Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury, Conn.) 1887-1895, 1892-08-22
WAGES AND THE TARIFF.


During the recent Investigations into
the labor troubles at Homestead, by the
specially appointed committee of con-
gress, President Weihe, of the Amalga-
mated Iron and Steel Workers associa-
ton, testified that the amount of (paid)
labor employed to produce a ton of
steel costs the manufacturer $1.55. The
Mckinley bill "protects" the Carnegie
corporation, and similar combinations of
capitalist employers, by the imposition
on imported similar material of duty
of $11,20 a ton, or enough to enable the
protected" employers to pay $11.2O a
ton for the labor in making it-provided
the tariff-as it's republican authors
pretend-is meant to act for the Eek
elusive benefit of labor" But labor is
not greedy in the matter; it asks only
for a share of the results it produces
even as it is willing-and always is
compelled-to bear its share land too
often more than that of the social
burdens.
Labor has not, hitherto, demanded
that capital should meet it even half
way, though the republican advocates
of McKinleyism claim that that should
be the legitimate outcome of their sys-
tenn of revived war time taxation. Let
us see how that proposition works in
practice, under the simplest rule of
arithmetic, on such a division. If the
benefit of half the tariff rate were for
1 81 MI la loI %,
laborer, then the latter ought to get
$500 where President Weihe testifies,
and the Carnegie agents admit, that the
workman only gets 81 .55. The undi-
vided balance of $4.05, it is safe to say,
would fully cover high rate of interest
on the invested capital, leaving the
whole of the other moiety to represent
the excess of profits extorted from the
community at large-a source of tariff
created private revenue which, in the
course of a few years, has made mil
Iionaires of few individuals, while in
no sense benefitting the industrial
classes in the republic.
The tariff rate of $11.20 per ton i'm
posed on steel by the Mckinley bill is
really prohibitory. 1t keeps out foreign
steel such as the Carnegie corporation
makes, in completed form, while re
ducing by about four per cent the tariff
on crude steel billets (Which we do not
need to import), and thus afford a pre-
text for reduction of the wages of all
the continuous workers in that industry
by attacking the foundation of labor on
which the whole superstructure rests.
This is the secret of republican opposi-
ton to the reduction of duties on raw
materials, absolutely needed in our man.
ufactures. 1t gives to number of rich
, syndicates the control of certain
branches of industry, to the exclusion
of the small manufacturers, who once
constituted the strength and glory of
the industrial element in this republic,
and it thus enables these monopolists to
dictate the rate of wages, irrespective OF
the necessities of the workingman.
The republican party-by the whole
tenor of their legislation, but especially
during the brief period in which they
had control of both branches of con-
gress, and of the executive-are RESPONSE
BILE for the existence of this condition
of our economic affairs. Let not the
workingmen of the union forget these
facts during the present electoral cam
paign.
Pneumonia has been cured by DIR Hale's