The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1892-10-28
A FARMERS REPLY TO A PROTEC-
ZIONIST.

NO. II.
For The .Egis.
The Engineering and Mining Journal of Oct. 1
says: AT present steel rails are quoted at $50
per ton but recently lot were sold for export
rails were sold at a loss, and the bare fact of
an iron manufacturer being able to put his
product on foreign market surely indicates
his ability to compete with the foreigner here
mt home.
For years there was a duty on leather and
hides and we imported annually S6OO,O
duty was removed and in 1891. instead of i'm
porting leather goods, we exported manufac-
lures of leather valued at $13,OOO,0O0. I'm
questionably the laborer came in for a very
large share of the benefits accruing from the
removal of this duty. Why should we expect
u different result if we remove the duty from
the raw materials of iron?
In report of 112 important strikes and re-
auctions of wages since the Mckinley act,
find but one reported in the leather goods bus
ineSs.
Mr. Charles s. Hill, An employe of the State
Department at Washington, and pronounced
protectionist, appearing before the tariff COM
mission of 1888, showed that our manufacture
ed product in 1892 was valued at 80, 000, 0O0,-
900, made by 5,25O,O0O hands. and that for
England in the san same .de WAS t,
remarkable conclusion: Here is the positive
proof that the American mechanics in the ag-
of the same number of British mechanics They
are therefore justly paid double the wages"
But on the authority of Hon. James G. Blaine,
u
paid double the wages his English brother re-
Elves.
President Garfield, officially reported 1.-The
cashire, Eng, and Massachusetts, accord
ing to the foregoing statements, were az
follows per week: Spinners, English, 1920
to $40 master spinners running as
high as SID; American, S7.01 to 5000.
Weavers: English, 1884 to Ss.64, sub
at which these rates were given; American,
1882 to 1913" He continues to some length
giving different rates and adds: 1.-THE hours of
labor in the Lancashire mills are SO, in the
Massachusetts 80 per week. The hours of la
Dor in the other New England States, where
setts are usually sc to 60 per week. Uudoubt-
edly the Inequalities in the wages English and
American operatives receive are more than
euualized by the greater efficiency of the lat
ter and their longer hours of labor. II this
should prove to be u fact in practice, as it
seems to me to be proven by official statistics,
l it would be very important element in the
establishment Of our ability to compete with
England for our share OF the cOtton-goOds
trade Of the world Mr.. Hills statement is
valuable chiefly as showing the greater efficien-
cy of American labor. L could give figures
from the investigations Of other gentlemen
YOU will give full credit to the official state
ments of the eX-Secretary of State
There are, undoubtedly, some inequalities in
the comparative rate of wages between this
country and Europe, but it must be borne in
mind that wages are not equal in the same occu-
nations throughout the United States, and not
withstanding these inequalities one section OF
the country completes with all other sections.
Major l.. L. Bent, of the Steelton. Pa, and
sparrows' Point, Md, iron plants, says: Give
pool and send steel rails to London"
We Democrats desire especially to secure
freer raw materials for our manufacturing min
dustries Did it ever occur to you that the
American farmer and farm-laDorer gets abSo-
lutely no protection Or that he completes in
the sale of his products with the cheapest labor
in, - x.x unrld N IN
ed to the extent of the duty on his products.
Yes, admit he is on paper-but OF what ses-
vice to the farmer is the duty OF twenty-five
cents per bushel on wheat, or fifteen cents per
bushel on corn. when the price of our grain is
fixed in a free-trade market? 1t cannot be de-
MED that our products sell side by side with the
products of the cheap o. labor of Russia and
India, yet year after year our immense surplus
of grain and cotton must be disposed OF in Il
foreign market, while farm wages continue
higher here than in those countries. III the cot
ton and grain producers here can compete
with the foreign producer why cannot the
manufacturers and miners do the same!
There is absolutely no raw MATERIAL on the
face of the earth. The moment anything has
pecuniary value to that extent has 1t been
term raw material as being convenient.
Now, the labor expended on the elements of
manufacturing in their first stages is the poor
est paid of all the industries. In the manipu-
lations of these various elements the nearer
| you approach the finished product the higher
the rate of wages. This being true, why should
borers to these mental and poorly paid occupa-
tons? Why not encourage foreign traffic
in the raw materials OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
init the foreigners to do the cheap work for us
and thereby extend the field at home for the
operations of skilled labor?
Has it never occurred to you that this is the
true method of protecting the American Ia
borer? will offer few assertions in support
of Tariff Reform from speeches made by emf
Hon. Henry L. Davis, in debate said 1.-THE
duty must be levied on the raw material or on
the manufactured article. If you levy it on the
raw material you discriminate against Ameri-
can labor"
Hon Frank Hiscock "As to all fabrics, iron.
steel, wood, and leather goods, largely made
by machinery, and in which manual labor Is
comparatively small element, we need no
protection Whatever"
Hon. Preston b. Plumb: IF you give me
certain duty you put 1t III my powerto charge
over that duty as an additional tax on the
farmers of the United States"
When the Mckinley bill was on its final pas
sage Senator Sherman warned the American
manufacturers not to arbitrarily use the priv
ieges granted them in the bill, as indicated in
| the above extract, as such course would
greatly endanger the whole system of protec-
ton.
Hon. w. b. Allison, 1870: 1.-The tariff of $40
although confessedy and professedly tariff
for revenue, was, so far as regards all the
great interests OF the country, as perfect tar
iff as any we have ever had"
Later on, the same Senator said 1.-The aQri-
cultural interest, it will be seen, Is much the
largest interest in its aggregate product, as well
as in the number OF persons employed. L be-
lieve no one will claim that this large interest
is directly protected 1t is true that under GUS
toms laws there Is email duty on wheat, bar
ley, oats and other agricultural products, but
it does not afford any protection to the great
wheat and grain-producing regions of the
country. Therefore, the farmer has practically
no protection ut all. Unfortunately for the
farmer, the market price of wheat is fixed by
the price which the surplus will bring abroad,
or the price of wheat in London or Liverpool"
trust the length of this will not weary you.
could have written very much more, but
what have said should be sufficient
GEO II. STEPHENSON.
Lapdum, Md. Oct Is 1892.