Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1878-09-09
From the New York Tribune.
''Fiat" Money RObs the Working
man.

Flood the corptry with ''fiat money!
give to prices an upward tendency and the
wages of labor will be increased-ihus it
is that the working people Of this country
are appealed to by the infationists. both
democrats and nationalists 1t is undoubt.
eddy true that revival of business, even
though it should be only temporary-a
bubble blown up by speculation and sure
to burst at the very time when its collapse
will be most disastrous-w ould. for time
affect the price of wages. as 1t would that
of almost every other commodity pur-
chased or sold in the market, but it does
not, by any means, follow that the work.
ing man would be benefited thereby.
The most superficial study of the laws
governing prices discloses the fact that
the same causes or sets OF causes affect in
greatly differing degrees the market val
ues of stap'e articles OF commerce. The
prices Of some commodities seem to be
remarkably sensitive, while those of 9TH
ers are very stable. changing only when
violent disturbances take place, or when
a new order Of things affecting values has
become firmly established. Fluctuations
in rates of wages (,he prices paid for Ia
bor) are less frequent and less violent
than those of almost any article that is
bought or sold. The price of cotton or
wheat may change every day In the year,
and several times in day; it may advance
or decline rs per cent. on account of in
jury to the crop or an unusual supply
abroad, but the wages OF the plantation
hand and of the farm laborer are fixed at
the beginning of the season, and are not
changed with the varying price of the ar
ticles they help to produce. The same is
true of the wages Of mechanics and OPP
orators employed in manufactures their
wages remain substantially the same when
markets are brisk and when they are dull,
when capital realizes large profits and
when II sustains losses. Wages always
remain unchanged long after the prices of
other things seem permanently to have adj
vanced or'declIned unless they are affect
ed by demand for particular kind of
labor that 1t is difficult to supply, or by
supply that is greater than the demand.
Not only is the price of labor less mo-
bile than that of other things, but its Huc-
tuations are Invariably less 10 degree than
those Of the necessar,es Of life. Every
one will remember our own experience
during the war and Immediately after its
close. There was scarcely an article of
provisions or clothing that did not advance
in price far more rapidly and in much
greater ratio than the wages of labor. al
though there were from 1861 to 1865 ex-
ceptional causes in the Withdrawal of hun
dreds Of thousands Of men from pr oduct-
i've industries TO push up wages more rap
idly than they would naturally have ad-
vanced. Num- rous examples might be
cited to prove the truth of this assertion,
but single one will suffice.
-mouldersi in New England earned
| in 1860 about 81 week Their wages
gradually increased during the war and
the years that succeeded, until before the
panic in 1878. they We're paid ZIG week,
the increase being AS per cent. Now they
receive $l3 q week. In 1873 prices Of
commodities were much lower than they
had been in 1865 and 1865. and weeks
wages would for the first time purchase