New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1883-07-09
INDUSTRIAL GERMANY.
eY ROBERT p. PORTER. MEMBER OF THE LATE
TARIFF COMMISSION
GERMAN PROTECTION AND ENGLISH FREE
TRADE CONTRASTED.

L
GERMAN PROTECTION AND ENGLISH FREE
TRADE CONTRASTED.
fyaoN A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT OF THE TnBUSHi
AIx-LA-CuAPELLE. Prussia, May ~.
There may be some persons curious enough 10 IN
quire why j should date letter on the general
economic condition Of the German Empire from
Ax-la-C or Aachcn. as tits called here why
not send such letter from Berlin or Frankfort. or
some moro central point The reply to such an In
curry is that in Germany. as in France and Eng
land, the manufacturing regions are In the
northwestern of the Empire and from this point
have been able to reach by rail, within An hour OF
two. nearly ell the important manufacturing Gen.
tres of Western Germany, from which districts were
sent last year 10 the United States about S3ZO OO
600 out of the S65, 100000 worth Of exports from
the whole of Germany. In the time already spent
In Germany have visited the principal consular
districts subordinate to the Consulate-General at
Frankfort-on-the-M Main. comprising what may be
called Western Germany. Before attempting de-
scripton of these manufacturing centres 1t Will De
interesting to take general view OF the subject
First to ascertain the present Industrial condition
of Germany, under Its new protective poncy, as
compared with the condition OF affairs which
exists in the industrial districts Of Great Britain
and SeCOn0, 10 compare buo COsJ VI i@o~h ~ou WV
soci al condition of the workingman In Germany
with that existing in the United States for 1t must
be borne in mind that the protective policy OF tho
United States is not affected by the difference IN
the cost of labor in Protective Germany and Free
Trade England but by the difference in the cost OF
labor and the social condition of the work-peopIe
of the Continent of Europe and the United States
The day the United States removes its present pro-
teotiye barriers it must enter into the race not
alone with England but with all Continental coun-
tres and it is that the masses Of ths people may
better understand the true character of this race
that these letters have been written.
tits true that shall be able to establish beyond
the possibility of contradiction that the industrial
progress of Germany since the Government aban-
doned the ruinous policy of Free Trade and 10
turned to judIclous Protection has been marked.
Wages have increased; old blast furnaces which
had become moss grown under Free Trade have
been relighted, new ones have been built. and
others are to-day in course of construction silent
spindles are humming again looms covered with
dust and cobwebs are once more Gathering; old
mills have been reopened and new ones have been
built and even slsh firms have found 1t profitable
to move to Germany and employ hundreds OF the
vsayers and spnners who under Free Trade had
nearly starved on black bread and horssfesh.
These facts, az have before said, will be estab-
lished In the letters that will follow. But the
American advocate Of England-manufaeturing-
e-world will reply that exceeding prosperous
times began, luckily for my side Of tho argument
at the moment Germany changed her policy. Ii
this is the sole of Germany's economic prog
ress. and the great increase in wages why did not
the workingman of Free Trade England during this
prosperous period feel the benefit that the protected
in,
Germany have increased from fifteen to twenty per
cent. in the last FIVE years, shall show on the
authority of the British Board Of Trade that wages
IN England have either renamed stationary or de-
most cases decreased--and that even
in tho boosted shipbuiding interest these tables do
not show perceptible increase, while the helpers
and laborers llnen with famlies) in the shp-yards
of Belfast, according to their official returns re-
ceiye at the present time but So SO week; IN tho
sbip-yards OF Dundee So 81; IN tho
ship.yards of Glasgow So 80; IN those OF
Gresnock SO 96; and in those Of Hull
81 So. Belfast, Dundee, Glasgow and Green
ock actuat W pay less for this class OF
work than is paid in Germany, where the
laborer around iron works rarely receives less than
three marks day or s. 80 a week-snd the cost of
living IN Germany is much less than in England.
emphasize these facts because Of the Ignorant I'M
fair and malicious attacks made on my Clyde let
ters The reports Of the Board of Trade sustain my
wages statements In every particuar-not only the
forthcoming report for 1882 but the report for
1870 the wages estimates therein given being in
most cases lower than those l have sent to The
TRIBUNE.
Ii these reports are even approximately correct
labor to-day common labor, mean. for that forms
the greater proportion of the number of work-peo
pe engaged in the heavy industrial pursuits Is paid
less in the ship-ysrds Of Great Britain the boosted
industry TO which every American Free Trader
points with such unconcealed PRIDE than the Same
class Of labor in Germany.
IL has been said by the advocates Of Tariff for
Revenue only that until could explain the great
discrepancy between the wages in the iron indus
tries of Free Trade England and Protective Ger
many. my letters would not prove dangerous to the
cause of Free Trade in the United States. ] have
shown here that in less than four years of Protec-
ton German wages have increased 80 that the
common laborer now receives about the
Same as the laboIer in Great Britain, but is better
of because the necessaries of life are cheaper In
Germany. have also shown in a recent communi-
cation to THE TRIBUNE that the wages table used
by American Free-Trade writers in comparing Ger
man and English wages were not the figures of to-
day, but old wages returns compiled when Germany
was a Free Trade country, at a time when England
was sending Si50,000.000 worth of her cheap
goods into the country; when the blast furnaces
were being blown ont and the mllls shut down;
when the German workman suffering from the
competition of a country with better natural ad-
vantages for manufacturing. and which, having
entered the field first, could have soon crushed out
many of the most lourishing industries of Germany.
OF course England objects to the methods adopted
by Germany, callsit "amusingly incorrect economi-
caly y and why not, when her manufacturers sadly
ponder over the subjoined exhibit which borrow
from the statistical abstracts of the United King
dom
Value Of the Exports Value or the Exports
OF English products OF English products
to Germany under TO Germany under
Free Trade Protection
100 q OOOl1