Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1894-05-08
THE WAGE QUESTION


In times of commercial depression, the
last thing men of business can afford to
do is to turn their back on the difficult
ties that confront them. A bad situa-
ton is virtually conquered when it has
been surveyed on every side and taken
at its worst. 1t will therefore be wise
for the industrial interests to squarely
estimate the possibilities and probabili-
ties of what they may have to encounter
from the current indisposition of labor
to yield the concessions in wages made
inevitable by the existing and impend
ing decline in prices.
In our issue of the oath of April, we i'll
dicated certain world wide movements,
which have, for some years past, been
preparing the way for what seems likely
to prove permanent universal fall in
the value of commodities Until last
year, the wave of change had scarcely
reached our shores, except as to certain
agricultural products. Now, however,
it is upon ms and we must occept an ad-
justment to the lowered scale of foreign
values. Moreover, the reduction of our
tariff duties will entail a decline in the
prices of manufacturers additional to that
which arises from the broader causes af-
fecting all countries in common.
1t is not to be concealed that this ten
dency to low prices is unusually radical.
1t rests upon great and permanent
changes in the methods and capacities
of production, and in the relations be-
tween supply and demand. 1t means
that the new normal resource of produc-
ton has everywhere gone far beyond
the old normal capacity for consump-
tion. That is situation that will adj
NIT of no palliatory tinkering, no artifi-
cial adjustment. To apply the remedy
of permanent curtailment of produc-
tion would be ruinous, alike to capital
and labor; and because it would be
ruinous, 1t is impossible, if indeed it
were not so for other equally conclusive
reasons. The only other alternative is a
reduction in the costs of production
corresponding to the decline in prices;
which, in other words, is a reduction
in wages; for, reduced to its last terms,
the cost of production is little else than
the cost of wages.
This necessity must be apparent to
every employer of labor; but it is doubt
full whether all as vet fully comprehend
the extent to which the change may
need to be carried. The wage-earners,
Judging from the resistance which large
bodies of them are showing to proposed
reductions, seem neither to understand
| nor to want to understand the necessi
ties that confront them. 1t should not
be unreasonable to expect from them a
very different attitude. They have eyes
to see the continued broad extent of the
prevailing industrial prostration. They
must know, from the saying on their
daily expenditures that within the last
twelve months, there have been very un-
/ Il -. -
they consume. If they are not familiar
with published 'prices current" they
read the daily papers enough to have be-
come aware that, within the past week,
great wholesale auctions of dry goods
have been held in this city at which the
most staple goods sold at reduction of
20 to 40 per cent. from late prices.
They have not forgotten the vote of
1892, at which probably large majority
of them voted in favor of a revenue tar
iff; and we will not reflect upon their
common sense by suppOsing that, in so
doing, they failed to understand that
their vote necessitated a reduction in
wages approximating the reduction in
duties. This journal at least has for
years pointed out that this consequence
of tariff reform was inevitable.
Under these circumstances, the resist
ance of operatives to a considerable re-
duction in wages is stupidity and reck
lessly selfish and inconsistent. No one
can reasonably object to employees get
ting the best wages they may; that
would be only reasonable care for their
interests. But it is simply senseless to
demand more than the most obvious
facts show employers can possibly
pay, and more than the most dogged
persistence of the unions can ever exact
To our view, the concessions in wages
now being demanded are considerably
below what the exigencies of the situa-
ton will later be found to require. As
a rule, they will not compensate the
manufacturer for the impending reduc-
tions in duties, and they make virtually
no allowatce for the decline in prices
that is being enforced by causes COM
mon to all countries, our own included.
1t is the misfortune of the unions that,
for the most part, their leaders are in
competent to appreciate the force of the
law that wages must follow the course of
prices. Their policy is to flatter their
constituents by blind appeal to an unin-
formed selfishness; which, in a situa-
tion like the present, can only end in
injury to both employers and employees,
and especially the latter.
The unions have not single factor
which they can advance in justification
of their position. They doubtless inn
agine that when the tariff question is
settled, there will be a resumption of
business that will enable them to en-
force their demands. This calculation
will prove greatly mistaken. There can
be no resumption of production except
upon conditions that will save manufac-
turers from loss. They have lost too
much during the last twelve months to
permit their counting bankruptcy by de-
liberately consenting to pay wages that
can only involve the impairment of their
capital. The unions may take it for
granted that there will be no revival of
the,industries until there has been
very material and general reduction of
wages. If they choose to persist in
their present refusal to concede, they
must stand prepared for enforced idle
ness for so long as they can endure it
and then the acceptance of the terms
they now refuse, or quite possibly worse,
In the meantime, the whole country will
suffer from their folly. If labor yields
the concessions so essential to the res
toration of industrial confidence, the re-
vval of business will be immediate. In
that case, many manufacturers would
resume work without waiting for the
final passage of the tariff; and large in