Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1885-10-21
How Taxes do act on Wages.
Professor W. G. Sum-

ltroIessor w. u. sumner. In The hillion.1
Iftaxes are to raise wages they must be
laid not on goods but Oh men. Let the
goods be abundant and the men scarce
Then the averge wages will be high, for the
| supply of labor will be small ard the de-
mand great. If we tax goods and not
men the supply of labor will be great, the
| demand will be limited and the wages will
be low. Here we see why employers of
| labor want tariff. For it is an obvious
Inconsistency and most grotesque satire
| that the same men should tell the work.
men at home that the tariff makes wages
high, aud should go to Washingtnn and tell
Congress that they want tariff b, cause
| she wages are too high. We have found
| that the high wages of American laborers
have independent causes and guarantees
| outside Of legislation. fhey are provided
and maintained by the economic eircum-
stances of the country. This is against the
interests of those who want to hire
The laborers. No device can sprve their
interest unless it lowers wages. From this
standpoint of an employer the fortunate
circumstances of the laborer become an
obstacle to be overcome. The laborer is
too we'll off. Nothing can do any good
which does not make him less well off,
The competition which troubles tie en-
ployer is not the "pauper labor" Of Eu-
rope.
'Pauper labor had meaning in the first
half of this century in England, when the
overseers of the poor turned over the
younger portion of the occupants of the
poor-hOuses to the owners of the new cotton
factories, under contracts to teach them the
| trade and pay them a pittance. Of course
| the arrangement had shocking evils con-
nected with 1t, but it was a transition ar
rangement. The "pauper laborers' :"
children, after generation, became inde-
pendent laborers the system expired of
itself, and ''pauper labor" is now sense
less jingle. as.
The competition which the employers
fear is the competition of those industries
in America which can pay the highest
wages, and which keep the wages high be-
cause they do pay them. These draw the
labor away. These offer him another
chance. If he had no other way of earn
ing more than he is earning, it would
be idle for him to demand more
The reason why he demands more and
gets it is because he knows where he
can get it, if he cannot get 1t where he Is
If then he is to be brought down, the only
way to do it is to destroy or lessen the
value of his other chance. This is Just
what the tariff does.
The doctrine that manufactures give
value to land was issued from the Agricul-
tural Bureau. 1t has been thought grand
development of the protectionist argument.
1t is simple logical fallacy, based on some
miscOnstrued statistics. The value of land
depends upon the supply and demand -
The demand for land is population. Hence
where the population is dense the value of
land is great. Manufactures can be carried
on only where there is supply of labor,
that is, where the population is Dense
Hence high value of land and mauufactur-
ing industry are common results of dense
population. The statistician of the Agri-
cultural Bureau connected them with each
other as cause and effect, and the New
York Tribune said it was the grandest
contribution to political economy since
"the fingers of Horace Greeley stiffened in
DEATH" which was true. If manufacturers
spring up spontaneously out of original
strength and by independent development,
of course they '.add value TO land;' that is to
say, the district has new industrial power,
and every interest in it is benefited; but, if
the manufactures have to be protected,
paid for and supported, they do not do any
good as manufactures. but only as a device
for drawing capital from elsewhere as a
tribute. In this way protective taxes do
alter the comparable value of land in diff
ferent districts. This effect can be seen
under some astonishing phases in Connecti-
cut and other manufacturing States. The
farmers are taxed to hire some people to go
and live in manufacturing villages and
carry on manufacturing there. This dis
placement of population, brought about at
the expense of the rural population, dimin-
ishes the value of agricultural and land
raises that of city land right here within the
same State. The hillside population is being
Impoverished and the hillside farms are
being abandoned on account of the tribute
levied on them to swell the value of mill
sites and adjoining land in the manufac-
turing towns.