The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1882-04-05
Wednesday. April 5. 1889.
FREE TRADE-A HOME SHOT

| We see free trade clubs being organized
| in different parts of Iowa to spread intelli
gence concerning that theory. We hope they
will make plain to US where the money is
| to come from TO pay civil service expenses
pensions and interest on the national debt
| if it is not levied on imports, and also how
cotton and silk goods are to be manufac-
| tured here while labor and capital are
| higher than in Europe. Whether they
| would let sugar in free from Cuba made
with slave labor, and whether it is best to
| let our flax rot and bring jute from India.
| Free trade is a beautiful theory, but it never
works wei unless in connection with cheap
| labor. We can have it here, but the work
man must let his beefsteak go as he does
in other free trade lands and we must keep
standing army to discipline them, like
other free trade countries. The American
way of filing peoples stomachs to keep
them quiet is no doubt vulgar, but it is eff
fectual. Ours is the most prosperous ma
ton on earth and the strongest protective
of the laborer.-Traer Clipper
1t seems pitiful that gentleman as in
telligent as ex-Congressman Wilson should
feel called upon to debase himself by up
holding the monster monopoly of the age
by such argument
of our tariff which supplements internal
taxation in providing revenue to pay the
expenses of the government. But we DO
impeach the pr0tectiue part of this tariff
which taxes six hundred millions year
out of the people of this country to enrich
a small monopoly of manufacturers Did
congressman Wilson hear of single labor
strike in this country between 1850 and
1860, ten years in which we had "a tariff
for revenue only and decade in which
mercial nations? No standing army was
required to keep our laborers down, there
was one pauper then where there are TWEEN
ty now, wealth created by labor was even
ly distributed, there were few millionalres
but millions of well to do The colossal
fortunes, now measured by from ten to a
hundred millions of dollars in the hands of
single individuals, were then unknown.
Corporate wealth had not crowded person
al enterprise out of existence, and the la
borer got larger return than he has had
since or will have again under our present
system of monopoly.
Germany is as strongly protected in its
commercial policy as the United States and
if protection cause high wages and general
these should prevail there to an
i1lustrious degree. An Englishman writ
ing from Germany to the Pail Mall Gazette
says:
tn, oil 1o1 nr find
the scale of payment extraordinarily low.
The cost Of day labor is two shillings, |
whereas in French agricultural districts it |
is four, with the addition of wine. Call in |
a carpenter to do repairs, send your trunk |
to be mended, your boots to be soled, you
will find the scale of charges about half
what it is with us. OF course it is easy to /
understand why an economical style of |
living should be obligatory on all classes
throughout Germany, aqd why so many
workers in all fields seek their fortunes /
elsewhere. Work, i'll remunerated as it is,
can often not be had large families abound,
and the excessive taxation presses on the
poorest. Even the beggar who pays for a
weekly lodging and has certain where
abouts, contributes his might to the dread
I'd ssSteuer,n or Tax, no more to be escaped
than the even more dreaded military pro-
baton.
Yes, life is hard in Germany-hard alike
,olearned and simple, to those who labor
N the fields or pent up in cities.
Whatever advantages labor enjoys in
Englsnd, over the continent, is due to
english free trade. for labor in Europe
Ioes not, in any country, command as high
price as in this Republic. Mr.. Wilson
viii know. upon moments reflection, the
yalue to the laborer or the price of his
lays work depends upon the amount it
will buy of the things he needs to live up
N. Wages in mining camp may be $5
yer day and the cost of living may be
MOO per day, so the laborer is not any
,etter off than his fellow laborer in a har-
est field who earns S1.50 per day
nd spends fifty cents of it for his living.
Our protective tariff pays to laborers in ,