Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1888-10-31

The Benefits of Protection-Wages, Nm
ployment, and the Cost of Living.
William Howard, Of Bethlehem, Pa, in Irish
Word]
Which is dearer, shirt at 81, with 81 in your
pocket to pay for it, or shirt at fifty cents
without cent in your pocket 10 buy ono?
Which is better protection that gives you plenty
of chances to earn the dollar homemanufac-
SuTed snf1 may AZ COST or ree trade that
may cost? Consider this question: for you
consider it SO will you vote for Harrison or
In the early part of our civil war bread sold at
cents loaf; nevertheless mobs of idle stary-
ing work people paraded the streets of New York
City crying Bread or blood! !" few months
later bread was selling at ten cents loaf never
tseless, peace plenty and contentment every
where prevailed, because everybody was profit
nb1y employed Now, what benefit would it be
to your wives and daughters if foreign calicoes
were two cents yard and you had not the two
cents to spend? and what disadvantage would
it be to them though home manufactured cali
GOES were six cents q yard, If you had the six
cents wherewith to buy the goods? I once
phia market say to one who had Just paid fifty
cents for chicken Och, SIR" buy
plenty of that kind in the ould country for six
pence. Then why didn't you stay there?"
the natural query. An sure, sir,
it was the sixpence [ couldn't get" He
found it easier to earn fifty cents in a country
riddied with free trade. He discovered it was
not the price of an article which concerned him,
in your pocket five-dollar coat is dear, but
with money ito the fore" q ten-dollar coat is
cheap. And this is just the difference between
free trade and protection. Free trade will offer
you foreign, pauper-nade cap at fifty cents,
yet prevent you from earning cent; while pro-
lection may offer you home manufactured cap
at q dollar, yet give you every chance to earn
dollars enough 60 buy several caps. Why are
foreigners crowding to shores by tens of
thousands from rom places where low-priced goods
ed people? Are any goods low priced the peo-
pie cannot buy-and are any goods high-prced
the people can readily buy, matter how small
the cost of the first or comparatively great the
cost of the second?
Free traders tell you that while they open the
gates to foreign WOODEN goods they make it up
by giving our manufacturers free raw wool from
abroad but how can this benefit you them
when our WOODEN goods must be ruinously
cheapened to meet the low priced foreign goods
that will then glut our markets?
But, will admitting foreign raw woods free
make these woods any cheaper to our manufac-
;urers? Not at ALL So long as they must COM
pete with our three hundred million pounds of
nome raised wool they will be somewhat cheap
sned, but only until they have driven our wool
growers to the wall then the foreign wool
aisers having our markets all to themselves
will demand their own prices for their f1eeces,
and thus fleece us closer than their own sheep
Thus at single stroke the free-trade Mills bill
will destroy our wool-raising industry and at
ihe same time close every woolen-mill in the
country. Are you ready and willing to- meet
ind suffer such O. calamity? You can avert it
only by voting for Harrison.
Free-traders tell you that free raw materials
will protect our industries as well as tariff
Pay no heed to the talsehood., We have free
cotton and free iron ore, yet, except for the
ttf our cotton mills and iron furnaces would in
six months be all at a sheriff's sale, and then
where would you be? Surrounded by starv ng
family OF trarnping through the country without
a home In highly manufactured goods the cost
Of the raw material is, within reasonable limits,
of secondary Importance. The iron ore that
costs 80 cents O. ton can by labor be worked up
into material worth from fifteen hundred to two
n oil t., +looT
such goods it would be of Ii tie consequence
whether the ore cost 80 cents CT 50 q ION The
further the goods are from the condition Of the
raw material he less important are few cents
one WAY OF the other in the cost of the
terial and it IS the making of these superior
goods which brings yOu the highest wages
Therefore, reat all this free-rade twaddle about
free fore. s,n raw material being such great
boon to you With the contempt it deserves.
Free traders try to deceive you with the false
assertion that protection increases the cost of.
manufactured goods, and therefore the cost of
living to,you. But see now how, on the con-
trary, protection tends constantly to cheaper
goods and raise wages AS late as 1872 free
trade England charged duty of from S39 to
500 a ton Oh imported IRON S g made it felony,
punishable with imprisonment and transporta--
tion, for any American colonist to erect blast
furnace in this country, and she levied duty
on all raw wool exported from her own borders.
By these, and other high protective means, She
SO perfectedih her own industries that she had to
preach free trade to. secure markets for her
plus products; and we and other nations were,
and are, obliged to resort to protection to guard
ourselves against herrapacity while building up.
and perfecting our own Industries. And with
what happy results {? you will ask. WE'LL to,
give only few instances out of
many, woolen blankets arc only half
the price charged us by England for
similar blankets before we had protective
tariff suit of wooden clothing which costs now
81 could not be bought ten years ago for less
than S1S or 500. In 1867 we paid England S166 a.
tan for railway iron; but, thanks to the good.
tariff, we now make all we need, and the price
ranges from. $31 to- $35 q ton, saving to us of
a yUH
would be still paying the English ironmasters.
In 1874 we paid 1915 cents o. pound for English
axIes now, owing to protection, we make
them ourselves and the price is Az cents pound.
And thus you will find it throughout the entine
list of our protected industries. AS soon we
got fairly started the prices their products be-
gan to fall, and. curiously enough, your wages
began to mise, in proof of which you have onlyto
compare the,wages and hours of labor twenty
five years ago with present wages and hours, of
labor for'the same kind OF work. It is to again
make tributary to England, with high prices
and low wages, that Cleveland has bargained
through the Mills bill, with his British suppprt-
ers for second term. %e@