Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1886-10-14
The Laboring Men and the Tarifr.

The cheap talk about high protective
tariffs benetiting laboring men will no
longer win, because it is not true. The
labOring men are opening their eyes to
the fact that they have been the sport
of demagogues in this matter. Mr..
Henry George, the nominee of the Ia
boring men of New York, for Mayor,
in recent work, gives the following
unanswerable arguments:
But in what way can protective tar
tiffs affect the distribution of wealth in
favor of labor? The direct object and
effect of protective tariffs are to raise
the price accommodates. But men who
work for wages are not sellers of com
modities; they are sellers of labor. They
sell babor in order that they may buy
commodities. How can increase in
price of commodities benefit them?
II speak of price in conformity to the
custom of comparing other values by
that of money. But money Is only a
medium of exchange and measure of
the comparative values of other things.
Money itself rises and falls in value as
compared with other things, varying
between time and place. In reality
the only true and final standard of val
ues is labor-the real value of anything
being the amount of labor it will COM
mand in exchange. To speak exactly,
therefore, the effect of q protective tariff
is to increase the amount of labor for
which certain commodities will ex-
change. Hence it reduces the value of
labor Just as it increases the value OF
commodities"
The Protection response to this is
that while a high tariff may increase
the price of commodities it makes a
more than equivalent increase in wages.
To this Mr.. George replies with irresis-
table logic:
The incoming of the products of cheap
labor is very different thing from the
incoming of cheap labor. The effect of
the one is upon the production OF
wealth increasing the aggregate amount
to be distributed; the effect of the other
is upon the distribution of wealth, de-
creasing the proportion which goes to
the working classes. We might per-
NIT the free importation of Chinese
commodities without in the slightest
degree affecting wages; but, under our
present condition, the free immigration
of Chinese laborers would lessen
wages. Page 2l5.
| "Our tariff, like protective tariffs,
aims at nothing of this kind. 1t shields
the employing producer from compe-
tition, but in no way attempts to lessen
competion among those who must sell
him their labor; and the industries il
aims to protect are those in which the
mere workman, or even the workman
with small capital, is helpless-those
which can not be carried on without
large establishments, costly machinery
great amount of capital, or the owner
ship of natural opportunities which
bear high price.
ut is manifest that the aim of pro-
lection is to lessen competition in the
selling of commodities, not in the sell
ing of labor.-Page 2l7.
"What would be thought of the Con
gressman who would propose, as
'workingman's measure, to divide thu
} surplus In the Treasury between two o
three railroad kings, and who should
gravely argue that to do this would b.
to raise wages in all occupations, sine
the railroad kings, finding themselve
so much richer, would at once raise thu
wages of their employees; which woult
lead to the raising of wages on all rail
roads, and this again to the raising o
wages in all occupations. Yet the con
tention that protective duties on good
raise wages involves just such assump
tions." Page 100.
mo matter how much a protectiv
duty may increase the profits of em
ployers, it will have no effect in raising
wages unless it so acts upon competi
tion as to give workmen power to com
pel all increase of wages. Page 223.