The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1888-08-23


of duty than they did before. But tina
for taking off the duty from the raw
material.
These advocates of protection are al
at once seized with
WONDERFUL soLIGITUDE
for the laboring man, and they want 6
high protective tariff, not as benefit
to the capitalist, not to benefit monop-
olies, not to benefit the manufac-
turer, according to their state
ments, but to benefit the labor
ing man. He is the man they
seek to protect. 1 would like to know
how taxing iaboring man on every
thing from the crown of his head to the
sole of his feet is going to enrich him.
And yet this is exactly what this tariff
tax does. and they say that is for the
benefit of laboring men. How is he to
get high wages Because the capitalist
employer will make more money and
can pay higher wages2 Did you ever
know him to do it7 The tariff b as been
raised again and again, and I have
never heard of an increase in the price
paid to laborers. We have for
twenty-seven years, and the highest
tariff we ever knew, and during that
time has the laboring man grown rich !?
| Every year We hear Of the strikes of
laDoring men, because they cannot live
on the wages received, anG every year
we hear of lockouts because their en-
ployers can't afford to pay more wa ges.
Why these strikes and lockouts? Why
such organizations as the Knights of
| Lob oil {o- ! 4,
protection of laborers if the tariff gives
say the tariff does not raise
prices. If thot is a fact why are the
manufacturers in favor of it? 10 they
want high tariff in order to lower
prices? If it don't increase prices you
may be sure that the manufacturer and
capitalist would not want it.
THEY ARE AFRAID
of our getting thing cheaper in this
country than they can be manufac-
tured here, as they say, by reason of the
pauper labor, as they call it, of Europe.
AS a laboring class, 1 want to
call your attention to the negroes.
The result of the war was to free about
| 100000 negroes, and L am very glad
they we're freed, and they have in
creased now to about 100000 Now
how do these negroes make living :
In the country the negro makes
what he get, by the cultivation
of the earth. Throughout the
whole South, whether he cultiyates
his own land or whether he rents it, the
crops that he gets from it are the re :
munerations he receives for his toll.
That crop is mainly cotton. How can
a high protective tariff benefit tina
negro who raises cotton? There is no
tariff at all on cotton. It comes in as
free as the air. The price of cotton is
not raised as they say, or lessened by
this tariff tax and yet here is all the ne
gro has for his labor. He can get a cent
more for his cotton by reason of auy
high protective tariff. He has to sell It
at the price made by the foreign mar
ket, but on the other hand everything
he buys is taxed by this prote cti ,e
tariff, and there can be no pretence
whatever that the tariff is anything but
an immigated injustice to him.
Our Republican friends should take
this under consideration. They saw
they freed the negro from slavery, but
yerhaps the 100000 Democratic SOL
diers IN that army would have some
thing to say about it. The Republican
party, after claiming to have freed the
negro would make them slaves again by
compelling them to pay higher taxes on
everything they use. which goes to
| benefit some one else. Isn'tit enough
that they make him slave by requir-
| ing him to vote for them and swear not
to vote for Democrats?
While l am On the subject of labor.
let me speak on American labor as
compared with labor in other countries.
In America the laboring men generally
receive more wages In money than they
do IN foreign lands; but not by any
means to the extent you may suppose.
The speaker then quoted ststis-
| tics showing the average wages per day
in Great Britain is 97% cents: in New
England, $102; Ohio, $1.e8; Colorado.
SLAB; and in the whole of the United
States, SLIP, and that the wages varied
according to the density of the popula-
ton and competition among wage
earners. Continuing, he said: "You
hear q great deal about the pauper la
borer of England, because our chief
imports are from Great Britain, and
yet in our prosperous manufacturing
State of Massachusetts the wages
are only about cents more
than in England. But if
you take the purchasing power
of money, the wages are as high in
England as in Massachusetts, / am
willing to admit as a general rule the
wages are higher here than in other
countries, but the labor is more effec-
tive here on account of the superior
skill, and can be better paid for. am
not going to say whether
LABOR UNIONS
and the Knights of Labor are benefit
or not, but 1 do say they have done
more to secure reasonable wages to
laboring men than all the tariff laws
that have been even passed in the
world. That high protective tariff
does not increase the wages of labor
ing men is shown in the fact
that the laborers in unprotected
industries are as well paid as
those in those prote cted. 1t has
been estimated that Iaborers in
protected industries number about
100000. There are eight times as
many whose industries are in no wise
protected, and therefore, if protection
is for the benefit of the laboring men