Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1885-11-28
WAGES AND PROFITS.

The financial and commercial newspa-
pers, while Directing in no way to such
unions for raising prices as has just been
accomplished by reeonstituting the rail
way pool, have much to say against
unions that are constituted with a view
to increase the price of labor. How
union should prove beneficial to the en-
ployer yet damaging to the employe
these journals do not show. They tell
about the loss of wages the union work
ers incur in strikes, and draw the con-
clusion that strikes cost more than they
save. The rue test of this argument is,
Have the working peoples wages in
creased or decreased since unions be-
came general? Take the results of the
depression, which we hope is now
leaving us, and let us see what
they indicate toward the point.
If we take a statement from a sound
financial publication there will be no
danger of reinstatement in favor of
the employees. The Chicago Bankers
Monthly the present November has an
article on Business Depression" in
which it says a depressed business does
not mean less business but smaller
profits. There is a progressive fall of
prices without a corresponding fall of
wages; profits must fall progressively
and interest also, since the rate of inter
est is governed by the profits which can
ha mada from tho ,,ao "a o,rs.l H.
probably, we find the key to the phe-
nomenon under consideration. Profits
and prices of commodities have fallen,
but wages have not fallen, except in a
few special departments. Consequently
the purchasing power of wages has risen,
and this has given the wage-earning class
a greater command over the necessaries
and comforts of life. Their purchases
have filed, and more than filled, the gap
left by the forced economizing of the
employing and well-to-do classes. The
latter are the ones who make the most
noise In the newspapers, and whose fire.
quent bankruptcies most fill the public
eye. But they are not those whose con-
sumption of commodities most swell the
tonnage OF the railways and steamships.
These occupy the upper deck and the
first cabin, and their names are the only
ones printed in the passenger lists but
the steerage carries more
of wheat, sugar and pork than all the
cabins together This extract is worthy
of attention, for it shows, in the first
place, that the working people have kept
up their wages better hal their employ
ers have kept up their profits. This
has been done by the trades
unions, for when the employer
dictated what he would pay the workman
he compelled him to share to the full the
lower prices Of depressed periods. 1t
may be asked whether it is not an evil
that n side should have to bear more
of the loss than another. This brings us
to the second point. BY throwing all
the loss Of profit upon the workmen, the
w~Orking-class decrease their consump-
ton Of merchandise, and, as they are the
mass OF the community, the bad trade
becomes still worse, and both classes suf-
fered. If, as in the present depression,
the mass of the community, which is the
%toilers, by the power of their union pre-
serve from extreme loss of wages, the
consumption of merchandise goes on,
from their purchases, making depression.
according TO the financial paper we quote,
not so much a loss of business as of
profits. In short, the salvation of the
workingmen's wages has saved the horror
of panic and the woe that follows it.
This looks, from a financial magazines
standpoint, as if the policy of the work
men is sounder, more wholesome and
more beneficial to the community than
that of the capitalist employer. On the
whole, we see hat what is lost in strikes
pays, in the long run, by maintaining the
wage rate.