Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1892-06-02

lngman's comforts and general we'll
being. For in wages you must
compare old, thickly peopled coun-
tries with their likes, and not with
new, thinly settled countries, whose
conditions are entirely different as
to wages and work. 1t is fair to
compare English wages with ether
European national wages. It is fair
to compare American wages with
Australian and South African wages.
No other comparisons can be fair.
1t is a common delusion of igno-
rance that England adopted free
trade only wheh by the protective
tariffs of her past she had attained
great prosperity and her present
commanding station i'll commerce.
This is an utter error. She adopted
free trade only when the masses of
her people were at the verge of beg
gary and starvation, when every in
terest was depressed, when manu-
features languished, agricultural
]aborers coald barely live .on the
wretchcd,wages received, workshops
were closed, and shipping idle, and
the country brought to the verge of
national bankruptcy. Free trade
began to be adopted only when in
1910 the tariff tax system had
brought Great Britain to a desperate
condition, which was at once re-
lleved By a gradual application of
free trade 1t should also be noted
that then the agricultural interests
were the protected ones up to the
last day. Then the farmers were
thesubsidized. And most vigorously
did they howl for government par
tlallty, and protection against cheap
foreign grain and meat. The farm
ers wanted TO keep up the tariff on
wheat, etc that they might have
better prices for their products, for
every bushel of free wheat reduced
the cost of bread to the workers.
OF course the farmers objected to
that. They wanted to keep up prices
and their monopoly, just as manu-
facturers want to'keep up prices and
their monopoly here today.
is one of the curious illustra-
tions of error to see newspapers here
in this purely agricultural N orthwest
gravely arguing for subsidies to
manufacturers. Assubsidy, or pro-
tective tax to enable any industry or
set of industries to retain the mono
poly of the market for their wares
in any country, means always the
taxation of all the rest of the people
for their special benefit. The So
called protective tariff is a discrimi-
nation by our government against
the farmer and laboring man. 1t
aims to protect American capital
from competition with European
capital, and succeeds in just that de-
gree. Whereas in labor we have
and have always had absolute free
trade. All the labor of the world,
Chinese alone excepted, is free to
come here and compete with Ameri-
can workmen, take their jobs from
them and reduce their wages by
natural competition. All the farm
ers of the world are free to come
here and compete with the American
farmer, and by increasing the amount
of wheat, corn and cotton grown to
decrease the value of the entire crop,
to a point to where the bare cost of
production is hardly received. And
Uncle Sam says to every foreigner,
s'1f you will come and compete with
my farmers, and raise more wheat
to depress the market, I will give
you 100 acres of land as a bonus;
and as to laborers, just come right
along and take work out of the
hands OF my workingmen." But
when European goods want to come
here and compete with American
goods and keep down the price of
the necessities of life by natural