Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-08-26

'O-Cdlicu PiOtoCtcu tdTlllb, ana the wages
If this country are proportionally higher,
md higher than those of the extremely
protected nations. Thus blacksmith's
wages in Austria is 18 cents per week,
N Germany, with lower tariff, $4 per
week and in France. with a still lower
,aritf, $3.50 per week, and when you come
10 England, from which mnch of the il.
ustration and arguments in the discus
sion of this question are drawn, we find
in that country having less of the So
called protection than any country in
Europe, pays to the workmen the high
est wages that are paid on that CONT
nent. The blacksmith of whom l have
told you for an example. receives $7.37
per week. This, tits true, is not as
high wages as we pay to ours, but the
difference cannot be owing to the lack of
a protective tariff when we come to re-
view the condition of the United States,
while in one sense, it may be said that
the tariff is uniform, as no distinction is
drawn by geographical lines between the
different States, yet, owing to the nature
of their resources and industries, certain
States derive more of the alleged benefits
OF protection than others, anG therefore
in them the standard OF wages should be
proportionately higher. No State in the
Union should be more prosperous, pay
higher wages and have happier labor
ing population than Pennsylvania if this
were true, and yet in no State of this
Union are lower wages paid to the great
mass OF the laboring population than in
that State. In no State is the lot of the
laborer less enviable. In no State is
there more discomfort. Surely, in view
of these facts, the protective tariff cannot
be the producing cause of the general
high rate of wages paid to women
throughout the United States. So, again
in the State of Maine, the home of the
apostle of protection, the average wages
of an employee are $257 per year, while
in the State of Connecticut the average
rate of wages is 1886 per year. Why are
they not equal in these two States ?
Why is the Maine man worth only two
thirds as much as the Connecticut man
if higher protective tariff is what
makes wages?
THE ARGUMENT
From the mere fact that two things CO.
exist; that for many years we have had
a protective tariff in the United States,
and that for many years we have paid
higher wages to our workers than those
paid in other countries, and that there
fore one is the result of the other is not
sound or logical, unless a connection is
shown between the two facts; and when
you find that the highest protected local
tiles pay the lowest wages, we have not
only demonstrated that the connection
does not exist, but we have further dem
onstrated the fact that the converse is
true, and that between the two facts
there is no possible relation. And this
very State of Pennsylvania affords a
proof of the proposition which 1 some
time since announced, and which, in
deed, is so simple that its truth must be
apparent to the mind on the slightest
reflection, namely-that supply and de-
mand are the great factors that control
the wages of labor. For why is it that
in this favorite protected State OF Penn
sylvania wages are so low, the miners,
who form very large proportion of the
laboring class there getting only 65 cents
per day? Why is that large proper
ton of the working classes there, ac-
Labor Bureau, live in a condition little,
if at all, Superior to the Chinese, whose
presence on this coast we all feel
to be curse. 1t is because
capital, following the selfish instinct
which has always guided and always
will guide it, has sought for one of its
Observation-Disclosures the cheapest price
it could find it, and not finding the cheap
est labor in the place where it was pro-
posed to use it, brought it there. 1t is
because the proprietors of the coal and
iron mines and other large interests in
that large State have imported from the
surplus population of Hungary, Italy
Russia and other European nations with
its surplus population, pauper labor which
is willing to leave those highly protected
countries, and come to ours to share the
advantages which the natural resources
of our country, the greater capacity of our
workmen, the greater demand for labor
and the absence OF a surplus population,
have enabled our working classes to de-
mand and receive.
And yet, torsooth, the Republican party
claim to be seeking to protect our people
from the pauper labor Of Europe.
THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
Proposes to protect and aid American la.
Dor in its competition with this labor oi
Europe by encouraging the importing
into this country free of tax, not this
pauper labor which will compete with the
American laborer on his own soil, but
the raw materials which will require his
labor to manufacture them into articles
for use both at home and abroad, and
thus by increasing the field of and de-
mand for labor, will maintain its wages
at high standard.
Let us test the blessings of this pro.
tective system in another way. The
American workingman has now for
twenty-seven years been enjoying the
blessings of protective tariff and high
taxes, which are alleged to foster manu-
factures, and so give him employment at
high wages. The result should be that
the workingman should be as happy and
content as one Of Swimby's boarders. Is
it so? Has it been so? A reference to the
third annual report of the Commissioner
of Labor issued this year shows that in
the six years, from 1881 to 1885, there
had been strikes in 22,336 establish.
lishments; of these, 1862, or about
three-fourths, were in the States of New
York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts.
Ohio and Illinois, where protection is
contended to have worked such wonders
for the laboring man. There were lock-
outs during the same period in 2,lS2
establishments. More than nine-tenths
of these occurred in the five States have
named. The number of EMPLOYEES
striking and involved was nearly 400.
600; in addition to these there were about
1G0 000 am n1Ovoaa 1OcLo6 o,,t ~ AZ