West Virginia argus. [volume] (Kingwood, W. Va.) 1877-1946, 1888-05-24

aggefatlOn.
The tariff with a multitude of other
causes have, all combined, produced
the magnificent result. The chief fac
tors, however, have been our abundant
supply of the most fertile lands in the
world. which VIC have freely given
away under our homestead laws, to-
gether with the immense tide of immi-
grafton, with all its capital of money
and muscle This has produced our
great home market.
Excellent Democratic doctrine The
President himself could scarcely have
laid down the Democratic law more
clearly. Once more we would impress
upon our Republican friends the fact
that it is one of themselves who il
speaking, the representative of a large
Republican constituency. 1t will serve
to show the peculiar brand of harmony
the Republican party is now taking.
Hear him speak of the farmers he is
from farming State:
Against an aggregate of 1902, $780,
600 of imports, our non-protected
farmers can show an aggregate export
of 1923, O73, 1913, while our protected
manufacturers can only show paltry
export of $136, 735, 105 Let it be
remembered, too, in this connection,
that while our farmers thus proudly
enter into the competitive markets of
the entire world, the wages they pay
the agricultural laborer are, as COM
pared with the wages paid in any other
country for such labor, relatively
much higher than the wages paid by
our manufacturers, as we shall hereaf-
ter point out more in detail
And again hear this Republican tariff
hereto on the wage question
Figures have been paraded compar-
ing wages here and over the seas, and
then we have been gravely told that
the tariff is the sole cause of all the
difference in our favor. am not
disbeliever in just and fair protective
tariff, but abhor, putting it on false
grounds. Comparisons are worthless
unless the conditions are similar, and
in this instance the conclusions claimed
prove too much.
England is called free trade; Aus
tria, Germany, Italy and France arc as
decidedly and highly protected as this
country. In respect to density of pop
ulation, cost of living, interest on
money, and cost of land, England is
more on a par with those countries than
our own, and yet in England the wages
are much higher than on the continent.
y y 4 To see the true force of this
statement, just imagine there were no
such country as the Uuited 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 protective tariff countries of the
continent on the question of wages
But we can find good illustration
nearer home. The Minnesota and Da-
kota farmer is not directly protected in
his farming operations 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
relatively higher as compared with ag-
ricultural laborers in Europe than in
that of the directly protected industries
mentioned, and much more certain and
regular and far less subject to fuctua-
tons Less than a genera
ton ago nearly all the mill hands and
factory operatives of New England were
her own children, the sons and daugh-
tcrs Of New England farmers, mechan-
les and tradesmen. And now / am
told by reliable men, whose word can
not doubt that all this is changed.
Their mill hands and factory hands are
now mostly mainly Cana
dian-French-while their own sons and
daughters. those who before constituted
their labor force, all 60 west, so that
one could almost without exaggeration
say that in New England the tariff pro-
tects not American but Canadian labor.
= The selfish greed Of the
New England manufacturer has reached
out for cheap Canadian labor, while the
polar star Of the great West, our bound
less and free-for-all public lands have
drawn tbiiher the growing cream Of
New England, the concentrated essence
or the PILGRIM fathers and am clad