The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1886-06-09

made it an instrument of its own debase-
ment. Time has demonstrated the empti-
ness of the protection formula, that has de-
veloped nothing but monopoly by the few
and poverty OF the many.
AMERICAN LABOR AND THE TARIFF.
The revolt OF the Pennsylvania textile
workers against the time-honored fiction
that the tariff is bulwark for American in
dustries, is the most significant sign of the
times. To the number of 10000 they have
petltioned Congress for general revision OF
the tariff and the introduction of raw ma
terials duty free. If anything were wanted
to overthrow the tissue of superstition that
the protection idea is protection to American
labor, it is this revolt of textile workers in
this stronghold of protection, Pennsylvania.
They say:
"As we have left the management OF these
affairs to our employers until we find that
they have succeeded in shaping the laws for
their benefit and our injury, we now speak
out for equal rights and equal benefits be-
6eving that we possess the intelligence,
strengthened by experience, to know what
we want"
1t is precisely that the management of
their affairs has been left in the hands OF
| greedy employers, who have levied tribute
on the American people to the extent Of the
tariff and imported the cheapest of European
auper labor in order to whip American
]. Dor into submission, that the popular I'M
I, st of labor is due. The germ is pestilent
wrong, that could develop NO other grJwths
than wrong, injustice and hatreds between
| me- wi nf
tematically robbed and their prosperity de.
stroyed. They show in what way the tariff
Expresses them, while pretending to protect
them, in the following:
"We nave in our possession a wage list
| (Official) of mill near Hudders6eld, Eng
| land, which, compared with that of one of
The largest mills in Philadelphia, shows the
! same average, but the extra paid in the Eng
| lish mill make its rates a little higher than
| the Philadelphia mill. We have also a list
| of another Philadelphia mill, which shows
an average of 1915 to $3.50 per week for
steady work. In the last United States Con-
| sular reports the general average wages of
| weavers outside the mills in England is given
at s. 81 per week; in seven selected mills in
New Jersey the average is S672 per week.
| But il must be borne in mind that the
| American weaver turns out at least one third
more work than the English weaver In the
| wooden industry, and nearly one-half more
| in the cotton industry, and this is another
| evidence that our tariff laws have failed to
| keep American wages up to the measure of
| the productiveness of the workmen. and
| therefore fails to protect them, because the
| tax ON raw materials neutralizes the wage
account and deprIves American labor of the
chance to compete with foreign labor even
in our own market"
They next compare the profits of the man
ufacturers with the average pay OF their
hands-eighty cents per day of eleven and
twelve hours-and they feel, they say, that
'there is a screw loose in the wage account"
and that "a general revision and readjust
ment of the tariff laws is necessary" As a
matter of truth they have been compelled to
sell their labor in the cheapest labor market
of Europe, Polish, Italian and Hungarian.
But when they go into the market for the
necessaries of life they find it in the control
of a favored class, and any increase of wages
they may enforce is taken from them in the
shape OF an increased price in their required
commodities.
They show that the entire wages account
in the worsted and wooden industries is but
II per cent. of the product, and in the cot
ton industries but 81 per cent. The effect OF
this on international trade may be instantly
seen would be nearly infinitessimal.
Even presuming that the application
of free trade would reduce the value
of the product 10 per cent, it would affect the
labor element in the worsted and wooden in
dustrles, but IL per cent. and the cotton in
dustry but per cent. But when the added
activity in production and consumption that
would come with il is taken, its effect as a
reaction upon wages would more likely be
in the direction of advance. But if it did
not the power of the remainder would be in
creased by 10 per cent. against direct loss
of IL and 2 per cent
AS producer of raw cotton the industry
is paralyzed from want of demand. England
is supplying herself from Egypt and India
and our planters have cotton to sell that can
not be sold save as we can sell it in a fabric.
There is no industrial path open to us except
to manufacture for the world as we for
merly produced in raw form for the world.
And 80 the labor problem is daily focus
ing, by a multitude of bv-paths and over hum
dreds of false issues, on the corner stone OF Its
discontent-the tariff. 1t is on matters OF
this prodigious and national importance that
the strength of American labor may strike
with its full force and strong, well deliv-
cred blow will rend it into fragments and
destroy the source of most all of it woes.