The weekly tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1891-1894, 1892-10-14

State Senator f. d. Mats, of Mis-
soula, was we'll received, and devoted his
attention to the tariff question. After a
brief and telling sketch of the growth of
tariff legislation eliminating in the
heavy taxes that were imposed to defray
the s%tupendous cost of the civil war, he
took up the subject in its relations to
current political history and events, and
laid bare the fallacies and sophistries of
the republican party at every point.
1t is not the purpose OF the democratic
party, the senator said, to do anything
that will interrupt or upset the indus
trial interests of the country. Tariff re-
form does not mean free trade, it means
simply a reduction of the wal tariff to a
figure more suited to this age of peace
and prosperity, and the tightening of the
burdens that are o put upon the peo-
pie. The principal claim made by the
republican party as an excuse for
maintaining a high tariff is that it keeps
up and increases the wages of labor.
This the democratic party denies, be-
cause there is not the slightest proof
that such is the case. On the contrary.
there are a thousand proofs that the tar
i'll has no such effect upon wages. and
that the only persons who are benefited
by the tariff are the men who manufact-
ure goods hat are protected under this
law.
The w~orkingman enjoys no protection
whatever under the operation of the
tariff. His employer gets all the benefit
from it at the cost of all consumers of
the article his laborers produce, but the
wage-ea rner is in exactly the same posi-
ton he would occupy if there were no
tariff, his competition with his fellow
laborer forming the only basis on which
his wages are regulated.
Wages are higher in the United States
than in European countries because
this is a new country with vast
undeveloped resources, and the labor
market is not over-stocked. In those
sections of the country where there are
abundance of laborers, wages are al
ready depressed. and in the mines of
Pennsylvania today men are paid from
90 cents to Sl.50 per day for the same
kind of labor as receives in Montana
from $50 to $3.50 per day. The greater
wages here are due in part to the COM
pact organization Of workingmen, and in
part to the fact that u labor market is
not glutted with an overplus of men, but
III III ScLSt Cdu IL NC Sdlu tudt thC tdIlI
exercises the slightest influence on the
wages Of our workingmen or of those in
any part of the country.
The only manner in which labor could
be protected by a tariff would be by
placing a tax or flesh and blood to be
paid for every immigrant coming into
this country. That would be in accor-
dance with the republican plan of pro-
lection, and the only way of logically &C
complishing what 1t processes, the act
ual protection of the laboring man by
maintaining at a high figure or increas-
ing his wages.
Senator Mats concluded an interest.
ing and forcible exposition of tariff falla-
cies by an appeal to the people to see
that the candidates of the democratic
party are elected, since relief from the
burdens which now atfiict the country.
The orator was interrupted by frequent
applause, and his closing sentences
created a deep impression.