The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1873-05-03

REFORMATION WANTED.-Will The STATE JOUR
NAL please explain why the principle of "p1otec-
ton to industry" which is so excellent when
applied to rich manufacturers, becomes obnox-
ious when legitimately carried out by poor
printers in their trades unions Y-SouthSfde Vtr-
9tzaidn
We are disposed to answer the above
inquiry fairly, and without any leap in
logic if we can help it. The fallacy of our
contemporaries formulated question con-
sists in assuming premise involving a
conclusion, and then seeking from the con-
clusion to deduce the premise, when the
latter has no logical connection whatever
with the former which is clearly case of
petite praacipii, or begging of the
question. In the first place
protection" as principle of politi-
cal economy, is applied to production
only, not to labor. 1t must relate to some
branch Of manufacture or some product Of
human labor, and not to mere labor itself.
The product may possibly gauge the
amount of labor expended upon it, but to
protect labor without reference to what it
may produce, would be to protectan abstrac-
ton, or, what would be worse still, piece
of wasted idlcness. A man may labor,
we take it, in tearing down and destroying
property but it is only labor directed to
productive industry--to the accumulation
of wealth in a nation-which is entitled
TO protection, and which receives it, incl
dentally, as applied to production.
Our Southside contemporary is exceed
ingly unhappy in juxtaposizing the words
poor" and "rich." Its own propretors
are the manufacturers of newspapers, !"
and, if editors also, may sometimes be the
manufacturers of news !" and are they, as
provincial journalists, necessarily rich,
and the printers who work for them at
Union prices, and earn their twenty and
thirty dollars week, necessarily poor?
This proposition will hardly be affirmed !;
certainly it will not be considered as le-
climate deduction from any premise infer
entially laid down in the inquiry made of
us. On the contrary, we assert that 'sprin-
tiers in their trades unions" are the best
paid class Of newspaper men in THE coun-
try, and ought to be the richest. A smart
boy may go into a printing Office, and, after
six-months' apprenticeship. earn his eight
and ten dollars week, and in very short
time afterwards, his fifteen and twenty
dollars. 1t costs him to get his profession
notso much even as his victuals and clothes
for the meanest "deviP' in newspaper Of
flee is expected to receive something in the
shape OF compensation.
But how is it with the poor manufac-
turer of newspapers If he be an editor,
and such an editor as he ought to be, it has
cost him good six or eight years tug at the
college and university, or an amount of
study and acquisition equivalent to such a
tug, with an outlay Of, possibly, thousands
upon thousands of dollars, before he can
even begin 10 write respectfully for news
paper, if it be leading daily one and even
then he may not earn as much money as a
=" rat !" who has cleyerly gnawed his way up
to the !" case" without any apprenticeship
whatever. We have known young men
who had graduated with the highest
honors at American colleges, and
subsequently taken full university
course in Germany-those gifted with genius
of high order as we'll as graced with all
the refinement and learning of the schools
who received their fifteen dollars a week as
''localso and reporters on the leading New
York daily papers, while these ''poor prin-
ters in their trades unionsn received
their twenty-five and thirty dollars a
week.
The fact is that protection, so far as it
has tendency to lift up one branch Of in
dustry, pulls up all related branches with it.
A new demand is made for labor in other
than the protected or upliited branch !;
and, uniformly, the remuneration of
labor exceeds the relatively advanced
profits on manufactured products,
whether they be newspapers, pig
ron, steam boilers, or rat-traps. The
wages Of printers have advanced fully
eighty-fve per cent. since 1860, while the
price of newspapers has not increase thir-
ty-five per cent. We not only respect
but have very high appreciation Of
printers as class !; and do not know why
they were singled out for our considera-
ton in the poyerty-stricken comparison
made Of them by our provincial contempo-
rary. We deny their poverty or the
wretchedness Of their compensation as
compared with other laborers; and we
more enphatically deny that the protec-
ton extended to paper and newspaper
manufacturers, however rich or poor they
may be in fact, has ever operated to a
printers detriment, or advanced the inter-
ests of his. employers in any larger per
cent. of profit than his own.
The truth in regard to protection is this:
1t enhances the price of labor just in pro-
portion as it diyersiGes industry, and
creates demand for skilled laborers, and
market for their products. Before we
had this diversified industry, which was
first called into existence by the impose
ton of protective duties, the average price
of labor was less per month than it now
is per week and this would be the con-
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