Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1888-06-08
FREE TRADE AND LOW WAGES
Washington Sunday Gazette.

d'HiHbAOH puuhdl bdN'tNo'
If free trade is the best and most
prosperous condition for men every
where, for both employers and en-
ployed, why is it that in those
countries of Europe where free
trade is in toll blast the wages Of
workingmen are 50 small For
what reason come every week to
our shores the thousands OF emf
grants from Europe if it ia not be.
cause theg want TO better their
condition The coming of these
emigrants furnishes an indisputa-
bic argument in favor Of our exist
ing tariff aud against any reduc-
ton. Whenpcople leave the homes
of their fathers, the scenes Of their
childhood. the ties of birth and
consanguinity, and come to Ameri-
ca, it is because they realize that
here, under our present form Of
Government, the laborer receives
wages commensurate with the ser
vice performed. The free traders
say that wages would be just as
high if the tariff we're wiped out of
existence. Why, then, 1t may be
asked again, do they not pay good
wages in the free trade countries of
Europe? There is, there can be
but one answer, no industry is pro-
tected there. The jObbers cut
prices, the merchants must do it in
self.pIotection, and the result is
the manufacturer must either pay
starvation wages or close up shop.
This is the whole thing in a nut
shell. Nine.tenths of the immi.
grants who come to America land
here with less than 800 in their
pockets. They have heard of the
high wages and easy living in this
new country across the sea. To
men who have worked for wages at
thlrty.seven and-a half cents a day,
the prospect of double that sum is
alluring, to say the least. Good
beef in London costs three times
as much as prime beef in this city.
The -four that is used there costs
nearly one.third more than here,
and most oft is American made
at that. The Germans are COM
planning that American cheese is
breaking up cheese making in the
Fatherland, Notwithstanding they
get their labor there for thirty to
forty cents a day. The free trad
ers should suppress the immigra-
ton statistics if they expect some
of their statements to have effect
upon so intelligent a people as the
Americans.
The truth is, as The Sunday Ga
Settee has frequently said, whenever
purely local causes have produced
IN local places good times for the
workingmen under free trade, those
causes were so purely and simply
local that no general economic
theOrem could be formulated in fa
vOr of free trade. And even il
such theorem could haye been
established it would haYe no ef
feet at all when applied to this
country, a country which is in itsel
a continent, and one to which most
OF the economic laws of Europe
do not apply. For many years
Europe has been the great custom
er of England, with the inevitable
result that their people grew poor
er until certain of their nations had
the wisdom to enact high tariffs
Had every European country been
we'll governed and with high tariff
the emigration to America would
nave been comparatively SMALL
And this simple fact of the vas
emigration to this country is one o
the strongest proofs possible of the
disastrous influence upon any LAND
of the principles OF free trade.