The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-09-04
The A B G. of Finance.
The Money Question Made Clear.
IN. Y. Tribane.l
XHT-


XIII.
HOW MORE MONEY CUTS DOWN WAGES.
The idea that cheap money brings high wages
deceives many laborers. Sharp experience
should have taught them, long ago. to look be-
hind the number to the real value Of the dol
lars paid. 1t is not in flush ''times,'' as bank
records prove, that labor adds most to its say
ings. 1t is not at such times that strikes are
rare and laborers c3ntented Labor never
really prospers, except when the cost of living
is low, and but little changed from month to
month Then only can worlmen get wages
enough to meet their needs, and to leave them
something besides for rainy day. Then only
do care and thrift prevail. For the workers,
there is inevitable mischief in all sharp
changes The cost of living alters suddenly,
but wages change slowly. Sudden changes
for the better breel habits of extravagance, as
surely as warm, m DIST weather starts weeds in
a neglected garden. With sudden changes for
the worse, labor is pinched, and strikes, in
which it loses both time and savings, at once
become frequent. How can labor thrive under
the violent changes which cheap money surely
brings? As well expect andsmen at sea to
have quiet stomachs during storm.
Would 81 900 day in Confederate notes
be high wages? Of course not, for the paper
would buy nothing. Wages do not mean bits
of paper, but bread and meat clothing ard
rent. Capitalists can put away doubtful dol
lars in q safe, and wait in the hope that they
may become good. But laborers have to use
their dollars at once in buying, and if they buy
little, wages are low, matter how many bits
of paper called dollars may be paid. High
wages in the true sense, mean wages that will
buy large supply of the necessarics of life.
Rut men who want cheap money want it on
purpose to make high prices, General Ewing
for lands, coal and ircu. and Scion Chase for
steers and hogs, beef, pork, grain and vege-
tables. That is, they want to cot down the
wages of workingmen. Mr.. Chase finds fault
because, from cattle such as his, workingmen
get steaks at 20 cents a pound, and wants to
so back to cheap money, so that they may have
to pay 40 cents. With other things 10 match,
that would reduce their wages just one-half.
But can they get no increase? After a time,
but even then never enough to escape loss
This is no theory. Experience has been teach
ing the lesson for seventeen years, that cheap
money always puts up prices more than wages,
and thus makes wages really smaller. Official
reports of the Labor Bureau of Massachusetts.
of the Hon. ID. A. Wells when United States
Special Commissioner of the Revenue, and of
the Bureau of Statistics on Labor in Europe
and America, give the facts in vast body.
They prove, in brief, that wages rose 60 per
cent. with imitation from 1860 to 1867, but retail
prices rose 80 per cent. After brief contrac-
ton, the initiation continued until the crash in
1873, though the paper dollar became more
valuable with Republican victories and the
rising credit of the nation But in 1872 wages
were 365 per cent. higher than in 1860, while
retail prices were nearly 81 per cent. higher
Now we have returned to the hard money
basis But wages are al per cent. higher
than in 1850 while retail prices only AZ
per cent. higher. The meaning of these fig
ures is this: If the wages paid in 1860 would
buy 10000 pounds of articles embracing all the |
necessaries of life, in proportion as ordinarily |
used, then the wages of 1867 would buy only |
S, l21 pounds, in like proportion. and the wages |
of 1872 would buy only $3.50 pounds while
the wages of 1879 would buy Il, S65 pounds
That is, the workingmen could buy 0ne-eigbh
less in quantities of things needed, with the
"higher" wages of 1867, and nearly one-third
less with the higher wages of 1872, than with
the wages of 1860. But they can now buy,
with Clover" wages, over one-taceltM more
than they could buy with the wages of 1860.
In these few figures is given the meat of many |
elaborate official reports. Cheap money ac-
tually cut down the wages of workngmen one
sixth by 1867, and one-third by 1872 No Won
der the panic came! And yet some working
men hope that cheap money will give them
"higher wages again" Hard money has
really raised the pay of workingmen, in the |
quantities OF supplies which wages will buy, |
more than one-third since 1872. No wonder |
the hope and energy of labor are now reviving. |
Yet there are some who want more money and |
less bread.
This cutting down Of wages by cheap money, |
it is well to see, is largely because of the wider
gap which cheap money makes between retail |
and wholesale prices. According to the records |
of the Journal of Commerce, which embrace |
wholesale prices OF about sixty chief articles of
commerce, the sum required at different times |
to buy hike quantities of them all would have |
been S100, May l, 1861 1889, May /, 1867; Sl3S, |
May l, 1872, and $S1. Nov. |, 1878. But the |
retail prices, as gathered from the reports |
above named, compare thus: