Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1883-05-22
The Kent Club.


ture several questions were propounded to
the Judge by members of the club which he
promised to answer in a future lecture. This
he did last night, and among the more inn
portant which he answered were the follow
ing:
''What makes wages higher IN this coun-
try than in others-the fact that they are SO
being admitted ?"
Ans L. Because workingmen are protect
ed from competition with abused and ill-paid
labor elsewhere, and have such advantages
from this cause, as have set forth more
particularly in the answer to the question
do protective taxes increase wages ?"
2. But the general policy of the govern
ment is more friendly to workingmsn here
than elsewhere Friendly land laws, friendly
religious regulations, friendly patent laws,
friendly suffrage laws, all foster his self
respect, his hope, his courage, his spirit of
enterprise, his spirit of resistance to unjust
encroachments and an unjust division of the
profits of production, and compel respect and
consideration for him.
Then these institutions make employers
moro ready to grant what Is de-
manded and ready to seek for cheap
ness in goods by other means than
low wages forced by competition upon work
where to trust that a hired freeman Is struly
more profitable than driven slave, that fair
treatment pays in the long run.
g. All labor is peculiarly productive and
peculiarly efficient in this country, and all
Iaborers are quickly and easily able to pass
employers by accommodating capital, keeping
the demand for laborers greater than the
supply even assisted by immigration.
f. The fact that this country produces large
" the money metals, gold and silver, and has
in addition large amount OF good non ex-
portable national legal tender paper money,
and has first-rate facilities for doing business
with other substitutes for money, all these
make all prices higher and wages with the
rest, Such are some of the considerations
that make wages in this country higher than
elsewhere :.
ssWhat causes and circumstances constl-
tute the material wealth of nat1on!"
This question taken literally is not quite
clear to me. have difficulty in seeing how
sa cause'' or circumstance" can constr
tute any wealth whatever.
Material things constitute wealth, do
they not? Causes may produce or tend to
produce wealth circumstances" may be ia
vorable or unfavorable to the production of
wealth.
If the question Is then what causes pro-
duea the wealth of nation and what circum-
stances favor its production all is clear.
This seems to be the real meaning SO far
as some thought about it has revealed Its
meaning.
Ans /. Labor applied to material things,
turning them to human uses, fitting them to
crafty human desires, is the efficient cause
of the wealth of nations-it produces wealth.
The more perfectly that labor works In part
nership with or in control of the forces of
nature, the greater in a general way can be the
amount of the wealth so produced.
q oI,1 the IOo1na6Ipka
consumption of these things SO fitted to hui
| man uses by labor leaves a residuum uncon'
gurned, which constitutes the wealth of q
| nation
Some of the 'scircumstances' which favor
| the production of wealth:
l. The existence in abundance OF what we
| may call raw material of wealth easily &C.
| cessible to ALL
| q An intelligent, civilized. enterprise ne
| population under a government securing te
| each as far as possible the enjoyment of the
wealth created by his own labor and saved
| by his own abstinence. And also securing te
| each the advantages of association and co
operation with other human beings, and de
| Tending each and all from pillage by forct
| or fraud or cunning predatory trade. A gov
| eminent SO organized as to readily unite the
| energies of the whole population IN com
| mon effort to promote some enterprises toe
| great to be undertaken by Individuals and toe
| Important to be left undone.
3. If we were to inquire further for the
| causes that impel people to undergo THU
| labor and this abstinence-that produce ano
/ save wealth-we should find them in the
necessities and desires of every human being
the necessities for food, clothing and shelter
| DEVELOPMENT in the forethought and en-
| ergy and enterprise of some, the low 9 OF in
| dependence and ease of some, of honor anC
/ benevolence in others, of desire of accunnu
| Iation for its own sake in others still.
| sWhat has caused our nation to grow il
| wealth so fast ?"
| l. The existence here of fertile, well wa
| tered soil of enormous extent and variety
| situated midway between the most civilized
/ parts of Europe and the richest parts OF
| Asia-apsrt from the older nations and con-
| nected with them by the oceans; with va
| ried and genial and healthful climate that
has been the basis for a succession of good
| crops year after year of great variety and
| each of high value.
2. Easily accessible mines and quarries.
Deposits of nests of great richness and sin
| gularly useful qualities-see the coal, iron,
copper, geld, silver, sulphur, salt, clay,
kaolin, petroleum, stone and building woods
indeed an almostIendless list of natural pro-
auctions that could be easily and abundantiy
| turned to human uses by labor.
g. The fact that it was settled by COM
posite people drawn from the hardest stocks
| ofsthe best races of western Europe, all dis
| ciplined by and Injured to labor and taught to
| excel in and respect it and to practice abstl-
| hence as a cardinal virtue, sobered and
sharpened by education and ennobled by a
| rather hard ascetic but awe inspiring relg-
| ious experience that left little crfppling su-
perstition and planted first of all upon the
| rather barren soil of New England and the
seahoard States and not at first upon tn
| more fertile soils or near the richer mines.
4. The fact that these people were early
| thrown as a wolf filings her cubs upon their
| own physical, mental and moral resources
| by the public policy of Great Britain that
was calculated ana intended to make them
wholly subservient to the ruling and money
| ed classes of that country, an intention avow-
ed so plainly and brutally in the repeated
declarations and acts of Parliament that these
colonies ought never to be allowed to make
| horseshoe or hob nail for them, that a
furnace or forge among them was COM
mon nuisance, that they had the right to
| bind the colonies in all cases Whatsoever, that
reused resistance by military force in two
wars and has justified and necessitated con-
| tiuued resistance since by defensive tariff
laws.
s. The fact that a government was
| established here specially IN the
interest of the common people found
Led on popular education, on universal
manhood suffrage, on equality of rights on
| a denial of special privileges. founded to Sc
| cure domestic tranquility and the general
welfare by patents for inventions and pro-
| lection from unfair and ruinous competition.
| 6. All the forces of this population SO dis
ciplined and organized and guarded, growing
| rapidly by development from within and by
\ abundant accretion from without, set in mo-
ton over SO wide an area SO fortunately sit
uated as to escape the dangers of foreign
| war, and among such abundant natural re-
sources have indeed developed and have
saved more wealth than any people in
| the same time have ever produced and saved.
| In short our nation has increased in wealth
| SO fast because the elements of wealth in pre-
digious profusion lay all about as easily &C.
cessible to all Our people, under the slim
illus of hope and fair treatment, under good
government granting them protection and
| encouragement, have been the hardest most
| efficient and intelligent workers in the world,
and have more than elsewhere gained control
of the forces of nature to help them in pro.
duction of wealth. Such are mere sugges
ton of what has caused our nation to in.
crease in wealth to fast. :.
'tOn what do wages depend at any time and
in any place :"
On the point at which balance all the re-
suItant forces that are engaged on each side
of the wage contest.
We keep in mind that the price of labor d
the result of contest more or less sharply