The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1888-05-05
NEEDS OF THE NATION.
who Gains by Protection labor Cots None
of the Spells.
ator Vance in tie Baltimore Sun.


and keep out of sight as much as possible
their own interests in tariff taxes. They say
it is all for labor. They can't endure, they
say, that our laboring people should have only
the wages received by European paupers,
and be compelled to live as they do: there
fore, they say, 'we must make our goods
high priced by taxation When reminded
that the increased price is not paid 10 the
workman, but to the manufacturer, they an
swer: "Nery true, but it enables us to pay
our workmen higher wages than are paid to
European laborersi To this | reply, And
that is very true also; it does enable you to
pay higher wages, but you don do It, Men
do not pay higher for the same thing simply
because they have more money. kich and
poor alike pay no more than the market price
no more and no less-except when the rich
receive a reduction by means of ready and
abundant capital. Otherwise than by those
combinations which wealth affords, there is
not an article of human want sold in America
for which the rich man is charged less or
more than the poor man. | refer, of course,
to articles of the same quality. Labor, hu-
man intelligence and muscle, being COM
modify offered for sale, is subject to the same
economic laws which govern the sale OF other
commodities. If there is no legislative inter.
ference, these laws will operate fairly and
Justly upon all, but the artificial increase of
the prices of products is not and cannot well
be applied to the labor which is expended on
the products. Therefore labor is placed I'M
der disadvantage by tariffs. The manutac-
turer's interests are protected by excluding
competition; the workman's interest is un-
protected and is left open to the competition
of all the world, and all the world is most
cordially invited to comedy bounties of our
public lands and immediate citizenship-to
compete with our workingmen. The advan-
tages are all on the side of the manufacturer,
HIS prices are secured by law; the laborers
wages are dependent on the free gift of the
manufacturer, who admits he is enabled
to make them higher. In fact, how does he
procure his labor? By making a calculation
of how much his profits have been increased
by the tariff and increasing wages in proper
tom? Not bit of it. Such justice would
indicate the near approach of the millennium.
He goes into the labor market-an unprotect-
ed free-trade market-and buys it at the
lowest market price.
If the American article is too high for him,
he steps over into Canada and buys 'pauper
labor" if the price is too high there, as it
sometimes is, he sends his agent to Europe
and buys and ships over "pauper" labor until
he is supplied. He floods our market with
cheap pauper "labor," to the great injury
of our own industrious workers, and then
when he has procured his supplies at rates
fixed by the eager, halt. starved competition
of struggling men all the world over, he rends
the air with bowls of distressfll rage against
the coming in of y foreign blanket, wool
hat, bushel of salt, school book or q slate
pencil because it will injure the American
working mani A pauper made coat or pair
of shoes will ruin him forever, but the pauper
himself, who supplants him, and takes his
own and his children's bread, is the highest
economic blessing and the very gift of Heaven
to the American laborer
Since the world was made or ever the hills
were brought forth was ever such absurd and
lying logic spread out for the acceptance Of
human sanity? Did ever cat before catch
mice with so thin disguise of meal? Veri-
ly, instead of the false cry of protection to
American labor they should have emblazoned
on their banners the words Protection to the
manufacturers capitalj free trade in flesh
and blood ~
OF course wages are higher here than in
Europe; perhaps higher than anywhere else
in the world. But the man who asserts that
the tariff has made them so is lacking in
either intelligence or honesty. Labor is
higher in the United States than anywhere
else because it is more productive than it is
anywhere else, and is therefore worth more
to its employer. The statistics abundantly
prove this. Men of common intelligence no
longer compare the cost of labor in product
by the price per day paid to the operatives
only, but look at the results of the days work
of each workman. The excess of the finished
article which the American laborer can turn
out over his foreign rival shows conclusively
that his labor is the cheapest to his employer
in the world. This will be illustrated by the
following table found in Mr.. Schoenhof S
''Study in Social Physiology" and which has
been approved by economists in Germany,
England and the United States.
The productive capacity of one operative,
taking 100 as the unit, is as follows:
Cotton, lbs. Wool, lbs. silk, lbs
United States 100 100 1Ol
Germany...... "a bO %
The illustration of the relative capacity o
American and European labor in various
other branches ofindustry could be multiplied
indefinitely.
This is due to his superior energy, skill anG
machinery. In fact, the price of labor every
where beautifully illustrates a great law o
political economy, which fixes the price of al
things on the basis of their value. A careful
comparison will show that labor is paid in al
the civilized world according to its effective
ness, the highest being the most profitable
and the lowest being the least profitable tc
the laborer. This runs through all European
countries in all employments, except, possibly
few special handicrafts which are effected
by an element of art, and is especially visible
in what is falsely called the cheap labor o.
Asia. Now, labor was higher here than il
Europe before we had a tariff, and whilst
Europe was highly protected it was higher
when our first tariff OF 8 per cent. was in force
it has continued SO ever since without the leas
regard to the state of the tariff. A few
months after the act of 1888 had increased
the duty on croekery % per cent, the potters
of New Jersey reduced the wages of their OPP
eratives about the same figure, One strong
reason given by the legislators who enacted
our first tariff laws was that these duties were
necessary to our manufacturers because labor
was higher in this country than in Europe,
Not one of them jeopardizod his reputation
for the eandor and common sense by the as
sertion that they we're needed to raise wages
above the old world level. II is also most
important fact, in which all good men rejoice,
that for more than century the wages of To-
Dor have been continually increasing, whilst,
owing to the help of science, the price of the
vi lduOE DcCh
ing. The testimony taken by the royal com
mission which recently investigated the causes
of the depression Of trade establishes this
beyond dispute. Wages in the United States
have largely partaken of this increase and
benefited by the decreased cost of products.
Our manufacturers, therefore, pay higher
wages than those of other countries, not be-
cause they prefer to do so or try to do so, but
simply because they can't help themselves.
not from philanthropy, but from necessity,
Their utmost efforts are exerted, on the con-
trary, as have already shown, to reduce, not
to increase wages, and it is absolutely untrue
to claim that protection is the cause or the
intention of this high reward of labor. 1t is
quite true, as protectionists assert, that man
ifactures tend to increase wages by Diversity
ing industries and thus increasing the demand
for labor. But to give high tariffs the credit
for this is TO assume that manufactures cannot
exist without protection; whereas we know
that England and Belgium-the one free
trade and the other a very low tariff country
are, in proportion to population, the greatest
manufacturing nations on the earth. In no
possible way can it be established that labor
is benefited by protective tariffs. But even if
it did inure directly 10 the advantage of the
operatives, iii stopped with the factory man
it would be an outrage that ought MOTTO be tole
rated for moment. That it does not stop
there cannot be honestly doubted. Premis-
ing, as set out in previous article, that it is
wrong as well as impolitic to tax one man to
suppoyt another, let us see how protection
o,,erratas-uot ON the whole body of consumers