The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-04-17
FREE TRADE VS.. PROTECTION.

Try
Mr.. Kelley-I decline to be interrupted /;
for am following current of thought
which will answer very well for the pre-
sentation of my views, and do not want
to be diverted from it by the ingenuity of
any Lieutenant of the gentleman who has
opened the war on the wages of American
labor. / may, however, say in passing
that | recognize mutton as wholesome food,
with which would keep the market well
supplied +; and wool-growing as an impor-
tant national interest that should be well
protected and fully developed.
If the purchasing power Of English
wages is, as the gentleman from Indiana
asserts, so much greater than the purchas-
ing power of American wages, why do SO
many English skilled laborers come to this
country? Why do no American laborers
migrate to England? Sir, gentleman
who was yesterday before the Committee
of Ways and Means, the mayor of the city
of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mr.. Hough-
ton, of the firm of Hurd & Houghton, told
us he had gone to England to get work.
men, when his office had yielded its able
bodied men to the demands of the war !;
and he found there the best COM
positors SO poor that they were not
able to pay their passage and come
with him. And he told us, further, that
he found in London one poor compositor
from Indiana, who having saved something
here, had gone over there to see the world,
and who having exhausted his American
earnings had found his wages so small that
he had been unable to save enough to pay
his passage home, although he had been
working steadily for more than two years.
He begged Mr.. Houghton to bring him to
this country, where, according to the gen.
tleman from Indiana (Mr. Kerr, the wages
received have not the same purchasing
power as those he had been earning in
England. How, if this assertion be true,
was he to repay the passage money to be
advanced?
This theory is mere fiction, sir, and
those who assert it cannot adduce any facts
which support it. Indeed, they maintain
their system of political economy in SUBJ
lime indifference to the lessons of history
and the course of current facts. You NAV
bring to man possessed, as the gentleman
from Indiana is, with a conviction of the
correctness Of his abstract theories all the
facts in the world, and he will answer them
with the remark of the French philosopher,
who, when told that his philosophy did not
agree with the facts of the case, answered,
- So much the worse, then, for the facts.n
You will not find an English working
man in America who will not tell you that
the purchasing power of current American
wages is vastly greater than that even of
the recently advanced rate paid in England.
An English sllk-weayer told the Commit
tee of Ways and Means a few days ago
that he had been at work in Macclesfeld
before the reciprocity treaty which closed
the silk factories in that town was con-
Cluded between France and England, and
that he was now at work at the same
branch OF business in Patterson, New Jer-
sey, in a factory employing the looms on
which he had worked in Maccleslield.
When asked to compare the wages he re-
ceived then and now, he answered thus
"Sir, | can now save more in year,
and have done it for years past,
than the whole of the earnings Of my
labor amounted to in year in England.'
Yes, sir, that mans net savings, the net re-
suits of his labor after all his expenses of
living are provided for, are greater than his
whole earnings were in England and he
now enjoys his meet every day as all Amer
lean workmen do, instead of once week
rs very many skilled English mechanics do
who are comparatively prosperous. Yes,
sir, while enjoying more generous diet
and educating his children an American
silk weaver can save more in the course of
year than the total amount of the gross
wages he could earn in England. But
what are facts like these to those who have
implicit faith in the inspired wisdom of the
teachings of free-trade revenue reform
Ma, ltal fNYl;l hot ,,,t =
of cheapness we should reduce the women
and girls of America to the condition of
those of Belgium and the Zollverein, and
may He, in His mercy, forever prevent any
portion of the children and women of
America from being reduced to the condi-
ton of those of Stafordshire and other
parts of England.
Sir, have you read the little book of
George Smith of Coalville, Leicestershire,
England, entitled 6 The Cry of the Children
from the Brick Yards of England 20 1t is
the most thrilling and loathsome story of
English inhumanity and suffering that
have read for years |; no fiction parallels it..
1t shows that children, girls in the fourth
year of their age, are not too young to be
employed in making the pottery:-wares and
bricks of England. And Mr.. Smiths story
is corroborated by the venerable Elihu Bur-
rift and correspondents of leading English
journals, whose statements are embodied in
his book.
Boys and girls above twelve years of
age are often required to walk over twenty
miles day, carrying from six to nine tons
Of wet clay half the distance. The dis
lance walked and the weight carried are
easily ascertained. They walk from a GER
tain bank to a certain table and the
amount of clay worked by the men or wo-
men they supply tells the weight they
carry, and the number of loads carried de-
termines the distance travelled. And fol
what do they thus labor? A few pence a
day the best workers the adults
getting but from one to three shil-
hngs day. | commend the book
TO the attention of the gentleman from
Indiana, (Nlr. Kerr,) and ask him whether
in addition to turning girls and women into
the ore banks and coal mines of Indiana il
order to obtain cheap iron and steel, he will
also take infants, too young for school, and
employ them in the drudgery of American
potteries and brck-yards; for if he is 60
ing to burden our industries with perma
nent system of internal taxes, and contend
with England and the continent for cheap
ness, these consequences are all involved
Now, sir, if tariff and tax law should
be adopted such as the gentleman's speed
-fI +