The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1888-02-11
ever wages In this country are sufficiently
In advance Of those In England to warrant
such immigrstiop

ever wages In this country are sufficiently
In advance Of those In England TO warran
such immigration.
And that exactly confirms and clinchel
the poin, the FREE TRADER has all alonl
commended for, With comfortable passage
from Glasgow or Liverpool to New YORK
G Boston at never more than $40 and Otter
a, low as $40, how long will an intelligent
skilled English or Scotch workman remain
at home aud work for 81 or $3.50 a day
when he can get 81 or $3.50 In this coun
try
They don't do it,-that Is all. Not only
British carpenters and bricklayers, but
British iron workers. miners, cotton and
WOO! SINNERS, glass workers, &c, &c, come
over here In hordes, so that English EN-
ployers must either raise wages to retain
their labor, or wages are crowded down in
this country until 1t no longer pays to come
here from abroad.
And thus, like water, the rate Of wages
finds It's level. The law that regulates II
is that Of supply and demand solely, GER
tainly not the tariff, for carpentering, brick.
laying and many other trades in which the
rate of wages Is affected by this free trade
in labor enjoy no tariff protection of any
sort In point Of fact, in these very un.
protected tradest the wages are highest In
this country AMI the difference creates,
between here and England, while in such
protected industries as cotton, wooden, boot
and shoe and leather manufacturing wages
in this country are 80 much lower, compar.
ed with those of theunprotected industries
as to be comparatively but slightly above
those of England,-vage In silk, cotton,
wooden mills and other protected industries
being but So to 50 week, to 81 to 81 in
England.
The comparison the Republican submits
of wages in the zinc Industry paid In La
Sale and Silesia, is particularly unfortun.
ate for the protection side of the argument
for it happens that in no country is pro
lection carried TO higher point than in
Germany, and especially is that great aegis
thrown over the zinc Industry of Silesia
Yet in that industry, as In all leading ind us
tries of high tariff Germany, for that
matter, wages are at positively starvation
rates compared with those of free trade
England.
The Republican mi ght have gone on and
com pared the wages of America with those
of high protected Persia, where so cents a
day is princely; or crowded India, at %
cents day; or the 10 cents day of wall.
begirt China, where foreign goods can find
entrance only at the point of the bayonet
and explains why the highest degree of
protection in the east should have such an
opposite effect to protection in America.
But In that case even the added brain OF q
high tariff delusionist might be able to
discover that ii is not tariff, or protection,
there or here, that rules wages, but that the
enormous difference is due to vastly more
potent and obvious cause.-the measure
less difference in the supply and demand,
arising from the over crowded populations
and limitations Of human industries com.
pared with the illimitable openings for
profitable Industries in this country in a
thousand fields unknown to the effete and
baby strangling Orient.