The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1894-02-20

are the appealstQ pauonRlg glory, 10 the oM
fag-the Noisy self laudation which knows
not apparently that it is as immodest an
exhibition to boast of ones patriotism as it
is to laud ones own personal beauty or intel
lectual accomplishments. And the conclu-
sion of so much brave matter is supposed to
be a reason why we should pay SIS for a $50
sewing machine.
The increase of wages which the service SILL
er ought to have, aud the only useful increase
he can ever get, will ba by the operation OF
natural laws working upon the opportunities
which legislation may aid In furnishing, The
increase will never come from the outside, will
never be the gift Of the employer. II must
come from the Improvement IN the man hin-
self. Can you get a carpenter or brlcklayer to
work for twenty five cents a day? He did it in
England in l725. Today 10 the United States it
ISL poor place where he cannot get ten times
that sum-. Why does he have ten times as
much? Because the carpenter of today could
no more live as did the carpenter of 17!5 than
he could live in q cave and hunt snak IS for food.
The difference in wages means q difference 10
living, and the $3.50 Is as much q necessity TO-
day as the twenty-five cents was $50 years
ago.
Note that increase of wages is first de-
clared to be dependent upon natural laws
working upon opportunities which legisla-
ton may aid in furnishing" But it is the
next minite stated that it comes from the
improvement in the man himself, which
must mean increased efficiency in the laborer
and the methods he employs. Must we then
accept Mr.. Reeds conclusion that the brick
layer gets ten times more today than he got
one hundred and seventy-ive years ago,
because of natural laws working upon OPP
portunities furnished by legislations" An
alyze this for a minute. Draw a mental
image of an opportunity furnished
by nature Does not nature
nature at first furnish the opportunity,
and it is not the ingenuity of man, which,
independent of all legislation, does the
working, y 1. e., the development and utiliza-
ton of the opportunity? Here is a bed of
clay, easily worked, of great area and of
fine quality. Nature furnishes this. But
the ingenuity of man steps in, and from the
| old crude methods we pass to new modes of
| excavating, baking, coloring, pressing and
the efficiency of labor is increased, and
wages, if competition of laborers for en-
ployment is not too strenuous, rise without
legislators having passed one single law.
Bricklayers receive more by reason of their
increased demand that at once follows the
~cheapened processes of brickmaking. The
law has lone nothing; and when it attempts
to do anything it only impedes the progress
of industry aided by the ingenuity of haan
acorkiag upon opportunities furnished by
nature.
All this seems elementary. But in view
- 4Lo o,,,;1,,, -o%i1x,c IF ;,d,1ctru ba1d
by protectionists it is necessary to state facts
entirely obvious to the student of political
economy. The opportunities which Mr..
Reed speaks of as having been furnished by
legislation include, we suppose, the manu-
facture of tin plate and other dollhouse in
| dustries. But if there is in history an ex-
ample of an industry created by a tariff
! which continued to flourish after the tariff
had been removed, I AVE failed, in a some
what wide range of reading, to discover it.
This ought to be the true test of the
worth of a tariff, for it is no test at
all of its usefulness that it may be able
to keep an industry alive for the
period during which its stimulous con-
| TUNES. Indeed, if it were true, as a few of
the more INSCRIPTIONS among Republican
organs assert, that the cause of these hard
times is the prospect of the passage of the
Wilson bill, which slightly reduces the
tariff, leaving it still, with the exception of
the tariff of 1890, the highest ever known, it
shows only to what a condition the national
industry has been brought by proteetionist
legislation. This point is deserving of
special insistance. Consider that such al
extremely moderate measure as the Wilson
bill is sufficient, according to the protection
lists, to darken the business horizon, to make
manufacturers stink back afraid, and the
whole industrial fabric to tremblel- If
this were true, could anything worse
be urged respecting the protective tariff
systems And if that system continues, it
will always be subject to just such attacks
until it is finally overthrow; and American
industry must therefore suffer from these
periodical assaults-f protectionists be right
in attributing the present distress to such
attacks. As the old abolitionists used to tell
the Southern Shareholders and their North
ern allies:-"If you don't like our talk of
abolition why abolish slavery"
JOSEPH DANA MILLER.