Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1892-01-21

noticed that the American machinery
was all new and in motion, the Eng
lish all still, and, as one of their
critics said, might as well have been
shown twenty years ago. We have
the best machinery, our mechanics
are the most inventive, and our pro-
ducts have the least labor cost in
them. Give our workman free raw
materials and untaxed necessaries of
life, and his employer only the Eng
lish profits, and it will no longer be
that we will buy from Brazil eight
times as much. as we sell, while
Great Britain sells eleven times as
much as she buys from that country.
Third-High wages does not mean
dear goods, but rather increased
production and hence lower cost.
One man, on the continent, oversees
two or three looms, in England three
or four, in the United States six.
Our steel output is fifty per cent
greater per man than in Europe.
Our well fed, intelligent workmen,
turning out a larger per cent of
wealth and wages, need not fear the
pauper labor Of any country, as long
as it remains at home. Labor is
dearer today, judged by it's efficiency,
in England, on the continent of Eu-
rope, in India and China than in
America.
Fourth-In our own country
wages are less in protected than in
unprotected industries; in cotton
manufactures 81 cents per day, silk
81 cents, woolen 81, iron and steel
$l.25, iron mining 81; while in our
western states even common labor
is paid, on the average, $3.50. The
poorest paid labor in the United
States is that employed in making
clothes, their product being protect
ed by duty of from 40 to 80 per
cent.
Fifth-In protected industries the
laborers are largely either women
and children (in fifteen large factor
les nearly 10: per cent and in all the
cotton and woolen mills nearly twice
as many as the men) or foreigners,
in mining IS per cent, in all manu-
factories 80 per cent, in those IN
fifty large cities 90 per cent. This
class of labor is evidently employed
to break down our high rate of wag-
es, many foreigners being brought
across by the shipload for that pur
pose. Yet these are the industries
that demand higher and higher du
ties to protect our American work.
men.
Slxth-Protected Industries are
not only the seed bed of trusts, but
of lay-offs, strikes, and repeatedly
reduced wages. Against these the
]aborer is not protected, for foreign
ers are imported free of duty te
take his place.
Seventh-The rate of duty is ou
Of all proportion to the cost Of Labor
ertering into the products. In cot
ton manufacture the wages are q
per cent of of the product, average
duty 40 per cent; woolen, wages II
per cent, duty 20 per cent; clothing
wages 2l per cent, duty SO per cent
iron and steel, wages 23 per cent
duty Al per cent. The average pc
cent of labor in all industries l
about one-sixth, the average dut,
fully one-half. So that if our highl,
paid labor is the reason for protec
ton, and if, instead of being deare
than our own, English labor shoult
cost nothing, we could reduce ou
duty to one-third the present rat
and still compete on equal terms ii
the market of the world.
Eighth Reducing the tariff ha
never reduced the wages in ou
country, and raising the tariff ha
never raised them, but the contrar,
. has frequently happened. Com
Il \ =