The Portland daily press., 1888-05-21
ME-. REEDS GREAT SPEECH.
CONTINUED FROM FIRST PAGE.l

censure.
The gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr.
Scott who, by the wisdom of the Speaker, so
well represents the wishes of his State on
the Committee on Ways and Means was
once an honored director in the Lake Shore
and is now an honored director in the Ca
madam Pacific. Suppose he were to say to
one of his friends-t0 me, for instance, for |
like to dream of such a good thing-you have
hundred shares of Lake Shore. They pay
per cent. and sell at 49, Canadian Pacific
sell at SO and pay 3 per cent. Canadian Pa
cific is better road. Inter-state-commerce
bill favors IL and the President is friendly.
Sell your 100 Lake Shore and buy 156 Ca
madam. You will get $46S instead of $500
for income and lots of nice chances. | could
do that as per programme. Ny sale of 100
Lake Shore would not depress that stock.
My purchase would not raise the Pacific.
But suppose 5000 men tried the same trans
fer-nay, 500-what would be the result?
Canadian Pacific would go up like rocket
and Lake Shore down like stick, and there
would be 500 badly disappointed men, and
the more OF them there were the more disap-
pointed they would be- If ever the Demo-
cratic party. under the lead of the learned
professor, on the ground that one man can
save peck of wheat by trading with Liver
pool instead of New York, puts this whole
nation at the mercy of Liverpool, we shall be
lucky, people If we get back the basket.
People say that these tariff discussions are
dull and tiresome, but there are always de-
lightful things in them. don't know when
L have bathed my weary soul in such rev.
erie of bliss as did while the chairman, by
the aid of Edward Atkinson, and the great
doctrine of labOr-cost, was explaining that
the high wages of our work people were not
an obstacle, but the very reason itself why
the whole circumambient atmosphere should
be flooded with the pauper sunshine of Eu-
rope
The more you pay the workman the less
Iul.r swswx
shoemaker the less the shoes cost. The for
mer, he explained, is the cause of the latter.
Less "labor-cost' is produced by higher
wages. The higher the wages the lower the
labor cost. No limitation, of course, was set
to so divine a principle. The only limit to
lowness of "labor-cost'' is our generosity to
the laboriDg man. Give infinite dollars to
the laborng man and things will cost moth
ing. Surely no frantic orator on labor day,
the session before election, ever offered to
the horny-handed sons of toll such a sweet
boon as the great doctrine of ''labor-cost."
But softly, my friends. This is not the
millennium. 1t is not the Heavenly Jerusa-
lem newly descended. 1t is only the old Je-
rusalem of the Jews, sacred but ancient 1t
is the old, old fact that the smarter the
workman the better the pay, and the manu-
facturer makes more out of him besides. 1t
is not an absolute fact. 1t is relative one.
1t only means that better workman in the
same country can get better pay than a poor
one, and is worth 1t and percentage over.
1t is valuable fact, but it is on old one, and
If Mr.. Atkinson, reputed an able man, ever
gave such an extension to that idea as his
pupil has he must be one of those men who
discover full-fledged planet with moons
whenever an asteroid comes within his field
of vision.
But the pleasure given by the great doc
trine of "labor-cost" is soon lost in the adj
mlration at the cool courage of what follows.
Stimulated by the theory of s'labor-cOst,"
the chairman ordered an investigation into
the Oldest manufactures in New England.
creasing wages and constantly decreasing
cost; the two very things his side has sneered
at since tariff debates were invented, higher
wages for the worker and lower prices for
the consumer.
What industries did he select? Cotton
sheetings and cott0n prints; cotton goods,
the very articles, and perhaps the only arti-
Giles which have had continuous, unbroken,
effective protection since 1924. He selects
industries which, under all tariffs, have had
sixty-four years of solid protection, shows
by. them higher wages for labor and lower
prices for consumers. then boldly wraps the
flag of labor-cost about him and proclaims to
wondering world that tariff has nothing to
do with wages. / wonder what Edward At
kinson thought of his new disciple at that
moment.
