Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-08-30

The Cotton Schedule and the Strike.
The extensive strike in the cotton mills
is treated as if its cause wero mystery by
some journals, and by others as a new
illustration of the Unsuitable greed of pro-
tected corporations. Both modes OF treGt-
ment are discreditably ignorant or worse.
Prices of print cloth, the product Of most
of the mills in which the strikes have &C.
Cured, have not been directly affected
for many years by foreign competition,
but are greatly affected by the general
consumption of the people; and the pro-
stration of all industries by the Demo
cratic threat of change in the policy of the
government has affected the consumption
of cotton goods-not as much, to be sure,
as the consumption of wooden or iron pro-
ducts, but fully 25 per cent during the last
year. In their anxiety to keep hands at
york and avoid controversy about wages
as long as possible the mills have been
piling up goods until the stock of unsold
cloths at Fall River and Providence is
about 100000 pieces
For months it has been understood that
the passage of new tariff would be fol-
lowed by reduction of wages in this az in
other branches of manufacture. Foreign
competition will materially affect, not
prices of print cloths directly, but prices
at which great variety of prints can be
sold, and the quantity that can be sold,
and thus indirectly compels the makers of
print cloths to produce at lower cost. 1t
has been supposed by many that the new
cotton schedule, which was devised by
some of the Fall River manufacturers,
would relieve that industry from all en-
barrasSment in consequence of the new
tariff A remark of Senator Aldrich that
the new schedule, although lower than it
ought to be, was the most scientific tariff
on cotton goods yet enacted, has been
widely quoted by Democrats as if he had
stated that it was high enough to prevent
any reduction of wages. His statement
that it was altogether too low was quite
as important and as much entitled to
credit as the other part of the remark
which Democrats hungrily quote.
The truth about this schedule Is that it
was ingeniously contrived to afford excep-
,ional protection to manufacturers of the
finer and more costly goods, in which i'm
porters have had relatively the advantage,
and for some such goods it is believed to
give actually greater advantages to Ameri
can producers than are given by the pres
ent tariff. But on the far greater quantity
of imports, less fine and costly, the new
schedule cuts down duties largely and
will involve reduction in prices of CORE
spending domestic products and of the
cloths used in their manufacture. 1t is
we'll known that on the coarscr and
cheaper cottons there can be no foreign
competition in any natural state of the
market. But the aggregate demand for
American goods would be very materially
diminished, and consequently the demand
for the work of spinners and weavers, if
the goods of intermediate quality on
which duties have been much reduced
should be held without change at pre-
vious prices. This fact, which Senator
Aldrich covers in his statement that the
proposed duties, though scientifically ad-
justed, were altogether Zoo low, means
that many thousand Americans must
either work at lower wages or be thrown
out of employment by foreign competition
Whether the reduction of wages pro-
posed in the mills of Fall River and New
Bedford was in each case necessary, the
public may not be qualified to judge The
NHlSi NC lShOiSo VI SlluiuSu
out of sight is that the great accumulation
of unsold goods and the prolonged depres-
sion of the last year are direct conse-
quences of +he Democratic threat of u
change, which, now that it has come com
pcls general reduction of wages in all
manufactures, and in the cotton manu-
facture rs well as in others. Those who
ignore or attempt to to hide this fact be-
tray their own ignorance or dishonesty.
1t is simply impossible to maintain the
former rate of wages for American work
ers, and at the same time to turn many
thousands of them out of employment by
substitution of foreign for American
goods in consumption, and to avoid the
discharge of many thousand more by
reduction of prices to meet foreign com
petition at lower rates of duty. If Demo
cratic workers have imagined that they
can vote for Democratic tariff and still
retain Republican wages they will GER
tainly be undeceived.-[New York Tri-
bune,