Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-02-23
Who is Benefited by Protection ?
SOME FACTS FOR LABoRING MEN IN AMERICA
TO THINK UPON.
New York Musical Monitor. I

Free traders say, abolish duties, give us
free trade, that will open the markets of the
world to US, and then we shall have plenty to
do. We would ask. in what manufactured
articles can we compete with the nations of
Europe as long as the wages of the working
people are higher here than there? Can we
produce any goods made of iron, cotton or
wood as cheaplv as in Europe if we are oblig-
ed to pay higher wages?
Some who have not given the subject
thought will, perhaps, say. have we not
great advantage in cotton goods, because we
raise the cotton ourselves? No, we have not,
for the reason that the cost of transportation
to Lowell, Liverpool or Hamburg is so near
the same that the difference is of no impor-
lance. In fact, the cost of transportation
either to or from Europe is of so little
moment that we need not take it into con-
sideration while speaking of our ability to
compete with manufacturers of foreign
nations.
The facts are, we can never compete with
the nations of Europe as long as the mechanic,
the laborer, the working people from the
lowest to the highest, clerks, bookkeepers,
statesmen, overseers, boys, girls, packers,
truckmen, everybody employed in the field.
AUu shltsEOOm, get HlQneT wages mere
than there.
Some writer's have said if we could
import iron and steel free of duties we
could build iron and steel ships in this coun-
try, so that we could compete with the Eng
lish. What is it that makes iron and steel in
Europe cheaper than herep We have plenty
of iron in our ground that has not cost any
body a cent. They have the same in Europe
Now, gentlemen free traders, please tell us
how it happens that we can import either
iron or steel at n cost less than we can pro.
duce it? OF course it is because our wages
and salaries are higher.
1t would be waste of time to take up
other industries, because it is the same with
everything we produce. Trace the thing
back to its natural or crude state, it has cost
nothing, that is originally. But the moment
you put your finger upon it, it has cost some
thing.
If this is true. who is it that is benefited
by ''protection?" 1t is that person who does
something with his hands principally: the
whole nation generally.
Is 1t not easy to see, that if iron and steel
can be produced cheaper in Europe than here,
and we should abolish the duties on both,
our manufacturers must either reduce the
wages of all their employees or shut
up shop? Have we any advantages which
will enable us to complete with foreign
manufacturers, with the wages we pay.
two or three times higher than they pay !?
If we have not, who would be the first
to suffer from free trade? The workingman,
of course. He would be thrown out of work
and would be kept so, until he is ready to ac-
cept wages which would enable his employer
to compete with manufactures in Europe.
| How is it that manufacturers in Europe
can produce goods cheaper than we5 Have
they any advantage over us other than the
| price of labor? OF course not. Then W HON
have we got to ''go for in order to compete
with them? Everybody who receives wages
/ or salaries.
| Are the working people in Europe as well
! off as the same class in the United States?
> They say that our working people would be
Just as well situated if they had less wages,
because then everything would cost less. Is
there anybody who has ever lived in Germa-
nv who thinks that the working people there
! are as well situated as here? Take the coun-
/ try towns and manufacturing cities as a sam
pie.
How our workink people would get along
with free trade and European wages nobody
can tell until it has been tried, hut with SUCH
/ facts as we have before us. the idea that thew
would be as we'll of is so devoid of all rea-
son that it seems too ridiculous to merit arsu-
ment.
1t is true that at the end of the year almost