The National tribune., 1888-01-19
CHINESE VERSUS VETERANS.

It is held to be terrible thing that the
Chinese support life on few cents day.
The halls of Congress ring with denuncia-
tons of people whose habits are such that
they can exc out subsistence on this mis-
cradle sum. Laws are passed prohibiting
their coming into the country. Sand-lot
orators yituperate against the "moon-eyed
lepers" who live on few handfuIs of rice
and off-color provisions. Trades-unions de-
nounce the balefuI effects of this diet upon
the labor of the country. Hoodlums slaugh-
ter them like cayOtes on the Western plains,
and grave Senators told us last week that
our republican institutions were sorely en-
dangered by this influx of men who work
under wages and live on next to nothing.
Yet the 10000 Cinnamon whom Senator
Mitchell reports as residing in California,
are living like veritable princes in compare
son with the 146,363 veterans whom the
Government has on its pension-rol at less
than s. month, or 81 cents a day.
IF it is degrading to our people to have
band of foreigners living in the miserable
way that it is represented the Chinese live,
is 1t not infinitely more degrading to have
it officially condemn its disabled veterans to
an infinitely poorer living than the poorest
of these foreigners is able to provide for him.
selfP
IF it is infinitely hurtful to labor, de-
moralizing to the workingman, and lower
ing to the whole people to have 100000
Asiatics in our country setting a standard of
the lowest amount on which life can be sup
ported, is it not vastly more so to have the
Government officially set the standard of
living still lower by the amounts it pays its
100000 broken-down veterans, as sufficient
support for them in their old age and de-
crepitude?
Here is something for the Knights of
Labor, for the workingman's friends to
earnestly consider. There is more danger to
them in this course of the Government than
in the Chinese question.
They should demand that Congress attend
to this at once, and no longer debase the
value of an Americans manly service by
pensions which are below the daily wages of
the cheapest pauper labor in the world.
AMERICAN AND FOREIGN WAGES.
The experience of the Singer Sewing Ma
chine Co. is worth many volumes of cheap
writing on the comparative wages of this
country and Europe. The company has two
shops at Elizabeth, N. j., and the other
at Glasgow, Scotland. It has one-third more
employees in the Scotch than the New Jersey
one, but it pays them every week only
$4,000 where it pays those in Elizabeth
| $4,000, or nearly twice as much. The
average pay of the Elizabeth employees is S13
week, while that of the Scotchmen is but
So for the same amount of labor. 1t is
nonsense to say, as some do, that the smaller
wages of European workingmen will buy
them more of the comforts of life than the
larger ones of the Americans. Everybody
knows that bread and meat and all other
kinds Of food must be higher in Europe
than America. If they were not we could
not make money by exporting provisions
Rents must be higher across the ocean, be-
cause ground is so much dearer, and they
| have to buy their lumber here and transport
it thither. There remains then only cloth
| ing-which is but a fraction of the expenses
of living. While clothing may be somewhat
lower, the difference is not so great by any
means as has been claimed. we all know
that calieos, muslins and wooden cloth are
sold in this country very nearly as cheaply
as in England. American cotton goods are
frequently cheaper than English makes.
The difference in clothing is mainly due to
the starvation wages paid tailors and opera
tors. An English tailor does not receive on
an average, more than one-third what an
American tailor is paid for making coat.
ANOTHER SURPLUS.