Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1888-03-01
The Tariff.
By HENRY wATTERsoN.


By HENRY wATTERSON.
Manufactured products may be divid
ed into three elements-the labor, the
! raw material, and the capital required
| to bring these two together. If the
| price of the raw materials high, la boris
rewards must he low. IF the use OF
| mOney-or the rate eofinterest-is high
there is a corresponding decrease in the
re ards of labor. But political econo.
,, mists have noticed during the past
fifty years, as capital has accumulated.
the rate of interest and the tendency OF
profit have been downward. AS these
elements in the cost of production de-
crease, there is q greater margin allow
ed for the reward of labor. Because of
the vast improvement in mechanical
industry and the wonderful progress
made in transportation, the general
condition of the laboring classes
Throughout the world has been advaDc-
ed. In this advance the laborer of
America has shared; but in so far as
the tariff enhances the cost of the raw
material used by the manufacturer the
wages of the American laoorer suffer;
in so far as the market of the American
product is restricted, and the uncer-
tainty Of the rewards of capital caused
thereby is augmented, the laborer pays
the penalty.
In order that labor may secure the
highest reward, il is essential that the
productive power of money and ma
chinery shall be greatest, for it is from
the product of this joint LABOR of man
and machine that his wages must ulti-
mateIy come. The tariff enhances the
cost Of machinery and of raw material,
and restricts the market of American
products, and in SO doing, instead of
advancing, it's effect is to decrease the
wages of the American working-man.
notwithstanding these facts, ii is
of restriction that high wages are in
they insist that if they are forced to
compete with the manufactured goods
of Europe, they must begin by reduc-
ing wages. The history of industry
shows, on the contrary, that cheap
production proceeds best under sys-
tenn Of high wages, and for the past
one hundred years, as wages have adj
vanced, prices of manufactured articles
haye steadily declined. The Chief of
the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics
accounts tor it in this way in the six
teenth report:
"The sharp competition of the present day
renders it necessary for employers to watch
carefully that important element in produc.
tion, the cost Of labor as represented in
wages; and in considering the question of
labor cost, the rate of wages Is generally
taken as the standard. Weyenture the sug-
gestion, however, that it is the sum of
wages, and not the rate, which constitutes
the true money standard of cost of labor,
and we carry this suggestion to its logical
outcome In the following proposition: In
proportion as capital. through machinery.
becomes more effective. the relative number
of laborers is decreased In proportion to
product, the rate of wages Is increased, and
the sum of wages is reduced; that is, lower
cost is compassed by way of higher wages"
I admit it. as an economic law. that,
as Mr.. Edward Atkinson puts il, where
labor is free and industry progressive,
improvements in production result in
giving increased abundance at lower
prices to the consumer, and in yielding
larger proportionate share of the ag-
gregate product to the work man, at the
same time compelling capital to satisfy
itself with smaller share. This is the
situation In England, where forty
years of freedom from restriction have
improved the condition of the work
people at least twofold. IF starvation
and wretchedness still exist among the
English operatives, it is because man
can devise no system to extinguish in
capacity, disease or crime. In Amer
ica, on the other hand, the restrictive
feature of protection has defeated the
ends of the sound economic laws above
stated by its denial ofcontinuous work.
its abridgment of the purchasing pow
er of wages, and its erection in the mind
of the work man of desire for legisla
tive help, which, seeing that it has
been established in favor of his employ
er, be not unnaturally or unreasonab3y
demands for himself.
cheap labIor. His antagonist is expert
labor. It is the inexpert pauper labor
of Europe which is sovermatched by the
skilled, high-priced labor of England.
Our chief European rival is England.
Yet the spectre of the pauper labor of
Europe, which England despises, walks
his round as sentinel for protection in
America.
In Mr.. Daniel Pidgeon's admirable
and suggestive Old World Questions
and Neso World Ansa0ers Harper and
Brothers, 1850, the following lucid
statement of the case is made:
'The idea that wages are determinal by
the tariff is the cornerstone of American
that wages in the States are determined, not
in the factory, but ON the farm, not by pro-
lection, but by free trade. Out of u total
population of 100000 there are II 500 900
of workers, the remainder being dependents.
Nearly eight millions of the workers are en-
gagged in agriculture, and less than three
millions in manufacturing industries, while
of the total produce raised by the former
class two-f thirds is consumed in this country,
and the remaining third, representing al
most the whole foreign trade of the States.
is exported. The prices which these surplus
exports realize are chiefly determined IN the
markets where they are sold, of which Liver
pool is the chief, and they will be high or
low according as the harvests of the world
are good or bad. Similarly the wages which
can be paid to American labor engaged in
the production Of food stuffs must depend
on the amount of money obtained In ex-
change for them, and as the great majority
of workers are SO engaged their rate. OF
wages will regulate those in every other
branch of business. Wages, like water, seek
q level, and labor will quit the field for the
workshop, or the workshop for tho field, as
this or that pays best. Thus agriculture is
I4be paymaster whom American manufact-
nrers must outbid, and agricultural wages
are determined in this free-trade market of
the world. A glance at the condition of in