The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-03-09
THE DUTY ON TIN PLATE.
A British Authority Thinks That 1t ITO
tects Our Wages.

1t is worthy of note that English free
traders, however much they strive by
voice and pen to help on the cause OF
their friends in America, are often
found adducing facts in proof of their
theory which are stoutly denied By then
strong siding champions on this side
of the Atlantic
The cornerstone of the tariff contro-
versy in this country is as to whether
our higher labor cost makes tariff on
competing foreign products necessary
to the life of the American industry
concerned' The protectionist's plat.
form has always been that we should
manufacture for ourselves whatever
nature has fitted the country to manu-.
facture as well as other countries are
fitted. But we may be unable to make
the things nature has equipped us to
make because of the low wages prevail
ing in other countries. The products of
this cheap labor may come into this
country also low price as to prevent
the production of similar goods by
Anerlcdn HlSH-prlceu ldDOr
If, for instance, an English manu-
facturer pays fifty cent? a yard for the
labor in yard of cloth, and the Ameri-
can manufacturer is forced to pay 81
yard for making similar cloth, it is
plain that the Englishman can under
sell the American, close his American
factory and throw his American high
priced labor out of work. In such a
case the protectionist insists that a
tariff of at least fifty cents a yard must
be charged on that cloth when il, enters
this country so that the American cloth
factory may live.
Now, the American free trade 're-
former" denies that there is any need
of tariff for this purpose, that labor
cost is as low or lower in this country,
and that the tariff only helps the Ameri-
can manufacturer to raise his price.
These opposite views present the fun.
damental difference on the tariff ques-
ton between the two great parties in
this country.
The protectionist holds that tin plate
is exactly analogous to the supposed
case of cloth given above. We have all
| facilities for it's manufacture, and are,
in fact, the greatest producer of iron
and steel in the world, and should make
for ourselves the sheets of iron or steel
known as tin plates. Since the labor
cost of producing them here is much
greater than in Wales, we need the
present tariff on them. The American
Cobdenite opposes this view at every
point The British Cobdenite agrees
to dot with the protectionist. Hear
him speak through the columns
of the Iron and Steel Trades
Journal, of London, January 5:
There are many difficulties to be successfully
COPIED with before they (the Americans) car
manufacture tin plates with commercial success;
in competition with this country, even with the
help OF the present import duty, which is equa
to bounty of from 70 to 80 per cent. on the
| price of the manufactured article in the country
of production. The question of labor in the
United States is the most difficult TO be deal
with successfully. In Wales the adult worl
| people have been engaged in the trade from
childhood, and their children, as soon as capa
BILE, assist in the mills 1t is, indeed, not an un
common occurrence to find whole families work
| ing together. The making of tin plates as the
children grow to men and women becomes
habit and they acquire great dexterity saving
much time and labor, and the wages of the fe
male laborers and children are but 1.-THE o
what American skilled workmen would demand
If whole American families were
forced by poverty to work side by side
in the dirty, laborious empl oyment o
tin plate making, we might make tir
plates in successful competition will
the Welsh. 1t is beca use the spirit O
our institutions and the social instincts
of our people demand that the mothe
and children be kept at home and il
school, and that the father receive suf
ficient pay to support them decent,
and in comfort, that tariff is kept OIL
tin plates Make them we should, bu
American womanhood must not be de
graded nor American childhood dwarfe,
to enable US to do so.