Morning journal and courier., 1882-09-08

EDWARD ATKINSON ON WAGES.
 In his address at the opening of the exhi- bition of the New England Manufacturers and Mechanics Institute Mr. Edward Atkin- son said a great many notable things. Among them were his remarks about wages.
 He laid down this proposition: So long as freedom of contract is not restricted or ob- structed by statute law so long as laws are enacted only for the enforcement of justice and order, the prevention of crime and pun ishment of fraud, and the accomplishment of purposes which cannot be worked by indi- viduals, it will be found that high wages or earnings are almost the necessary correlativs of low cost of production and not, as is so
 be compassed by way of low wages. Hs also said: The rate of wages or earnings of the masses of the people who are of necessity
 engaged in their daily work for their daily
 bread will be high or low (always assuming an honest specie standard for the money in which the sum of wages is to be expressed) |: CD According to the conditions and re- sources of the country in which the labor is exarted (2) according to the freedom of that country from statutes under which the ! liberty of the individual is restricted; (3) ! according to the freedom of that country from the imposition of taxes by which large portion of the products of labor are diverted from the remuneration either of labor or ! capital, and applied to what may be
 named (for the purposes of this considera
 tion) destructive taxation (that Is, taxation to support great armies and navies.)
 l This country, Mir. Atkinson thinks has the ] advantage over all others in the variety and ! extent of it's natural resources, capable of ! being worked with the least exertion or ssf- fort in the fact that In some sections of tho country, and presently in all, the systems of common education, even if still imperfect, yet on the whole do qualify pupils to apply the greatest versatility and to combine men
 tai and manual capacity at least somewhat more completely than in most other coun- tries; in our absolute and paramount advan- tage in being free from destructive taxation From all these advantages, he says, it follows
 that both the wages of labor and the remu-
 neration of capital in this country must be greater ill proportion to the effort used than in any other section of the worlds surface; and that these facts themselves prove that the cost of production-in other words, the labor expended in productive service-is less in ratio to product than it can be anywhere else. Therefore our high wages are but the sign and proof of low cost, and we may command the commerce of the world, if we so elect.
 We may exchange the product of 6 single days work of machinery, directed by one man, for fifty or one hundred days product of those who are still obliged to follow pursuits to which either their ignorance, their baokwardness in the use of machinery, or want of opportu- nifty, prevents the application of their labor under favorable conditions. We may obtain the product of perhaps fifty days labor in the coffee plantations of South America or of Java; or one hundred days labor in the tea
 fields or mulberry groves of China; or twen- ty days labor in the sugar plantations of Cuba or the hemp fields of Manila or ten days labor in the wool growing sections of South America and Australia-for the work of single man or woman directing machin- cry operated by steam or water power. By means of such exchange, we can increase the quantity of things to be divided among our own people, while conferring benefit even upon those with whom we exchange, who without our demand could perhaps make no disposition even of the surplus of their hand work; thus both parties vastly benefited and commerce becomes the measure of intel 1igeHce, of civilization and of wealth
 This will not please the rabid protectisn- ists, who believe or profess to believe that protection makes wages high in this country.
 Pv7f Sc o,3k t0 arguments can be successfully answered