The Yakima herald. [volume] (North Yakima, W.T. [Wash.]) 1889-1914, 1892-10-27

cause Of the protective tariff. They are
hieh because wage earners have large op-
portunities, because cheap lands offer 3
good living and a homestead to men with
very little capital, because Americans are
quickest to adopt new machinery, be-
cause the free institutions Of the country
enable the workingmen to protect them
selves by laws and to combine against
wrong and for the enforcement Of their
rights, because wages are higher every
where than they were City years ago.
Advance in wages and reduction Of the
cost Of living is the rule Of civilization.
Wages in America were always apparent
" higher than in the old countries Of
Europe, just as wages are higher In the
aparsely settled territories than in the
states Of the Atlantic seaboard; but the
protective tariff Is no more to be credited
with the four or five dollars earned by a
laboreT in lonely mountain mine than
for the sixty cents paid to the imported
Pole who digs iron ore in Pennsylvania.
II = man can buy an acre Of land for
t1.6O, the Involvement that will persuade
him to surrender his independence and
to become a "hand" in factory must be
greater than that which appeals to an
Englishman near Manchester who cam
not End any land to buy and who has
only an alternative between emigration
and the wages offered him,
But cheap lands have less effect on
wages than improved machinery. Since
machinery came into general use wages
have increased enormously the world
over, but in this country the advance has
been less in the last forty years than in
England and somecountTies Of the con-
tinent Of Europe, doubtless because the
impulse to wage increase was first felt
here owing to the fact that our manuiac-
turers have invariably been the first to
adopt improved methods.
Mr.. Gifien, the eminent British stat Is
tician, estimated in the queens jubilee
year that in the City years money wages
In England had advanced 100 per cent.
This was free trade England's response
to the absurd claim that taxes on goods
affect the prices Of the labor market. In
1883 Mr.. George Lord, president Of the
Manchester chamber Of commerce,
showed that since 1850 wages in England
had increased 40 per cent, ranging from
1880 per cent. in mechanical engineer
ing to 74.72 per cent. in other mechanics
and in medium cotton spinning and
weaving.
In 1885 Mr.. Lowthian Bell stated that
to his own knowledge wages in the Tyne
chemical manufacturing industries had
increased in twenty-five years SIX per
cent, while the cost Of the product had
been reduced 40 per cent. At the same
time he said that while in France, Ger
many, Belgium and Austria during the
last forty years the cost Of living had been
augmented, in the United Kingdom il
had diminished.
The increase Of wages 10 the United
States, as shown by the census returns Of
1850 and 1880, was 800 per cent, little
less than the Increase Of wages 10 Eng.
land. The report Of the bureau Of laboi
statistics in Massachusetts for 1884
showed that from 1872 to 1888 wages ad
yanced in Great Britain 9.74 per cent.
while they declined on the average il
Massachusetts, during the same periOt
N5.4l per cent.
The French Official statistics show tina
from 1853 to 1888 the advance in wage
was greater even than the advance in tn,
United States or the United Kingdom
II was IS per cent. in Paris and 6s pc
cent. in the provinces.
How much machinery has had to d
with the advance Of wages Is shown b,
the fact that in France the pay Of tn
women engaged in making laces, EN-
broideTies and clothing increased o. pc
cent. between 1874 and 1879. The Intro
duction Of machinery on farms in thl
country increased the wages Of iarr
laboFers In Massachusetts from 1850 /
1880 SO per cent, with board in add
ton. The agricultural laboreF is est
mated TO be better Of than he was fort
yeaEs ago BY 100 per cent.
The introduction Of machinery inl
cotton mills 10 Germany between lsS
and 1880 Increased the wages from 90
$50 per cent.
Al the same time the proportion
skilled to unskilled labor increase,
The number Of persons earning the higl
er rates Of wages is much greater than
; was, and Of those performing the humb
ct duties much less. The opportuniti,
for skilled labor grow with every new ID
vention, and the occasions for the huu
blest labor become fewer.
One Of the best tributes to the Wag
raising power Of machinery Is that Of N
Edwin Chadwick, the English economil
In Nottingham" be said, ''the intr
duction Of more complex and more cost
machinery for the manufacture Of lac
while economising labor, augment,
wages 70 the extent Of over 100 per cent
There e no protection fal'acy 50 absul
g that The tariff tax Is doing the work
civililaiion. Il e the thought d the
onthe wheel Who imagines that il is
power that's propelllng the wagon. II
theory that asatnie Invented for the q
,,cl,r,ruf AZ = fo1r Nv limiting The fra