Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1892-08-25
THE TARIFF A QUESTION OF
EMPLOYMENT.

can wages; Free Trade means the
wages Of foreign countries. The
Senate Report on retail prices
and wages"-the authority we
quoted last week, is abundant
evidence Of what a revenue tariff
"a Tariff for revenue only" or
as the Democratic platform puts
it, "limited to the necessities of
the government etc" will do for the
wages question. We do not under
take to say that any duty levied
upon imports will raise wages
no one has ever claimed that, the
law of supply and demand will
always regulate the price of every
thing, labor and commodities-but
we do claim that the tendency Of
protective legislation is to maintain
wages at their highest point.
An eminent Democrat, Hon.
Samuel Randall, for years leader
of his party in the House-Speaker
from 1876 to 1881, said in 1888,
eff tariff does not in itself give
higher wages to labor, it does
preserve from destructive COM
petition a system in which labor
can and does receive better wages,
or a larger share of the fruit of
its own toll, than in any other
system. No two industrial sys-
TENS, side by side, with labor in
one receiving double the wages Of
labor in the other, could long
exist under free trade between
them" These were the words of
a statesman rising above party.
Employment, not cheapness of
articles, is the true basis Of
national prosperity. The only
method to make a nation pros
porous is to give everyone an
opportunity of being employed.
An Englishman, Sir Edward
Sullivan, in a recently published
pamphlet called GA Forbidden
Subject. or Protection to British
Industry" takes up this view of
the case energetically, Hear him.
He maintains that there are idiots
like himself going about the
country and saying:
HThat "free trade" means untaXed
foreign competition. That Protection"
means protection to labor, protection to
native industry, protection to those
who eat their bread in the sweat OF
their face. That foreign competition
means competition in cheapness; COM
petition in cheapness means competition
in cheap labor; competition in cheap
labor means competition i'll flesh and
blood and competition in flesh and
blood is Slavery. That excessive com
petition is the greatest curse that can
be imposed on a working community.
That the unrestricted labor competition
of the whole world is rapidly making
the conditions of English labor i'm
possible. That cheap clothing and
cheap food are of no value if human
labor is cheaper still. That excessive
cheapness is of no value to the com.
munity without employment. That
employment means cheapness. That
those who have employment can buy
That those who have not employment
can not buy. That the first and par.
amount duty Of every government is to
encourage conditions under which
every one can find employment"
This is getting pretty close tc
the Republican party's platform O
Protection to American Industry
and, while the British people
are waking up to the deadly falla-
cies of Free Trade" the Demo
cratic party in the United States is
carefully picking up the exploded
, fragments and offering them to
the people as a brand new panacea
for all their real and fancied ills.
But let us continue with oul
Englishman He has at last got
hold of the right end of the whip
, stock and is cracking his whip tc
some purpose. He says:
''Let me repeat the proposition. L
an industrial community insists upon
, being supplied with everything it con.
sumes cheaper than it can be produced
at home there will soon be no work fol-
that community to do. 1t must leave
the country or starve. 1t was always a
, certainty that directly our workers
, realized that the foreigners were taking
, the bread out of their mouths they
, would call for protection. Well, that
time has come and they do realize it
The instinct of sef-preservation is