The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1886-09-04


And yet another compaIi son may be
made still more embarrassing to the free
trade doctrinaires, and more difficult for
them to answer. While the American
workmen in nine states working under a
protective tariff, have over a thousand
millions of dollars i'll savings banks, the
vastly greater mass of workingmen in
, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales,
the whole Cuited Kingdom, all working
under free trade, have less than four hun
dred millions of dollars in the aggregate,
! both in savings banks and postal banks
TIE LABOR QUESTION.
"The Leading feature in the industrial
field Of 1850 and 1856 is the discomfort
among the men who earn their bread by
skilled and by unskilled labor. Uneasi-
ness and uncertainty are found on all
sides there are wise aims among many,
and with not few there is amlessness,
with its inevitable result of disappoint-
ment and Encouragement. The man who
could by any prescription remove this
discomfort and at once restore harmony
and happiness would be philosopher,
patriot and statesman. The man who
processes to be able to do it will general
ly prove to be compound of empiricism
and ignorance But in the end, perhaps
by toisome paths, with many blundels
and some wrongs, no one need doubt that
sound and just and righteous conclusions
will be reached. Perfect freedom to test
the virtues and secure the advantage of
organization, to exert strong power
through combination are certainly among
the common rights of all men under re-
publican government. Labor associations
have the same sanction and the same
rights that any form of Incorporation may
assume-subject, as all must be, to the
condition that the persons and property
of others shall be respected. 1t is we'll
for every citizen of free government to
keep before his eyes and in his thought
the honored maxim that the liberty of
one man must always end where the
rights of another man begin"
have no new nOstrums to offer for the
cure of labor troubles. | have no quack
remedies to propose. | am a firm believer
in the efficacy of the protective tariff,
and can look back with serene satisfac-
ton to my record in Cong ress as never
blotted by a single vote that was not
friendly to the interests of American
labor.
In what may be termed the political
creed of the various labor organizations,
| have observed some singular omissions
of pertinent and, as | think, controlling
/ faatS-factS u hioh in Spirjt of fr,ap1-
ship and candor, beg to point out.
read, few days since, in a creed put
forth by an association of Knights of La.
Dor, in another state, recital of eigh-
teen distinct ends which they desired to
have secured Or maintained by national
legislation. Among these there was not
the slightest mention of a protective
tariff. That might have been accidental;
or 1t might have implied a perfect sense
of safety in regard to the continuance of
the tariff; or it might have meant that
those who proclaim the creed are indif-
ferent to the fate of protection.
| In any event. it would be well for the
labor organizations to diligently inquire
and ascertain how the wages of labor in
the United States can be kept above the
rate of wages in England, Germany and
France on the same articles of manufac-
ture without the intervention of protec-
tive duties? With the present cheap
modes of interchange and transportation
of all commodities, inquire of these gen.
tlemen how, under the rule of free trade,
can wages in the United States be kept
above the general standard of European
wages | do not stop for the detail of ar
gument, | only desire to lodge the ques-
ton in the minds of the millions of
American laborers who have it in their
power to maintain protection or to in
augurate free trade who have it in their
power to uphold the party of protection
OF the party of free trade.
CoLoRED LABOR IN THE SOUTH.
Another portentous fact has been
omitted, SO far as | have observed, from
the consideration and judgment of the
labor organizations. They seem to have
taken little or no heed of the existence
of moe than million and a halt of able
bodied laborers in the South, with dark
skins, but with expanding intellect, in
creasing intelligence and growing ambi-
ton. While these men were slave S,
working in the corn and cotton fields, in
the rice swamps and on the sugar plan
tations of the South, the skilled labor of
the Northern States felt no competition
from them. But since they became free
men, there has been a great change in
the variety and skill of the labor per-
formed by colored men in the South. The
great mass are, of course, still engaged
Al. i
tens of thousands, aud in fact hundreds
of thousands. have entered and are enter
ing the mechanical and semi-mechanical
field. They are making pig and bar iron
in Tennessee and Alabama. They are
manufacturing cotton IN Georgia and the
Carolinas. They are bricklayers and
plasters everywhere they are carpenters
and painters; they are blacksmiths; they
make wagons and carts ; they make
cigars they tan leather and make har-
ness they are firemen and pilots on river
boats they calk vessels in Southern
ports they lay railroad track !; they are
switchmen and section men OH the line
and firemen on the locomotives. In fact,
they are generally entering all the
avenues and channels of skilled labor.
OF course, they are underpaid. They re-
ceive far less than has been paid in years
past to Northern mechanics for similar
work. They are able to take no part in
making laws for their own protection,
and they are consequently and inevitably
unable to maintain a fair standard of
wages or to receive fair proportion of
their proper earnings.
do not dwell on this subject at length,
though it could easily be presented in ag-
gravating detail | mention it only to
place it before the labor organizations of
to them : Do you suppose that you can
permanently maintain in the Northern
States one scale of prices, when just be-
You'd an imaginary line on the south of
, us far different scale of price is paid
for labor The colored mechanic of the
South is not so skilled a workmen nor so
intelligent a man as you are, but if he
will lay brick in a new cotton factory in
. South Carolina at half the price you are
paid, if he will paint and plaster it at
the same low rate, he is inevitably erect
ing an industry which, if the same rate
of wages be maintained throughout, will
drive you out of business or lead you to
the gates of his own poverty.
The situation, is therefore, plainly dis
cernible and demonstrable, viz First
f If the Democratic party shall succeed, as
they have been annually attempting for
twelve wears past, in DESTROYING the pro-