The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1893-09-30
THE WAGE QUESTION.

The near approach Of the possibility
of free trade, under the alias of tariff
for revenue only, has forced the wage
earning class into serious contempla-
tion of the results. They no longer
are grumbling because the employer,
as we'll as the employed, derives bene-
6t from protection to American indus
tries; they are wondering how much
less they will be compelled to accept as
wages when the capital employed be-
comes less productive by reason of
withdrawal of protection. In this
mood they are not to be deceived by
the story that high wages are not the
result of protection, says Chicago
exchange, but of circumstances foreign
to it. Indeed. they never were de-
ceived by it; they tolerated the fiction
without accepting it. just now its
repetition would be regarded by them
as insulting to their intelligence, and
therefore all but the sappiest of free
trade journals have ceased from its
repetition.
Among those who have recanted the
fiction of the possibility of high
wages concurrently with free trade
policy is the Boston Herald. Yet it is
stanch free trader as ever. 1t has
not abandoned its client, the importer
of foreign goods, but merely has with
drawn its old plea and has substituted
a new one in his behalf. 1t no longer
pleads that protection does not result
in high wages; it distinctly avows that
it does so result, but it endeavors to
convince the wage-earner that high
wages work injuriously to him.
This is SO astounding proposition
that we prefer to let the Herald state
it for itself. 1t says:
"But let US look closer into those
protected and non protected industries.
What is the character of the labor en-
ployed in the two industries respect
ivelyl 1t is fact that white Ameri-
can labor greatly preponderates III the
nou-protected industries foreign labor
appears in much larger proportion In
the protected industries. The high
rate of wages paid in this country Is
really an Invitation to the foreigners
of the world to come and share in it.
1t is an invitation they accept. They
come by thousands and by tens OF
thousands and by hundreds of thou
aads. They are the real competitors
with American industry"
This is marvelously absurd.
"High wages are result OF pro'ec-
ton, high wages induce foreigners to
come and share them, therefore high
wages are an evil to the native Amer
ican workmanp This is the kind of
stuff that the American wage-earner is
asked to accept as an argument that
shall lead him to vote against protec-
tionl 1t is almost blaspheuy against
the intellect of a chImpanzee to offer |
such twaddle as argument. Il
Here is an American factory that
employs 100 men; they are paid at an
average rate of $3.50 per day; the
average rate for like work in Europe
is$l.25 per day. As consequence
forty Europeans have come over, and
are working side by side with sixty
Americans. To abolish this evil the
Boston Herald and all free traders ask
the sixty Americans to consent to
work at $l.25! The force Of idlocy
can no further go.
If the sixty Americans were to con-
sent to this act of madness the forty
Europeans would not return to Europe
for $1.25 day in America, with free
schools and free government, is better
than $1.25 in Europe, where the
chances of betterment for themselves
and children are less than here.
But what Is to become of the 80 per
cent of American wage-earners who
cannot emigrate to Europe2
As we often have said, the ultimate
residumn of free-trade theory, when
applied to American labor, would be
cruel reality were it not an insane de-
lusion. The wage-earners of America
never will seek to restrict immigration
by restricting their own incomse. In
migration can be restricted by more
profitable measures.