The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-12-25

| into other departments of industry. bring
ing with them overcrowding, decline OF
wages and lowering OF the standard of de-
cency snd comfort. For every 1865 thus
displaced in the cotton industry would be
displaced one superintendent or manager,
who would compete with and thus depress
somewhat the income of the professional
| and official classes. For every 125 men
released from the iron and steel industry
one new competitor would appear in the
better-peid kinds of work. But can we
| imagine for moment that one new COM
petitor in the higher occupations could
cause anything like the depressing effect
that would follow the Eruption of the 165
or the 125 into the market for manual
! labor?
! Exposure, therefore, to the compe tition
of Chinese cotton, silk, matches or pottery
would bring upon the American operative,
mechanic or laborer, whether in these
branches or in other branches, an appall-
| ing pressure, tending to reduce his income,
and consequently his style of living, to the
level of the corresponding class in China.
The higher grades of American skill, talent
and training, on the other hand, would not
| be exposed 70 the competition of CORE
spending classes in China, nor would they
suffer perceptible injury from the slight
overflow into their ranks from the ruined
branches OF manufacture. Their incomes,
| therefore, would be unshrunken, while
| they would be able to buy their cotton and
silks and crockery at Chinese rather than
| American prices.
| L conclude, therefore, that the best paid
wage of labor in the United States, as well
| as the holders of land or other natural re-
sources and monopolies, enjoy a natural
| protection to the value of what they sell,
| and consequently to their income, far
more effective than any protection granted
| by government. Consequently free trade
| does not disturb their incomes, while it
enables them to acquire the products and
| services of their worse-paid fellow citizens
at lower price than could prevail if to the
| natural protection enjoyed by some
classes were added artificial protection
| safeguarding the other classes. On the
other hand. the common grades of labor,
if exposed to the competition of cheap
| labor countries, will have their earning
power reduced till they receive no more
per unit of work performed than does the
corresponding class in foreign countries.
ity and talent the same price as before for
it's services. The former class, then will
be benefited without an appreciable injury,
while the latter class will be injured with
out any corresponding benefit. This
means that the classes will lie farther apart
on the economic scale than they did before
the era of foreign competition. The we'll
TODD will be better off and the ill-to-do
Ill L t. L n
a series of wedges were inserted between
the classes of society, forcing them further
apart, in respect to income and standard
of living. Free trade with a cheap labor
country increases the inequality of rev ards
and widens the gap THAT separates each
class from the one next below or above it.
This accentuation of differences not only
checks the general upward movement of
whole people, but reduces social inter-
course and democratic feeling and fosters
caste spirit.
If my reasoning be sound this train of
consequences would follow free trade, not
with China alone, but with any country
where the manual laboring class receives a
less efficiency wage and hence occupies a
lower plane of life than does the manual
laboring class here. 1t seems to me, there
fore, that the only way in which a highly
developed people can move upward among
the scale of civilization in a compact body,
realizing the ideal of democratic progress,
is by policy of restriction, applying not
only to the entrance of goods, but also to
the entrance of men. The system we now
have availed only so long as cost of trans
portation was high and the inclination to
travel slight. But with the cheap steerage
passage of to-day and with railroad and
steamship agents all over Europe decoying
their laboring classes to this country, our
workingmen are already beginning to find
out how little a mere tariff can do to keep
up their wages. If the American must
accept this free trade in men, free trade in
goods will be boon to him, as it would
enable him to buy in a cheap market, as
he must now sell in cheap market.
6 y u.