The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-05-18
BRIBERY AND PROTECTION.

If it is true that large sums of
money have been offered for votes in
the United States Senate against the
tariff bill, additional evidence is af-
forded that it is the capitalists and
corporations which reap the profits of
a protective tariff. They only are
able to raise the amounts named as
brides. 1t is only because of the enor-
nous returns they derive from the
high duties imposed that they are so
anxious to have them retained. Every
eager .clamorer for the retention of the
Mckinley law or the nearest approach
to It possible, is associated with some
interest which brings great cash re-
turns to capital.
The fraud of protection is nowhere
more apparent than in the claim that
it is devised for the benefit of the
working classes. Those who have pre-
tended that this was the great reason
for it's advocacy, have had to hedge
when brought to the point of admit
ting or denying it. The proofs have
been so glazing that the profits of the
protected industries have gone into the
pockets of the capitalists instead of
the working people, that the vain pre-
tense has had to be lodged.
Wages have increased in many
branches of manufactures in this coun-
try. They have increased at a similar
ratio in England. If it is protection
that has caused The rise here, what is
it that has caused the advance there?
Certain classes of goods have declined
in price here. So they have elsewhere.
The improvements in machinery and
in methods of manufacture and pro-
duction, the competition that has in
creased, and other causes have COM
bined to cheaper products and fab
RIGS That has been effected in this
country in spite of the high tariff. And
in order to bolster up and fatten the
corporations and trusts and combines
which have arisen under protection,
while it was claimed that the high
tariff had cheapened the products, the
rates of duty on the foreign articles
were increased. But the wages of the
laborer were not increased a lot
Therefore. discomfort in the ranks of
labor, and distress. among thousands
of the poorest paid classes, have been
working and spreading for years. Here
great strike, there vast upheaval
In many places restitution, nay star
walton when work was suspended for
few weeks. The vast armies of the
unemployed, now marching through
the land, would not be in the miser-
able condition in which they exist, if
the prosperity which protectionists
claim as a result of high tariff had
been enjoyed for SO long by the classes
it was claimed to have benefited.
In every instance where labor has
prevailed against capital in the most
highly protected districts. the reten-
ton of wages or the shortening of the
hours of toll has been extorted from
the capitalists and corporations, by
organized efforts on the part of the
employed. 1t has not been volun-
teered by the protected manufacturers,
who, on the contrary, have imported
cheap labor from Europe and brought
over the Poles. Hungarians, italians
and Bohernians that form the chief
elements in the labor riots of the land.
How have the agricultural classes
Jared under high protection? They are
largely in numerical excess of the
manufacturing classes. including all
the workmen and capitalists together
They have been compelled to pay high
prices for manufactured articles. while
they received low prices for their pro-
ducts. Protection has worked dis
astrously for them both ways.