Hopkinsville Kentuckian., 1890-05-20
Basse&t e Co,

country. If the gentleman from Iowa
will take the trouble to examine he
will find tl.at the laborers who come
to this country and whose presence
here has done so much to injure the
condition of American workingmen
came from protective Germany, Rus
sia, and Italy, and other protective
countries of Europe, and not from
free-t trade England, as the gentleman
seems to suppose. Applause on the
Democratic side.
How does the record which pro-
tective tariff has made for the wage
earners in this country compare with
the showing those English working
classes are able to make under their
system of free tradei Protection has
had fair trial here; for over qua. =
ter of a century it has been in opera
ton; it ought to be able to stand or
fall by hereford it has made. Is the
workingman of this country better
paid, better fed, better clothed, and
has he better house to live in than
under our former system of low tariff,
and is he better off than the laboref
in free-trade Englandi These are
the questions which the advocates of
protection must answer atlirmatively
if they expect longer to retain the
support of the laboring masses of the
country. The iron industry of Penn
sylvania is highly. protected indus
try, and if protection accumulated
fund out of which the wages of labor
IS increased we may reasonably look
to this inductry as one likely to fur
nish the best example of all those
blessings which protection processes
to confer on the laboring man.
The owners of these mines are pro-
tected by duty of rs cents per ton
on ore, and an additional duty ON the
manufactured products. If protec-
ton is designed to help the laborer
here is an opportunity for a liberal
display of its bounty. What are the
factsl
Contract labor, cheap laborers from
Italy and other countries of Cont
mental Europe, swarm here and COM
pete with American laborers for en-
ployment. Over 100000 of these
people have come here in the last ten
years, and the iron masters OF Penn
sylvania are chief among those who
encourage this importation of cheap
labor, and then hire at prices which
means starvation to the home laborer.
The same condition of affairs
which exists in Pennsylvania exists in
the other great iron ore producing
sections of the country.
There are over 10000 men in this
country employed in the mining of
coal. This industry, like that of iron,
is protected by duty of 75 cents per
ton, and if protection is benefit it is
natural to presume that coal miners
have realized its advantages.
As illustrating the condition OF
those who work in the coal mines of
the country, quote from the evidence
of a witness who testified before the
Senate committee in 1883. He says:
Sixty thousand heads Of families,
to whom probably 100000 women and
children are looking for support, are
in pitiable, miserable condition,
poorly paid, poorly clad, poorly fed,
and poorly housed. From my ex-
perience among the miners in Eng
land / may say that they are really
better cared for than are the coal
miners in the United States"
That protection does not help our
coal-miners, but that it is a real in
jury to them, l add the following
statement from special Investigator,
who examined the condition of affairs
as they actually existed in Illinois in
July of last year. He says:
",ren thousand, five hundred coal
miners in Northern Illinois have been
unemployed and destitute since May
/, when they refused to accept re-
duction in wages averaging 10 cents
per ton"
The same report from which the
above is taken shows that the average
price paid operatives for mining ton
Of coal is only 71a cents, less than the
protection given to the owners of the
mines. In the face of these facts
how can il be pretended that protec-
ton is benefit to the men who mine
the coall But when the miners ask
for an advance in their wages they
are informed by the owners Of the
mines that protection does not pro
tect them, that they get no benefit
from it; and yet they insist that the
duty on coal be continued.