Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1893-06-23
PROTECTION TO LABOR A FARCE.
The Contract Labor Law Is Constantly vio
lated by Manufacturers.

The Contract Labor Law Is Constantly Vio-
lated by Manufacturers.
The senate immigration committee
now conducting an investigation at FL
lis island is obtaining strong evidence
against ''protection to American wages"
The evidence is not obtained for this
purpose, and thoughtless persons may
not see the connection, but it is there
just the same.
The committee finds that the contract
labor law is being constantly violated.
It is noticeable that the violators are
nearly always manufacturers engaged in
highly protected industries silks, en-
broideries, glass, tin plate, etc. 1t is also
noticeable that the government officers
whose duty it is to prosecute the offend
ers have avoided their duty with sus-
picious negligence the appear
ance that they are somehow in league
with the manufacturers and their agents
who import laborers under contract.
Now, as the laborer has but one arti-
Gle to sell-his labor-it is not easy to
see how duty on goods which he must
buy can protect him from the competi-
ton of foreign labor, which is on the
free list and which is being imported
almost daily in violation Of the contract
labor law by the very manufacturers
who for 20 or 80 years have posed as the
friend of the laborer, and who have OBJ
tanned duties on their goods in order
that they might pay the highest wages
in the world to their protege-the Amer
| lean laborer.
The law which protects the manufac-
turers by imposing almost insuperable
barriers to the importation of competing
| foreign goods is enforced with great
stringency, while the only law which Of
fers even the semblance of protection to
| the wage Garner is trampled under foot
| by the manufacturers. Goods on duti-
| able list; labor on free list. Manufac
turers sell goods and buy labor; work
| ingmen sell labor and buy goods. Manu-
facturer protected and pampered; work
| ingman unprotected and robbed. Is there
a greater farce in this nineteenth century
| than ''protection to American labor!"
Projections NIeas1y Record.
Wherever protection has been tried for
| any length of time it has shown its true
| fruits in low wages, pauperlsm and ma
tional degradation. China, with its i'm
| mobile masses, stagnant, dead; Russia,
| prohibiting the importation of grain and
suffering famine in the south in spite Of
her rich agricultural resources in the
north; the Ottoman empire, with its en-
| shaved population, protecting itself by
letting nothing go out of the country, a
| somewhat less dangerous policy than
| that Of letting nothing come in; Spain,
| with her absurd tariff laws, "a whale
stranded upon the coast of Europe"
England, grooming in 1910, and for very
| agony swapping her tariff chains, arising
| in 1916 renewed and stronger than ever
| in her protective tariff days. On the
other hand, what of little Holland in her
| days of freedom and free trade? Let an
| other speak: Though she produced not
a bushel of wheat, nor a single plank,
| nor one bar of iron, she ate the whitest
bread, made the cheapest and noblest
| ships, with the finest iron plating and
| strongest canvas of all European nations
| because her trade was the freest."
i
| and is more prosperous than England,
| which has a kind Of free trade not yet
! wholly freed. True, but with only part
Of the factors any case may be made out.
Anything may be proved if all the evi.
dence for the other side is excluded.
America is more prosperous because she
has more free trade than any European
nation. England is an island in the sea
| scarcely larger than New York state.
| America is a continent. Continents can
stand more protection and stand it longer,
just as large ships can carry cargoes that
would sink your lightweight clippers.
1t is because we have SO large an area of
| free trade that we can stand SO large
measure Of protection, and to make the
case of America analogous to that of
| tariff ridden Europe, every one Of our
| states should have tariff against every
other. Then, and then only, if we were
| prosperous still, would it be fair to at
tribute such prosperity to the tariff
| Joseph Dana Miller.