold gamblers, and the arrival almost daily
upon our shores of cargoes of inferior foreign
iron, it is not difficult to understand why the
cry comes from every quarter of dull trade and
Improbable business.
| Some of us can remember the dark days of
l841 preceding the increased tariff on iron,
when, to save workmen from actual suffering,
the iron masters of Pennsylvania printed and
circulated due bills, redeemable months after
ward in amounts of 10 cents and upward.
Free trade did it then, and free trade will do
it again, carrying in its wake devastation and
ruin to all branches Of home industry. We
can find a remedy for this in an increased duty
npon iron and all other products of foreign
labor which compete directly with the products
of American labor.
And just here we can remind our lawmakers
that the British manufacturers, wi tn all their
free trade theories, are at present struggling to
obtain "protection" against the cheaper pro-
duets of Belgian labor. We claim the same
protection" against the products Of the pau
per labor of Britain. What protection we now
have did not prevent the Importation of 40 per
cent. Of all the iron consumed in the United
States ia 1870 while some of our American
mills were permanently stopped, and others
remained idle part Of the year, from inability
to compete with inferior foreign iron.
Daring the first year, under the operation Of
our reduced tariff on iron referred to above, not
less than half million tons of railroad iron
were imported into this country from Great
Britain. Each ton of this iron required twenty
seven days labor, or thirteen million five hun
dred days work in all, which, at an average of
So day, would have put over SAC. O00. 900 into
the pockets OF American workmen. AS it is,
this vast sum, all in gold was sent to Europe
to pay foreign laborers, and to enrich foreign
capitalists instead of our own. We will close
with the following: