Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-10
There is in the cotton goods pamphlet

There is in the cotton goods pamphlet
another very significant showing. The Pro-
tectionists have always asserted that one OF
the main Qualifications of their system was
its effect IN maintaining the wages Of the
American mechanic. But comparison of
the wages paid in the cotton mills OF Ian.
cashire and those of Massachusetts, proves
that American wages are very little II at
all higher than English wages, while
American hours are the longest. 1t must
be said further, for Mr.. Blaine is honest
enough to make the statement himself, that
the wages in Massachusetts, are higher, and
the hours shorter, than in American mills
elsewhere, and if allowance is made for
this it is impossible to avoid the conclusion
that the American cotton operative is if
anything less favorably situated than his
English brother. Mr.. Blaine claims, and
probably with justice, that the American
machinery is more efficient than the Eng
lish. Yet with this superior machinery /;
with the raw material at our doors with
protection to home industry with equal
output for wages the American goods cost
twice as much as the English. Mr.. Blaine
makes an effort to show that our goods are
superior in quality. This may be the case
with regard to some kinds Of cotton goods,
but it is evident that our manufacturers
and merchants are called upon to supply
foreign demands upon fixed standards, and
that they are not called upon to alter these
standards even for the sake of imagined I'M
provements. It is their business, in short,
to sell what their customers want, and it is
not their business to dictate what those
customers shall purchase.
And now, what good would a subsidized
merchant marine do in extending our mar
ket for cotton goods? The Protectionists
want Congress to pay ships bounties to
send to Brazil and South America and
China and Japan and all the rest Of the
places where American goods are not ap-
preciated, because they are too dear. Mr..
Blaine tells us that American cotton goods
are twice as costly as English cotton goods.
Can that fact be overcome by substituting
ships? When the subsidized ships carry
our protected cotton to Brazil, for instance,
it will be brought in competition with the
English article, just as good, and costing
only half the money. VIII the Braz;lians
prefer our goods under those circumstances !?
Mr.. Blaine processes to think that England
is so successful abroad because of her
splendid merchant marine. No doubt it
is very good thing for country to be
able to do its own carrying trade, but
England's ships would be powerless to
extend her foreign trade unless she was
able to undersell all the rest of the world
in foreign markets. This Free Trade has
enabled her to do, and be it observed and
remembered that after all the falsehoods of
the Protectionists, she pays her mechanics
as good wages as do our protected
manufacturers.
Even if the wages of the American me:
chanics were higher, however, the fact
could not Justify the imposition of
protective duties. There are only $780,
900 American cotton operatives altogether.
There are less than 100000 American
workingmen of ell kinds dependent d.
rectly and indirectly upon protected :"
manufactures. To force 100000 of
people to pay part of their earnings in order
to raise the wages of 100000, is a
wrong which never would be tolerated if the
public at large understood the case. The
Protectionists, however, have lied so
boldly, and have employed the humbug-
ging pretense of being the special
friends of American industry 60 adroitly,
that they hoodwinked the majority, and it
is only by slow degrees that the producers,
who never had or can have any pro-
" lection are waking up to realization
of the outrage being perpetrated upon
them. We should like to distribute a
hundred thousand copies or so of Mr..
Blaine's very convincing pamphlet on
the cotton goods trade, for we think it en-
bodies as powerful and conclusive an ex-
pesure of the fallacies of Protection as ever
David A. Wells or John Stuart Mill or any
other Free-Trader has written.