The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1892-07-30

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composed Of working men and has always
been the party Of the people who earn
their bread BY the sweat Of their breWs.
The Democratic party is the friend OF
the working classes, and Mr.. Fletcher
need have no fear that it will ever de-
grade them to the level of European
wage laborers. When Mr.. Fletcher dur
ing the campaign tries to make the farm
ers and workingmen believe that high
tariff is maintained by his party for their
benefit they will not believe him. It Mr..
Fletcher tells the laboring men that the
Mckinley tariff increases the price of
every commodity in common use, then
they will heartily agree with him. The
manufacturers only are benefited by the
protective tariff at the expense of the
people. The American manufacturers
are protected from foreign competition
by the Republican tariff and they are
protected from domestic competition by
trusts and combinations, while there is
no protection for the laborers IN their
wages. The wages Of the laborers do
not depend on the tariff; they are fixed
at the market value and regulated by
the economic law of supply and demand.
The wages are high when labor is scarce,
and they are low when labor is plenty.
1t is capital and not labor that gets the
benefit from tariff. It is the capitalists
and manufacturers who demand 1t and
not the agricultural and working people.
The recent strike in the Carnegie mills
will illustrate how the tariff acts in the
case OF the manufacturer. The products
of the Homestead mills are protected
from SO to Is per cent. which amounts to
prohibitive tariff on the foreign articles.
The home market is thus left to the Car
negies and others engaged in the same
industry, and by combination and agree
ment' among themselves they fix the
prices at which their products shall be
sold. They charge enormous prices for
their products or they would not have
accumulated colossal fortunes in few
years, as Carnegie and the other protected
manufacturers have done. And yet
Prick, the manager Of the Carnegie
works, says that the tariff cuts no figure
in the business. The organ of the Amer1-
can protective tariff league says that the
Mckinley tariff was not framed to in
crease prices for manufacturers. What
then was it framed for? It certainly was
not to increase the wages of the mechan-
les and laborers, for their wages are being
decreased instead of being raised. But
the protectionist organ assures us that
the tariff has ''created employment and
higher wages" for thousands. It is we'll
know, that manufacturers maintain lob
byists at the national capital begging for
more protection and protesting against
any reduction of the tariff. They GER
tainly are not so unselfsh as to do that
for the workingmen's benefit. The same
manufacturers contribute heavily to the
campaign fund of the Republican party,
and no one will believe for moment
that they do so for the sake of the work
ing mon. Since the passage of the Nc
Kinley bill wages have fallen in the pro-
tective industries. The workingmen
therefore have been injured instead of
benefited, and if the manufacturers are
receiving no benefit as their organ de.
clares, is it not about time to get rid of it?
The truth is that the tariff so far as it
protects at all does raise the prices of the
protected articles. When it fails to do
that it does not protect and cannot give
the manufacturer cent out of which to
pay higher wages. Again, when the tariff
does raise prices it does not raise wages.
The mechanic and laborer are not pro-
tected against competition as there is no
tariff to restrict free tade in labor, and
supply and demand settle the price of
labor The employer hires his mon as
cheap as he can and adds as much of the
tariff as he possibly can to the cost price
of his products. The pretense that pro-
lection raises wages is untrue, and Mr..
Fletcher is laboring under a great delu-
sion if he believes that the farming and
laboring classes in the Fifth congressional
district of Minnesota are bsnefted one
iota by the tariff. Weare much mistaken
if they do not reject Mr.. Fletcher and
his false doctrine and send Democrat
to congress that stands on the Chicago
platform and favors tariff for revenue
only, and not for protection.
SENATOR HILL is not q man who sulks
in his tent. Though defeated for the
presidential nomination at Chicago, like
a good Democrat he will take an active
part in the New York campaign and help
to carry the Empire State for Cleveland