The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1892-02-26
NECESSITY OF THE TIN PLATE DUTY.
a British Authority Thinks That the
Tariff Protects Our Wages.


Tariff Protects Our Wages.
II is worthy of note that English Free
traders, however much they strive by
voice and pen to help on the cause of
their friends in America, are often
found adducing facts in proof of their
theory, which are stoutly denied by
their STRONG siding champions" on this
side of the Atlantic.
The corner stone of the tariff contro-
versy in this country is as to whether
our higher labor cost makes a tariff on
competing foreign products necessary to
the life of the American industry con-
cerned. The Protectionist's platform
has always been that we should manu-
facture for ourselves whatever nature
has fitted the country to manufacture rs
well AS other countries are fitted. But
we may be unable to make the things
nature has equipped us to make because
of the low wages prevailing in other
countries. The products of this cheap
labor may come into the country at so
low price rs to prevent the production
of similar goods by American high
priced labor.
If. for instance. an English manu-
facturer pays fifty cents yard for the
labor in yard of cloth, and the Ameri-
can manufacturer is forced to pay one
dollar yard for making similar cloth,
it is plain that the Englishman can I'M
dersell the American, close the American
factory and throw the American high
priced labor out of work In such case
the Protectionist insists that tariff of
at least fifty cents a yard must be charged
on that cloth when it comes here, so that
the American cloth factory may live.
Now the American Free-trade 're-
former" denies that there is any need of
a tariff for this purpose, that labor cost
is as low or lower in this country, and
that the tariff only helps the American
manufacturer to raise his price. These
opposite views present the fundamental
difference on the tariff question between
the two great parties in this country.
The Protectionist holds that tin plate
is exactly analogous to the supposed
case of cloth given above. We have all
facilities for it's manufacture, and are
in fact the greatest producer of iron
and steel in the world, and should make
for ourselves the sheets of iron or steel
known as tin plates. Since the labor
cost of producing them here is much
greater than in Wales we need the pres
ent tariff on them. The American Cob
denite opposes this view at every point.
The British Cobdenite agrees to dot
with the Protectionist. Hear him speak
tbrourb tba columns of Tho Iron opd
Steel Trades Journal of London, Jan. 5:
There are many difficulties to be sue
cessfully COPIED with before they (the
Americans) can manufacture tin plates
with commercial success in competition
with this country, even with the help Of
the present import duty, which is equal
to bounty of from 70 to 80 per cent. on
the price of the manufactured article in
the country of production. The ques-
ton of labor in the United States is the
most difficult to be dealt wit. success
fully. In Wales the adult work people
have been engaged in the trade from
childhood, and their children, as soon as
capable, assist in the mills. 1t is indeed
not an uncommon occurrence to find
whole families working together. The
making of tin plates, as the children
grow to men and women, becomes a
habit, and they acquire great dexterity,
saving much time and labor, and the
wages of the female laborers and chill
dren are but a 1.-THE of what American
skilled workmen would demand"
Ifwhole American families were forced
by poverty to work side by side in the
dirty, laborious employment of tin plate
making, we might make tin plates in
successful competition with the Welsh.
1t is because the spirit of our institutions
and the social instincts of our people de-
mand that the mother and children be
kept at home and in school, and that the
father receive sufficient pay to support
them decently and in comfort, that
tariff is kept on tin plates.