Mower County transcript. [volume] (Lansing, Minn.) 1868-1915, 1883-04-25
The n. Y. Sun Tariff Platform.

The n. Y. Sun Tariff Platform.
EDITOR OF TRANscR1pT:-A late num-
Der of your widc-awake paper contains
the following platform from the n y.
| Sun:
|. tariff for revenue only
Ii. The tariff the only source, of
revenue.
These propositions are not new or gen
orally misunderstood. The first means
free trade; the second, free whiskcy and
tobacco; both combined, democratic
party. 1t seems that the disastrous de-
feat OF Hancock has not yet convinced his
party of the folly of trusting in the
doctrine of free trade. Strenuous efforts
are being made in every direction to
arouse hostility to a principle of political
economy, which has transformed Ameri-
cans from an importing to an exporting
people. The day of theorists and windy
debaters on protective tariff has gone for
ever. Facts are now the champion. and
they are invinciblc wherever hearing is
granted them.
Robert P. Porter, member of the late
tariff commission, is now in England
making thorough examination Of the ef
| fects Of free trade as manifested in the
condition of the working classes the rate
of wages paid, and the growth of manu-
featuring interests. His letters to the n.
Y. Tribune are wonderfully interesting
and terribly convincing. l wish every
| one of your readers could pcruse them.
They are unanswered, unalluded to by
the n. Y. Sun and its free trade contcm-
poraries. From recent letter concern
ing Leeds and its workmen wish to make
few extracts in order to show the nature
| of these letters and to invite your readers
to contemplate the comforts of a country
whose chief tenet of economies is free
trade.
The manufacturing quarters of the city
are grade higher than kirkgate. 1n the
neighborhood of the iron works the hands
live in small houses, consisting of one
general room, a scullery, and couple of
bedrooms, for which they pay at least
one seventh, sometimes oncsiXth, of their
weekly earnings. The actual earnings,
Of a skilled workman rarely reach $6.25,
and seldom ever exceed $3.50. He lives
on the coarsest food; bacon ut sixteen
cents a pound bullock's liver or heart at
ten cents and twelve cents pound, pota-
toes and bread and tea. Cabbage is the
only vegetable within his means besides
potatoes. After the food has been bought
and the groceries and the rent paid, and
the club dues and the Burial Society and
the Trade Union dues paid, he has hardly
anything left to buy clothing. 1t mat
tiers little to the workman here what the
prices of clothes are; he cannot afford to
do any more than keep his family shod,
gowns-both of which articles of clothing
are no cheaper here than in the United
States, excepting possibly in cases mot IN
Frequently where wooden shoes are worn.
The following were copied by Mr.. Por-
ter from the books of several large fac:
tories:
William Foster: Felter, cloth mill; ave-
rage weekly earnings 16s., or less than
four dollars; wife, two children, aged
three and seven years; pays Is. Sd. week
for rent.
James Gill: Cloth warehouseman;
wages 30s, or seven dollars and half a
week; wife, and three children, three, four
and six years OF age; pays 5s., or $1.25,
week rent, and Is. week for boy in re-
formatory,
William Porter: laborer; weekly earn
ings 1885,, or less than four dollars and a
half; wife and one child; pays S. 4d., or
SO cents, q week for rent.
Inspector Wheatley says that from his
experience of fifteen years he should have
no hesitancy in swearing that the average
actual earnings of laboring men in Leeds
were 1Ss. week, or less than four dol
lars and half; that they would under
the most favorable circumstances not
work over fifty weeks in the year.
John Rydall: miller; widower, two
dollars week; lives in lodgings at 1885,,
or IS % a week; both children in indus
trial school.
jaime Wilson: engine tender; wife and
four children; weekly wages 25s., or about
six dollars; pays 81. 3d., or S8 cents, a
week rent.
Emma Miller: Carpet-maker; two
children, nine and sixteen years of age;
eldest girl earns, on average, 5s. week
in mills; in full work earns IDS. herself
total less than five dollars; pays IS. a week
rent.
Patrick Chills Glazier; wife and five
children, age, seven, nine, fourteen. six
teen and eighteen years; three children
working earning respectively 3s 3d., 6s.,
and g.. fathers earnings uncertain, from
los. to eos. ; the total earnings of the entire
family rarely exceeding seven dollars and
half, four working; they all lived to-
gether in poor house; rent, 3s Sd. a
week.
These are but few of the many which
Mr.. Porter collected at random out of
thousands of cases, not>only at Leeds, but
also at other large manufacturing places.
The following speaks volume of argu-
ment:
"ln your fifteen years experience"
said to Inspector Wheat]ey, "in which
your jurisdiction has extended all over the
borough of Leeds, embracing, as it does,
800, 900 of the most thrifty industrial pop
ulation in England, did you ever know
the ordinary workingman to own the
| house in which he lived, and the ground
| on which it stands? I mean the skilled
artisan, the mechanic, the engineer, the
carpenter, the mason and the like
IF l was on my oath in court, sir, !"
earnestly replled the Inspector, Il should
be obliged to answer, in my experience,
never"
To this I wish to add little knowledge
of my own. Among MY acquaintance is
shrewd Englishman, who has lived one
year in this country, and who is, as all
Englishmen are, a virulent free trader
and good hater of the U. s. for it's pro-
tective tariff. The following converse
ton occurred between US not long ago:
''Mr. j., if free trade be panacea for
all national and commercial ills, why did
you not remain in England?"
Because, on account of the land
laws, one cannot have home of his
own"
"Is it not true that if houses and lots