Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-04-27
Labor ana the Tariff.

Following up the argument on labor
and tariff from the standpoint of a
laborer as given by one OF themselves,
whereof beginning was made in the
HERALD yesterday our correspondent,
heretofore referred to, calls attention
to the very important fact that in
America our machinery and other ap-
pliances coupled with the greater
intelligence ard general vitality of
the American laborer, enables US to
produce more per capita of the people
employed than any other Nation.
This being SO, and the manufacturer
being SO largely protected as he is
Against foreign competition, the en-
ployee ought to be the beneficiary of
his own greater productive power.
But an industrial writer of the East,
J.Schoenhoff shows that he is no such
thing. Taking the great manufactur-
ing communities of Europe and COM
pairing them with those of America,
it is found that the ratio Of wages to
people employed and the products
turned out is less in this country than
in the others. A London paper in
1S80-the dates are important as
showing our data to be taken within
our most highly protective era-says:
1.-THE American ironworkers are lead
ing those OF England 100 per cent.
plant for plant. While in England
given force of men turn out but 45
tons per week, the same force in
America turns out 100 tons per
week." Is our scale of wages
higher in the same ratio :?
Not bit of it. Mr.. Schoenhoff,
quoted before, Gays that in New Jer-
sey, where silk is protected over fifty
per cent, the wages of the operatives
is thirty-five and one-half per cent of
the cost of the product, while in Eu-
rope the labor costs forty per cent of
the final cost.
We maintain high protective tar
if on the raw material of which agri-
cultural implements, cutlery, firearms,
sewing machines, locomotives, clocks,
watches and musical instruments are
made. Yet we are successful compel.
itors for the markets of the world in
these products of our labor, although
our rivals get their raw materials
cheaper at least by the amount Of the
duty our manufacturers pay. One of
the chief factors by whose aid
this is made possible, is not the higher
wages paid for labor in this country.
Labor is but little better paid in the
mill of New England than it is in
that of Old England. In some cases
it is not so well paid. Let the manu-
facturers have their material duty
free, if you wish to make business
more brisk. When business is lively
wages are good. That is what affects
labor, not the tariff. AS has
been shown, high tariff may,
and often does, make labor cheap.
Talk about this high protective tariff
being of any benefit to labor! 1t is
no such thing. The last twenty years
has been the most protected period in
our history, yet wages is on the
average to-day forty per cent. less
than twenty years ago. A high duty
ON raw material is one of the chief
causes of the stagnation in the busi-
ness Of the country which we have all
observed at times in the past twenty
years. There are 100000 working
women in the City of New York, only
5000 Of whom can earn sufficient
10 clothe themselves decently.
Where do you see the benefits of Pro-
lection to labor in facts like this ?
There women make shirts for 80 cents
: dozen. That is triumph for the
Protcctionist 1t is stated that 10000
children die of starvation annually in
New York city. Yet We are told that we
are al prosperous, rich and happy be-
cause Of the benefits Of = high tariff to
Labor. Does this fact 50 to prove the