Oh. no; tariffs have nothing to do with
-
But what set up the machinery? What
caused the cotton factory to be built? Why,
the tariff. So, then, the tariff built the mill,
set up the machinery, the machinery in
creased the wages, but the tariff did not Is
not that very much like saying your father
was your progenitor, but your grandfather
wasn't: How could you improve machinery
you didn't have. How could you increase the
efficiency of machinery that didn't exist?
Perhaps now would be good time to in
hal
hate to invite this respectable audience into
even this small Sahara of figures; but really
there are GASES in it. In the original it is one
line and half, specimen of whole column.
Here it Isl
zone yard of cashmere, weighing l6
ounces, costs 138 cents; the labor-cost is 30
cents the tariff is so cents" Borrowing
from the rest of the column he means, as
you will see if you read it, 'You pretend,
you manufacturers, that you want a tariff for
the laborer; and here you are, 20 cents to the
ia9orer, and 80 cents tariff 81 cents into your
Infamous pockets.
This is certainly bad. / do not remember
ever seeing such startling exposure of cold
blooded villainy. Why, a robber baron of
the middle ages, dead and buried five hun
dred years ago, with nothing left of him but
his coffin, would rise at such a charge and
hurl back as indignant contempt as If he had
been kentucky member charged with re-
fuslng hearings on midnight revenue reform.
But let us repress our feelings. May be that
this news is like the news we used to get
from Texas during the war, Important if
true" And it is not true. A yard of cassi-
mere selling at 13S cents, wei Ching 16 ounces
and paying so cents tariff is an impossible
ty. just permit me to prove 1T.
First you take off q cents discount for SELL
ing. This includes all other incidentals.
That leaves III cents. Take off so cents. the
alleged tariff. That leaves 81 cents. That is
cost You see | am liberal. No extras
there. Now if 81 cents is the cost ana the
goods are involced hOnestly-y0u see | am
again liberal-what is the duty? 1t will be
largest under the wooden schedule. There
fore we viii take that. 1t can only be 80
cents pound and 30 per cent. ad valorem.
The 80 cents is compensatory for the wool
duty paid by the manufacturer. The 80
cents is 80 cents. Add 80 per cent. of 81
cenus-l0.Sl cents-and you have 1875 cents,
which must be your tariff. But 1876 cents
cost adoed to II cents cost and q cents for
selling gives only 103.85 cents instead of 1873
cents. which shows that the sum doesn't
prove.
Now listen to what the rate must be; 1888
cents is the agreed price; ~ cents off for
tariff on pound of cas- ,imere is IS cents.
Take that out and there remains rs cents for
cost and adivalorem duty at 80 per cent In
other words, 76 cents is 135 per cent. of the
cost. therefore the cost is $500 cents. and
.,iS ~ '"A Shi aim 10 l5.flf WHICH, aQQeQ TO
the 30 cents specific is 5471 cents. Adding
them altogether, you have 1888 cents. This
proves. Now let us see what ratio this
bears to the rest of the calculation of the
learned chairman. Eighty cents tariff, TAX
ing out 20 for labor, gave ire heartless man
ufacturer 81 cents; 54.71 cents will only
leave him 25.71.
Can he get away with that? How lucky
he would be if he could. Out of that he has
got tc pay just 80 cents to the woolman, tariff
on his wool In fact. the 50 cents pound in
the tariff is put there for that very purpose.
So, according to the chairman's theory, this
poor robber baron has got to put his hands
into his own pockets and pay 9.29 cents of
his own money besides what he gets from
tariff. Really any intelligent robber baron
would go pack to the middle ages, where he
certainly had no such luck.
OF course these figures are of no real earth
ly value except to prove the absurdity of a
line and half specimen of the chairman's
speech. He started out grandly. Go to, he
said, will pay this mans labor and show he
the tariff. The chairman does not realize
that 81 cents yard profit on cassimeres is
colossal preposter0usness. He does not have
even suspicion Of it.
Between the two kinds of free trade ora
tors the manufacturers have poor chance.
One of them, like the chairman, proves the
inoriinate profit of 81 cents yard, and shouts
loudly against the infinite extortion and the
piled up wealth. The other like the member
from Massachusetts (Mr. RusselD, who seems
to have valuable assortment of unknown
facts, proclaims the widespread bankruptcy