Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-11-25
Wages and PROJECTION


) 1t is scarcely credible that the manufac-
turers of the country deliberately kept
wages up until election was over at a
higher rate than their business would
warrant merely TO furnish the organs and
advocates of protection with some support
for their argument that protection insures
high wages. Yet if one were inclined to
charge the manufacturers with so doing,
there is evidence enough to make the
charge very plausible. The election was
less than fortnight old when the Iron
dHd Steel Bulletin published the follow
ing:
To-day the condition of our iron and
steel industries is one of marked and in
creasing depression. and it indicates that
in the near future other industries must
be iniuriOusly affected and that lower
wages viii be paid for labor. We have
said. and With great regret, that wages
must be reduced. The reduction has
already commenced. The workmen con-
nected with the Bessemer Steel
Works at Chicago, Joliet and ST.
Louis have consented to a reduc-
tiOn of twenty per cent. Reductions at
other Bessemer works must soon follow.
if indeed they have not already been
made. We trust that the reduction in
wages which has been rendered neces-
sarv in our Bessemer steel works, and
NAV be rendered necessary in other
branches of our iron and steel industries.
will he patiently accepted. While we
say this we add. however. the additional
hope that our iron and steel manufac-
turers viii thOughtfully consider the
wants at the beginning Of winter of poor
men with families to support. Unskilled
labOrers, who always have hard work to
make both ends meet, are especially de-
serving of consideration in any Teadjust-
ment of wages that may be made.'
Now. if there is any trade in which the
doctrine that protection means high wages
should prove true, if true at all, it is the
iron aud steel trade. 1T has had all the
protection which those most deeply inter-
ested in il demanded, The manufac-
turers of steel rails for years have been
projected by a duty of $2S per ton. Under
that duty they have been able to
get S43 ton for their product when
the foreign made article cost but $27 90.
Whenever this large profit has been re-
ferred to, and attention invited to the
enormous tax imposed upon the people,
and notably on the grain producers to pay
this profit. the protectionists have clam
ored that most of it went into the pockets
of the wOrkingmen.
If this clamOT had any foundation, why
should not the wOrkingmen's pockets con-
tiune 10 be intlatedg There is just as
much protection as ever. No change
whatever has been made IN the tarlti. Ine
dutv is still twenty-eight dollars a ton.
WHY. then. should the wages of the work
men i'm the steel rail business, and all kin
bred branches of business, be cut down at
the very time when. with winter coming
ON. they have especiaI need Of good wages?
Is it not because the whole theory that
protection enhances wages is sham, a
delusion and a cheat? Is there any other
possible explanation? If there Is, II Is
earnestly TO sc hoped the protectionlsts
will make it as promPtly as may De.
Thousands of workingmen throughout the
country will be very glad to hear why
their friend and wage-raiser. the prOtec-
tvs system, has deserted them at this
critical moment. after they have been so
persistently taught to regard the system
in that benevolent light.
And If the prOtectiOnists cannot explain,
win they not frankly admit that they have
been cheating and deluding the working
man. and that the wages paid il protected
as in UNPROTECTED industries depend upon
causes with which the protective system
has nothing to dOs That much of repara-
iiOn at least they owe to the men they
have so grossly deceived