The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1888-06-23

lists. What our farmers have done for ou
export trade in 1887 they have done in al
these years, more or less, since 1860.
The farmers of this country, paying as they
do a tariff royalty TO nearly every industry bu
their own, and paying relatively higher wages
for labor than other industry in this country
and having their home price fixed by the ex
port price, are, Notwithstanding all these dis
advantages able to and, with head erect, dc
enter the markets of the world and compete
not only with the so called pauper labor o.
Europe but also with that great and uncount
ed horde of Asiatics in the valleys and plains
of India.
As it has been the fashion to ascribe all ouI
growth and prosperity to the tariff, so it has
also been the fashion to ascribe the higher
wages paid labor in this country over that oi
England wholly to protective tariff Fig.
ures have been paraded comparing wages
here and over the sea, and then we have been
gravely told that the tariff is the sole cause OF
all the difference in our favor. | am not a
disbeliver in just and fair protective tariff,
but abhor putting it on false grounds. Com
parsons are worthless unless the conditions
are similar, and 10 this instance the eonclu'
clusions claimed prove too much.
England is called free trade; Austria, Ger
many, Italy, and France are as decidedly and
as highly protective as this country. In re-
pect to density of population, cost of living,
interest on money, and cost of land, England
is more on par with those countries than
our own, and yet in England the wages are
much higher than on the continent Here is
what Senator Frye, in his speech delivered at
Boston before the Home Market Club on what
he ''saw in Europe" says:
But am not going to weary your patience. !
have spent enough of your time on the question of
what wages are worth in Europe. say, from all my
observations made there, and they were made as
carefully as could make them, and in all honesty
of purpose there is only one country in Europe that
| comes within one-half of our wages, and that is
Great Britain; that in Germany, France Belgium,
and Switzerland they not third ofour wages,
and in Italy not one-quarter.
To see the true force of this statement, just
| imagine there were no such country as the
United States in existence, and then by all
the laws of inductive reasoning you would
have the strongest kind of argument in favor
of free trade England as against the high pro-
tective tariff countries of the continent on the
question of wages. Senator Frye has uncon-
sciously but naively pricked his own bubble.
But we can find good illustration nearer
home. The Minnesota and Dakota farmer is
not directly protected in his farming opera
tions in the sense in which the manufacturers
of iron and steel and of cotton and wooden
goods are, and yet the wages of agricultural
laborers in Dakota and Minnesota are rela-
lively higher as compared with agricultural
laborers in Europe than in that ofthe directly
protected industries mentioned, and much
more certain and regular and far less subject
to fuctuation.
But want to call Senator Frye's attention,
and / only do so in response to his Boston
speech, to his own New England for q mo-
ment, for l think it is in this matter to some
extent as in the missionary cause..one need
not always go abroad in search of heathens.
Less than generation ago nearly all the mill
hands and factory operatives ofNew England
were her own children, the sons and daugh-
ters Of New England farmers, mechanics, and
tradesmen. And now am told by reliable
men, whose word l can not doubt, that all
this is changed. Their mill hands and factory
hands are now mostly foreigners-m mainly
Canadian n-French-while their own sons and
daughters, those who before constituted their
labor force, all go West, so that one could
almost without axaooeratian GOV that in Now
England the tariff protects not American but
Canadian labor. Now if | were one of those
wicked free traders with whom it is the fashion
to class every one who believes in any form
of tariff reduction, might say, 'Your high
tariff has driven the flower of your youth out
West-behold how dangerous"
But is has done nothing of the kindl
The selfish greed Of the New England man
ufacturer has reached out for cheap Canadian
labor, while the polar star of the great West,
our boundless and free for all public lands,
have drawn thither the growing cream of New
England, the concentrated essence of the Pill
grim fathers, and | am glad of it, for there is
no human being so love and admire as the
/ new EuSlduu duhtC " Jul
boundless and exuberant West There they
are all, like myself, believers in a just low
iariG as I haye defined it. And in proof Of
this, and by way Of reioinder to the ooplous
clippings from English papers INDUCED in by
some on the grave dangers threatening us from
free trade England, beg leave to quote the
| following letter from transpanted and most
worthy son of the Granite State, who is and
has been life. long Republican-one of our
leaders, in fact-and one of the leading bust
ness men and chief flour manufacturers of
Minneapolis, Hon. Charles A. Pillsbury:
DEAR SIR: have been meaning to write you for
some time saying should be very sorry not to have
YOU continue member of House of Representatives
from our State long the people in your district
/ want you there as they evidently do. Your course
has met with the cordial approval OF nearly all the
people in this State especially the Question
think safe to say that 80 per cent of the Democrats
and IS per cent of the Republicans agree with you.
necessty of having general reform or the tariff in
order 70 promote the Interests of our whole country
$ $TaBaS aBsSs as' cSun RaeGa ESSs e
Is certainly no chance for o difference in opinion
but that the Northwest would be immensely yhenetted
by very material reduction OF our tariff on almost
i hope, whatever Is done that the duty on Jute
cloth will be removed. There IS only one manufac
tory in the country hatI know of that
the iute CLOTH and they make direct into the seam
less bags 1t would be good deal cheaper for the
millers Of the Northwest to buy out that institution
as under the present tariff we probably pay for I
every year.
Yours, very truly ,-n,,
Hon. KSuTE NEEsas. NC ''' " :
The truth is, and ifs fair protective tariff il
just, as believe it is, it can afford to plant
itself on the truth, that the main cause fol
lower wages in Europe is to be found In the
greater density of population and in far
greater oversupply of labor than here. SEN
ator Frye again, in his Boston speech, un-
consciously bears witness to this. This is
what he says:
Step up to Belgium. Belgium is perfect bee hive
II Is about onehird the size of the State of Maine In
territory, and has 100000 Of people-more people
TO the mile than any other country in Europe
/ And they seem to love to work. Why, the maupfhc-
turing Of Belgium is perfectly amazing. Did you
Know she was Tightening England to-day ont Of Ael
boots2
i Again, in another place In the same speech
he says: