New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-10-21


they produce similar goods, and il the goods
are invariably sold to the ultimate consumers ior
less money than they paid before we established
the industry: and then, than that If all this
results in keeping in the United States large
amount of money which would otherwise be sent
abroad. what more does any one want to know
about il? How it is done or why 1t is done is oil
very slight importance, if it actually be done
Ever since the passage of the Mckinley Dill
have been trying 10 get Some Free-Irader to agree
10 adopt this test on tin-plate, as test, and let
the result settle the question. Up TO date l have
vet to find a single man who has dared accept the
proposition.
In answer to the third question, have to say
that a duty of 40 to 60 per cent has never been
levied on goods when our laboring men receive
only II per cent Of the duty levied. That Is
simply a falsehood which has been reiterated by
the Free-Traders of the United States until some
people believe it. They get at this pretended re-
suit without taking into account the actual LABOR
that enters into all manufactured articles. There
is hardly an article to-day in use among the people
of the United States of which over 80 per cent is
not labor instead of IL per cent What Free
Traders call raw material is mostly labor.
In answer to your fourth question, there Is
nothing in the laws of any nation that can COM
pei manufacturers TO pay any given amount for
wages The price of work is governed In all
cases by the law of supply and demand and Dy
surrounding conditions and it makes no difference
whether YOU are in free-trade country or pro-
lection country, just the wages paid are never
determined by law We have in the United
States such condition of labor that wages range
nearly twice as high i'll this country as they 10
abroad. That condition being once established Is
as effective indeed, much more effective than any
legislation could make il.
In answer to your fifth question, have not
the tables by me in order to look up anything 50
far back as 200 years. / have no doubt that Tor
a long time during the early days OF our colonial
existence wages were lower i'll this country than
they were abroad At all events, within my
memory, the wages of people working in this
country have in all cases been doubled, In many
cases they have been trcbled, and in few cases
wages are four times what they used to be.
In answer to your sixth question, it is impos-
sible for me to see just what you mean. IT, as
YOU intimate in that question: that low tarin
made wages higher in this country than in Eng
land between 1910 and 1860, then why does not
the freetrade tariff of England, which Is still less
than the low tariff, make them still higher IN
England? In other words, if you think that the
lower the tariff the higher the wages, why does
not free-trade England pay twice as much as we
do, instead of our paying twice as much as she
does?
In answer to your seventh question, l am ut
terly una BILE to discover what you mean by the
question 1t may be very wise one, but 1t Is
beyond my depth.
AS to your last question, / have already
answered it so many times that it begins to be
tiresome After permit laboreD to come into
this country from the Old World they at once
L. la.
TO the advantages of all American citizens. Some
regulations may be wise which should prevent
the landing of so much ignorance and crime in
the United States. So long as we permit them
to land on our shores and become part and pNfcel
of our people, | see reason why we should
put any restrictions upon them any more than
were placed upon your ancestors and mine when
they landed in the United States.
| voted once in Congress to prevent the ingress
Of Cinnamon into the United States. That was
an entirely different matter from passing laws de-
priving them of rights and privileges after they
have been permitted to come and live among US
II the tariff laws which the Republican party
have passed, and which have been in force for
the last thirty years. are such hardship on
laboring people, will Mr.. Nichols please explain
how it happens that many labores are con-
tinually coming from the Old World into this
country? Why should he even suggest that
duty he placed on laboIers who come over here {?
If our workingmen are in such distress, one would
think that a law would be necessary to keep
them in the country and stop them from leaving
it. Yet in all my correspondence l have never
yet had a single suggest that we ought to
have some method of preventing people from
going from this protected country of ours into
the beautiful, elegant free-trade countries of the
Old World. If the worringmen of the Old World
are better off than those who live and work III
this tariff-ridden country, why do they not stay
there? Or when they get here and find out
how much worse off they are here than they were
abroad, why do they not go back? AS rule
people like to better their condition. II our
working people are SO badly used, why the need
of tax laws to keep them out of this country?
r. G. HORR.