San Antonio daily light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1886-1907, 1888-08-30
roNEY ON FREE TRADE.

the tariff are unworthy of his past
reputation and exhibit much more OF
the spirit of reckless demagogueism
| than of enlightened craftsmanship.
| He baited his hook to catch the votes
| of workingmen, and he supposed any
sort of clap trap would pass muster
with them. Why did he not insti-
| tute comparison between the wages
paid in England and the United
States, and the relative con-
dition of the laboring classes in
| the two countries, and then
strike q fair balance between them?
England is in the full fruitiOn of the
bliss of free trade. She has enjoyed
it long enough, now berating the ma
tured fruit of free trade. The expert
ment has been fully tested.
In spite of free trade English wage
workers receive about half the wages
that are paid to American wage-work-
ers and are but one step removed from
pauperism. This is a notorious and
an incOntestable fact. Mr.. Thurman
may have forgotten this fact; it suits
his purpose to forget it, but American
workingmen will not fail to al
tach due Importance to it.
1t is suggestive and signi-
ficant fact. Why? Because it
eXplodes the faliacy that free trade is
a blessing to workingmen by cheap
ening the price of manufactures.
Food and house rent absorb the bulk
of the wages of the sober wage work
er. The cry of cheap clothes is a
snare and a delusion. Calico is now
So a yard and domestic Sc and 1Oc
ward, and free trade could only lower
these prices by forcing manufacturers
to cut down the wages of their hands
in order to avoid being undersOld by
the goods turned out by the pauper
labor of Europe. A good and sub
stantial suit of ready made clothes
can be bought now for from SO to SO,
so that, the cry that American goods
are too high in price is false and UNI
founded and is only raised to entrap
workingmen into supporting tree
trade ideas and legislation. The only
way that free trade Will cheaper the
price o. goods will be by forcing re-
ciuCton of wages, and this, certainly,
will not help American wage workers
in their fight with poverty.
If free trade in England, after
trial of over a generation, has utter Y
failed to better the condition of the
wOrkingmen, or to prevent capital
being accumulated in the hands of
few men, it is absurd toI
expect that it will operate beneti-
cially in the United States.
I ask every wage worker in the
United States, if he is wi Ing to risk
the baleful consequences of the wild
experiment of free trade? Is he will
ing to reduce himself to the level of
the English wage worker, TO crafty Il
parcel of political cranks in their in
sane desire TO destroy the industrial
enterprises OF the Union? 1t is n safe i
rule to let well enough alone and to
look betOr we take a leap. We have
grown and prospered wonderfully,
under protective tariff manufactures
have multiplied. Every new indus
trial enterprise creates a fresh de-
mand for labor, and to that extent is
beneficial to poor men. LabOrlng
men would be very foolish 10 swap a
system that has done so much to de-
velOp and enrich the country for a
wild experiment that has not better
ed the condition of the wage workers
in England.
But Mr. Thurman has the hardi-
hood to say that the protective tariff
er riches the manufacturer, but plum
ders the wage worker by compelling
him to pay an eXOrbitant price for
the goods consumed hy him.
This is an unfOunded assertion.
prompted by sheer desperation.
Every article, manufactured iii the
United States. is twice as cheap as it
was forty wears ago under the low
tariff of 1915. The more manufactures
are multiplied, in nation, the greater
becomes the competition for the sale
Of goods, and this very competition
inevitably reduces the price OF goods.
Such has been the case in the United
States.
But, without manufactOries manuel
labor on farms would be the sole re-
source of poor men and women. Moth
ing else would be left for them to
do to earn their daily bread.
This reflection richly deserves the
careful consideration of wOrkiugmen.
1t would be insanity in wOrkingmen
to give their endorsement and votes
to policy that will certainly hamper
and cripple the mills, factories, etc,
which now furnish them with the
work upon which their subsistence
depends. maintain that had it not
been for the protection of our home in
dustries, the country would now be
but slightly richer than it was in 1910.
An agricultural nation is always poor,
aid sparsely populated. Manufactures
augment both population and capital.
Philadelphia is richer than Texas,
7 I'D Arl- Of.
owes this superiority in wealth to the