Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-10-17
"THE RuLwAnk OF WAGES. ;.
Some Interesting Figures Bearing Upon
the Tariff and Wages.

Some Interesting Figures Bearing Upop
the Tariff and Wages.
1t is easy TO assert, as does Mr. Blaine,
that tariff protection is the bulwark of
American wages, but it is not so easy to
prove it. Indeed 1t is so extremely difficult
that neither Mr.. Blaine nor any other defend
er Of our forty-seven per cent war tariff has
made any attempt to prove it otherwise
than by compiling tables to show that
wages in some parts Of United States
are higher than in sona Aarts Of Europe.
This, Of course, proves fDthing, because
| there is no attempt to show that our tariff
| IL the cause Of the higher wages paid in
some parts of America Besides, the oc-
cupations selected for the purposes of COM
| parison are, for the most part, those that
are not and can not be tariff protected-the
building trades, for instance.
Mr.. 8. e. Wilson has compiled from the
United States census a mass of facts and
| figures clearly demonstrating the utter un-
| truth Of the assumption that our tariff Is
the bulwark Of American wages. These
facts have often been utilized in the discus
sion Of the tariff question, but they have
never before been so completely presented
in suitable form for popular use and refer
ence.
Mr. Wilson shows first that Of the II, 400,
900 persons in gainful occupations in 1880
only about 100000 at most were employed in
protected industries. He then searches
through the census returns to find whether
the wages paid in those industries are so
| high that they can be supposed indirectly to
raise the wages Of those employed in other
| industries. And as he proceeds he discov-
ers some things that may surprise people
| who have never pursued this line Of inves-
tigation.
Taking sixteen industries. in which about
! so per cent of the 100000 workers who are
| supposed to be protected are employed, Mr.
! Wilson finds that taking the whole country
together, the average weekly wages varied
| from 81 .46 in hosiery to 50. 40 in sugar-mak-
! ing 1t will be understood, of course, that
| these averages relate to all the hands en-
plpyed, skilled and unskilled, men, women
and children. The average for all sixteen
occupations is S. 76 per week, or 81. 13, near
| ly, per day. 1t may be supposed from the
smallness Of the average that no allowance
is made for lost time. But proper allowance
is made, because the employers were COM
| PEELED TO return not the whole number but
| the average number employed during the
| year. The averages above given, therefore,
| as well as those that follow, are for the time
employed, aud are not for the whole time,
counting in the days when not employed.
! This should be borne in mind throughout.
Mr.. Wilson proceeds to show the averages
paid in different parts of the country; and
here he digs up the facts which demolish
the assumption that wages depend on the
tariff.
The highest weekly average, as above
stated, was So ~ in the sugar industry But
the average was not everywhere the same.
1t ranged from $506 and 1854 in the New
| Orleans and Baltimore refneries, respec-
| lively, to 1888 and S11.36 in the Boston and
Jersey City refineries, respectively. Here
| is curious fact. The tariff is the same in
all parts of the country, and yet the hands
average more than twice as much in Jersey
City as they do in Baltimore and New Or
leans. And what is quite inexplicable upon
the high-tariff theory the Boston and Jersey
! City refineries did not have to go out Of
business because they paid twice as high
wages as were paid by the Baltimore and
| New Orleans refneries, with which they
had to compete, and against which they had
no tariff protection whatever. This fact
seems to be fatal to the high-tariff theory
that the cost of production depends manly
on the rate Of wages paid.
Even more startling facts of the same kind
are developed, says the Chicago Times, as
the investigation proceeds. In the silk
manufacturing industry the average week
i ~ wages raDReu from Fl.SO III vermont 10
t6.40 in New Jersey. And while the average
was only 81 30 in Vermont 1t was 1901 in the
adjoining State of New Hampshire. In
Ohio the average was S1.79, in Maryland
| t2.5S in Kansas so4S. and in Missouri 81 So
1t will be seen from this that low wages
| prevailed in widely-separated localities. 1t
may be said that women and children were
employed exclusively where the wages were
very low But if so we must conclude that
men alone were employed where labor was
paid the most What, then, shall be said Of
20 cents day for women and children, and
81 TO e1.07 day for menl Are these the
princely rates of wages in the protected In
dustriesl Do we have to go to Europe to
find ''pauper laborP
Like differences are found in wages paid
in different localities in the manufacture Of
glass and glassware, in cotton mills, in
woolen mills, in iron and steel works, and so
on. All Of which proves to a demonstration
that the rate Of wages depends on something
besides the tariff, and that the average Of
wages in the protected industries is not ex.
! ceedingly high.