Workmen's advocate., 1890-11-22
PROTECTION AND FREE
 TRADE.


 absurd or impossible ventures. The fact. however, that shipment of coal has just been made from the United States to England will probably compel revision or abandonment of the terse expression. The quantity shipped was 700 tons; the stuff came from Pocahon- tas, in Virginia, and the experiment was made by the Norfolk and Western Railroad Company, whose traffic in this kind of bituminous coal increased from | 4,700 tons in 1881 to l,500, ,00O tons | in 1889, It may be stated in addition that the White Star steamer leu. tonic used this class of fuel on her last voyage and found it to contain excellent steam qualities, with only small proportion of volatile matter and ash. It is not enough, however, that it's industrial value is equal to that of the best British coal; for commercial purposes 1t must be as cheap; which i'm. plies, of course, d corresponding cheap ness of the labor employed in its extrac- tion, In other words the wages of our miners have been SO reduced under our so called system of "protection to Ame- rican labor, that our coal barons can undersell on foreign markets the ex- | ploiters of foreign pauper labor" while availlng themselves of the tariff to exact here for the same product 75 cents more per ton than they can get for it abroad.
 This is the effect of capitalistic pro. lection, Now let us see the effect of captalistic free trade.
 Threatened in their profits by Ameri- can competition on their own soil, the British coal barons will urge upon their hands the necessity of submitting to reduction of wages, that the British mining industry of England may be able to maintain its preponderance and repel the foreign invader without curtailing the profits of capital; for these profits. mark well, must remain intact: other wise capital would emigrate to the moon, you know, or in some mys, terious, nCOmprehensible way seek other channels of employment and cease to feed" labor. A reduction of wages in England must immediately be fol- lowed by similar reduction in America, ln order to preserve the position gained abroad by our capitalists--a position which, of course, according to their reasoning has been gained exclusively by their enterprise and for the great benefit of American labor, whose field of employment has thus been enlarged and would again be Curtailed if the newly opened outlet were lost. It is not observed that the new market having been obtained at i.l expense of Ameri can labOr-tnat is, through reduction of its wages-all that the latter has gained Is an increase of toll, since a larger product must be turned out for the same compensation.
 It were needless to extend this des. cription of the process through which domestic protection and international free trade are equally developing con- petition among the workers. We have repeatedly shown how both systems were used alternately and together for the degradation of labor. We shall add simply that when the rate of wages reaches a minimum, and when compe, tition actually threatens the profits of capital, national trusts are formed under protection, and international ones are formed under free trade.
 Is it not high time, then. for the labor of all countries to treat with contempt the humbogologists of both systems, and to unite into one mighty army under