Waterbury evening Democrat., 1892-08-16

workingman it must act in this fashion:
The duty upon foreign goods must be high
enough either to prevent their importation
or SO to increase their price that they shall
not undersell goods made in the United
States. In other words, protection must
either leave the American market exclu-
sively to the American manufacturer. or IL
must see that prices are high enough to
make sure that his goods sell at q fair
profit.
But where does the workingman come
in? Nobody pretends that protected man
ufacturers pay higher wages merely be-
cause they are able to do So They paw the
market rate. But what fixes the market
ratep Workingmen and farmers can an
swer this question as we'll as any one else
If only they will stop a moment to think
upon things that go on under their noses.
Let us first ask the farmer what he knows
about wages. He sees that the pay of
farm laborers in winter, where there is lit
tie to do and there are plenty of idle men
to do it, is small He sees that wages 90
up and up in harvest time when work is
plenty and hands are scarce. What. then.
fixes wagesa Not the feeling of the farmer
who hires workmen, but the amount of
work to be done compared with the num-
Der OF men to do it, or, as the phrase is,
demand and supply.
What do workingmen know about this
measured Every farm laborer sees lust
what the farmer sees, and all other kinds
of workmen see the same thing If you
happen to have trade requiring skill and
long apprenticeship, so that compare
lively lew men can get into it, wages in
that trade will be high, because the men
that work at it are scarce. If you happen
to do unskilled work that any goody strong
man OF ordinary intelligence can do, wages
will be lower than in the other trade, be-
cause most men have strong muscles and
Intelligence enough to do such work, But
suppose a village is about to make new
streets, build sewers or do any other such
work that requires many day laborers,
don't you find that until the village gets
more men asking for jobs than it has Jobs
10 give 1t must pay more than the usual
rate of laborers' wages in that region? It
Is the old story of demand and supply, and
the village does not pay more wages be-
cause it is able to pay them, but because it
must pay them.
Again, suppose men in a particular
skilled trade formra labor union and ask
for higher wages. What happens? The
employer either pays the advance or re-
fuses to pay it. He refuses if he believes
that he cannot easily get other men in
place of those who ask more wages. Does
he pay the advance because protection or
something else makes him able to paw It'll
No. but because he must pay it or quit
business. Here is the play of supply and
demand modified, not by protection, look
you. but by the artificial scarcity of labor
produced by the formation of a working
mems union. Now and then we hear of
protected employers who refuse to grant
the demands of their men, lock them out,
and even go to war with them in order to
avoid paying an advance of wages, and
that, too. after congress has increased the
protection on the manufacturers products
in order that he may pay higher wages
This is the sort of humbug that Repub-
lican protection is whenever you look it
sQuarely in the face.