Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1891-09-24

/ popular Indignation, not only from
I workers but from all their friends as
I well.
The second effect would be to bring
! all wages down to the rate fixed by this
one employer, if he were to continue
! business. This is suggestive. Every
! labOrer is directly interested in what
his competitor is doing: not only his
competitor in labor, but he must go
back of this and see what the employer
of that competing labor is doing If
that employer, after paying only half
or less wages to his workers. sells his
products in competition with the prod
ucts of our labor, it is only a question
of time when he will force our laborers
ont of work or down to the level of his
workers.
And it makes no kind of difference
that oceans intervene to separate the
parties. Modern inventions have prac-
tically annihilated both time and dis
lance as the product of almost every
kind of labor. So far as these two ele-
ments are concerned they afford but
little more protection to our laborers
than if the German, French or Bohemian
factory were located just across the
street from our own,
Te guard our workers from the low
priced labor of other lands has been the
anxiety of every loyal friend to the
American toilcr. Yet last year we i'm
ported as the product of this foreign
labor, in goods, consisting of glass,
silk, wool, fax, hemp and jute, iron and
steel, cotton. tobacco, liquors, paper,
earthen, stone and china ware, and the
manufactures thereof, alone to the
amount of more than $500, OOO, 900.
Every dollars worth of these could
have been produced here. Had they
been. does not anyone believe that our
laborers would have suffered the same
anxiety as to whether their wages were
in danger of reduction? Yet to the ex-
tent of these impOrtations our labore-s
have come in direct competition with
the foreign laborer. 1t has been found
almost if not quite impossible for our
wages to be advanced so long as these
heavy imports continue. Time and
again during the last ten years have
friends of our laborers sought to so adj
Just duties on these and other imports
as to protect them against the low
wages of other lands
- The Mckinley bill has proven a mas
ter stroke in that direction and it, au-
thors are entitled to the gratitude of
every friend of the laborer.
The treasury department has issued
a statement showing the amount of our
foreign commerce for the year ending
June 80, 1891, which isfull of encourage
ment to the labOrer and demonstrates
the wisdom of the Mckinley act
This statement shows that the value
of imports OF merchandise paying duty
for the nine months ending June 30,
1s91-this being since the said act went
into force-was S335.24 $40. while for
the same period ending June so. 1890,
the value of imports paying duty was
$3.50, Ts6. 032. This shows reduction Of
imports paying - = fav - of the Nc
Kinley law - =. --i.'il'
Every lab a. :,.7.I.it7 every Ia |
borer and cv"y abr, fri'nd will |
read these o. 5-ith del 1t Has !
modern t::-ce ~0vcaled so effective q |
way to relirYc II I5bnre-s FROM the |
evil effects % competition with the low
wages OF other lands?
What Labor has supDii,l this vast /
of over forty-fivc million dol