The Labor enquirer., 1885-02-28
tChe.p Bre.d-Low w.ge..o


The American Lesson Of the Free Trade
Struggle in England-General M. NJ. Trum-
bull. Published by Schumm & Simpson,
Chicago. This entertaining little volume is
q political prism Of multiple facets one of
which we select for present observations
wages and the Price of Bread
The Anti-C Corn Laws League in Its strug-
gle with the landlord interest had to con-
tend against the constant reproach that
its object was to lower wages. The prev
alent ideas of political economy that
wages rose and fell with bread, were
strengthened by the fact that the manu-
featuring interest took the lead in the
opposition, being willing even to sacri-
fee its own protective tariffs in order to
deprive the landlords of theirs En-
ployers had a manifest interest in lower
ing wages, it was inferred that these
would be cut down to level with the
necessaries of subsistence, of which
bread is the principal /; consequently to
cheaper food meant to lower wages.
This view did not reach all the points
of the case, it did not make the corn
laws any more just or expedient; ;
but it showed a true apprehension Of
that insolidarity of that discrep-
ancy between the interests of en-
ployer and employed, which illustrates
the blessing of cheap food. 1t was this
opposition of interests that lent force to
the malignity of the Quarterly Review,
when nitsaid, "The pretense that millown-
ers are endeaYoring to lower the price of
bread for the sake of the workmen is so
absurd that we really know not how to
expose it better than In four words,
cheap bread-low wages"
Blackwood's 3 Magazine appealed to the
insular prejudice by the argument that
as soon as cheapened grain had thrown
land out-of cultivation, foreigners taking
advantage of the home market freed from
competition, would raise their prices
on it. This notion, which might have
been plausible had the foreign source
of supply been limited to some neigh
boring island, has proved groundless be-
cause of the vast and numerous sources
of foreign supply in competition with
each other.
Our author says that thirty-fve years
experience has proved against the asser-
tion. in Blackwood, that permanent
cheapDess and permanent supply can
and do exist Yet he tacitly admits the
mallfcence of other economic factors
than the corn laws in 43, when the
price of grain was very low, yet the
scarcity continued, because of the num-
bers who had become too much lmpov-
erished to buy. Blinded by zeal in his
denunciation of one injustice, protection,
he ignored another as pernicious, IN the
uncontrolled power of the employer to
fix the rate of wages, an evil which the
trades unions Intellectually combat with
the martyrdom of devotion and at ruin
GUS cost. He exposes the fact with the
air of exposing fallacy that English
workingmen believed that wages was
certain allowance given by employers at
their own will, and that "they established
it upon the quantity of food, clothing
and other comforts absolutely necessary
to enable thesartisan to live and work,
much as the southern planter estab-
hshed the rations for his slaves. They
believed that the employers were con-
stantly watching to see how little the
workingman could subsist on and that
whenever they found they could do
without something formerly enjoyed,
wages would be lowered accordingly"
General, you are up to your eyes in the
dismal truth. In affecting not to know
that you are, you recall the old saw,
ANY. man Can lead q horse to water,
but who can make him drink? ?' If the
wages system had not got quite to that
point in England forty years ago, a the