The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1892-05-11
WAGES ARE RISING.

suits Only Possible by Thorough Inyesti-
CATION, Which Has shown Higher Wages.
1t has been asserted and reiterated
over and over again thai wages have
fallen since the Mckinley tariff was en-
acted. 1t is the one single survivor of
the multitude of falsehoods sent abroad
during the campaign of lying in 1890.
1t survives, not that it was more fit than
the Mckinley prices, for ex-
ample-but from the difficulty of secur
ing labor statistics complete enough to
obliterate it. Mckinley prices were
disproved by simply comparing the
market reports as published before and
after the new law took effect. But
there are no regular reports published
on rates of wages. Tens of thousands
of changes are annually made in this
country, some involving increased,
Others decreased wages or hours of
labor. They have occurred. do occur
and will occur independently of any
tariff in response to the varying condi-
lions of industry. If orders for goods
come flowing in, the labor in the indus
try which MAKES the goods will be fully
employed and wage reductions will be
impossible. But if short crops curtail
the purchasing power of consumers, or
the demand becomes inadequate to the
supply because of overproduction, or a
change in fashion even, or for any other
cause, labor in the industries concerned
will be injuriously affected, and if the
unfavorable conditions continue, wages
will fall. The law of supply and de-
mand will continue to operate inside,
and, so far Independently of any tariff
law that can be framed. Thousands of
changes in wage rates, both up and
down, were made in the most prosper
Gus years this country ever knew; they
are made now under the Mckinley tariff,
and will be made unless Edward Bellamy
or Henry George succeeds in revolution
izing the existing industrial system.
As rule, changes in rates of wages
do not get into the public press beyond
the local papers. A reduction in wages,
being more unusual in this country than
an advance, is more likely to be chron-
icled. Ever since the Mckinley law
passed, the free trade papers all over
the country have watched like vultures
for instances of wages reductions, and
gloated over these misfortunes of the
working people like birds of prey. The
New York Times in particular has been
on the alert to record and exult over
every reduction of wages, in order to
ascribe it to the Mckinley law. Read
ing its editorials on this subject one
would get the impression that a five or
ten per cent. decrease in wages was an
unknown occurrence before the McKin-
ley act passed. We have before pointed
out its shallow dishonesty in this re-
spect. 1t collects ten or "A dozen or a
score of cases of reduced wages, and
proclaims thatwages generally are fall
ing. 1t heeds not the thousands of
cases of increased pay which have oc-
Cured under the new law
Only after painstaking canvass of
all the industries of the country, and of
the wage changes occurring in them,
can any one form an intelligent opinion
as to whether the general course of
wages is up or down. But your Jealous
free trade ''reformer" does not care for
that He is bent on making out case
against protection, and, in his despcra
ton at the lack of favoring evidence,
does not hesitate to manufacture it,
In this connection we have already
called attention to the fact that the
annual report of the bureau of statistics
of labor of New York state for 1891
chronicles ,94l cases of increased wages,
2,0S5 eases of decrease in the hours of
labor-virtually increase of wages also
and only AL cases of reduced wages.
Yet all that year the New York Times
was loudly proclaiming that wages
were generally falling.
No less instructive is the record of the
State bureau of labor statistics of
Illinois, which has issued u report on
coal statistics for that state. Not only
has more coal been mined in the first
year of the new tariff and more men
been employed than ever before, but
wages have averaged higher, while coal
has been cheaper. With single ex-
ception, and that the most unimportant
wages were higher in 1891 than in any
of the three other years considered
These are the results arrived at by
scientific investigation. Similar results
would appear in every state from similar
Investigations. Wages are going up
under the new tariff.
A MASSACHUSETTS, machine builder