Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1886-12-08

ana ulanOuue. bub Oi tneae articles
suitable for taxation, foreign production
affords as many as home production, or
more. TBxes on imports are levied bv
all nations. Last year England raised a
revenue of sos, 1913, $50 from taxes on inn.
ports; rance, S6S, 6l6,S25; GERMANY
| S47, 557, 100. But no foreign nation taxes
raw materials. Such taxes iniure home
Industries, In which those materials are
worked mp and increased in value by
home labor. Such taxes on raw mate.
rails, Instead OF excluding foreign com.
petition from the home market, put our
own employers Of labor 1T great dlsad.
/ vantage in the home market, and a
greater disadvantage IN every foreign
market, compared with the foreigner en-.
| poying labor upon untaXed raw materi-
ais.
protection is also MISSIONER. 1t
implies superiority elsewhere. The
superiority over any great industry OF
ours does not exist upon the globe. II
implies infants here and adults elsewhere.
Such Is not our reputation. II implies
that amid competition universal, where
the fittest survive, we shall perish. But
II Is every where else believed that when
ever we shall release ourselves from bad
laws and enter that competition un.
manacled, rivals will be dstanced, and
our prlmacy established In the markets
and commerce of the world
Such Is also my own belief, making
allowance for those misleading forms OF
speech which we seem obliged to use, but
which state Industrial intercourse in
terms of military strife. II is mistake
to conceive IL so. In warlike encounters
one may gain what another loses, but on
the whole, in industrial intercourse, every
desired exchange is profitable to both
parties, and this relation Of things ex-
hlblts the nature Of property, and is
corner stone of society.
AMERICAN LABOR GETS AND EARNS THE
HIGHEST WAGES.
Now, one proud fact attests the sub
stance Of our prosperity, and is the
guaranty as well as proof Of our power to
mold against all competition the markets
of the United States for everything we
choose to dig or fabricate or grow, and to
command and control for our surplus
products, against all rivals, any foreign
market
We pay to labor the highest wages in
the world. HIGH paid labor signifies
the most efficient labor-signifles that
high wages are the most profitable wages
olShlhVC bllab bllt biEu IhlG 10 tdIutu.
The highest wages to the laboter thus in
volve and imply the lowest percentage of
labor-cost in the product. But, other
things being equal, the lowest peTc emit
age of labor-cost in any product is the
guaranty that competition is outstripped
PrOtectionlsts have done service to hu-
mainly by insisting upon the fact that we
pay to labor the highest wages in the
world. While debate has been going on
whether our high wages were because o.
taxation or despite taxation, economists
have discovered and demonstrated the
correlatlye fac. that labor-cost in our
products is the least in the world.
HIGH WAGES INSURE Low LABOR COST IN
PRODUCT.
Were trade as free with and within all
the unuuited states Of Europe as it is
among the United States of America, the
great surplus products of our industry,
including the manufactured, would have
the pick If foreign markets, for the rea-
son that our LABOR, being the most highly
paid and insuring lower percentage of
labor-cost, would everywhere surpass ri
valley. Great Britain would follow next,
for next to our labor hers is the highest
paid, therefore the most efficient, and
therefore next in effecting allow percent
age of labor-cCst ia her chief products
France and Germany would follow next,
and command the next unsupplied mar
kets, apd last of all, at the loot of the
list, quite unable to compete with sin
gle rival in whatever that rival chose to
produce, would come the "pauper labor"
Of Europe and Asia. The low wages of
pauper labor signify least efficiency,
which is but another name for highest
percentage of labor-cost in the product.
Other things being equal, it is obvious
that nigh wages can never be paid unless
1t Is profitable to pay them, and 1t can
only be good business to pay the high
est wages, because the efficiency of those
who earn them vindicates Its superiority
by the reduction Of labor-cost in the pro-
duct.
High wages to labor and cheaper
product are correlative terms. Low
wages TO labor and oostilier pro-
duct are correlative terms. The one
implies the other wherever labor com.
petes with labor upon otherwise equal
ground. What pauper stands any chance
competing with the Intelligent artisan?
The "pauper.labor,cf Europe" cry is a
bugsboo, except that, in truth, our war
tariff taxes favor ''pauper labor at the
expense OF American LABOR. It's products
are not fenced out by our tariff laws.
IheY come in because we ourselves de.
stroy our own easy power of successful
competition, even in our home market.
BY tariff taxes on raw materials we fence
IN our own surplus products, making
them cost too much to compete at home.
ana, OF course, too much to compete
abroad, with manufactures from untaxed
raw materials. In Mexico, Central and
South America, we can, of course, make
no better Roadway against European com.
petition than at home. Diplomacy is not
an acceptable substitute for trade and
lts laws. Our highly paid labor insures
the lowest percentage of labor cost in the
product, but our tariff taxes upon raw ma.
terlals handicap American manufacturers
with the highest percentage OF cost of
material in the product, The result is
that capital and labor united In our
American industrial products, despite
our advantage in the most highly paid
and efficient labor, are put into a hone.
less competition with the indus rial pro.
ducts OF other nations, none of which
tax raw materials. The advantage we
possess in the most efficient and hiphlv
paid labor in the world is .ullihed nv the
sell imposed disadvantage of tariff taxed
raw material with which our labor is in
wrought.
OUR SUICIDAL TAXRs ON RAW MATERIALS.
The total value of our domestic exnorts
Tor the last fiscal wear was aImost ,Nt.o,l,,