The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-06-10
CHEAP ORIENTAL GOODS.

Manufacturers.
Washington, June g. Chairman Dingley,
of the house ways and means committee,
TO day made report on the menace to
American manufacturers by the threatened
invasion Of the cheap products of Oriental
labor and upon the effect of the difference
Of exchange between gold standard and
silver standard countries upon United
States manufacturing and agriculture,
these questions having been investigated
by the committee. The report says the
sudden awakening of Japan from the ORR
entail sumber of centuries is being follow
ed by an equally rapid Westernizing of
her methods of industry; that while the
Japanese do not have the inventive facul-
ty of Americans or even Europeans
their initiative faculties are wonderful.
Their standard of living would be regarded
as practical starvation by the workman of
the United States. and hours Of labor av-
erage twelve a day.
Such skilled workmen as blacksmiths,
carpenters, masors, compos tors, tailors
and plasterers receive in Japanese cities
only from 26 to 33 cents and factory oper-
atives to 20 cents per day In our money
and nearly double those sums In Japan
ese silver money, while farm hands re-
celve $1.44 per mont. Europeans and
Americans, says Mr.. Dingey, are recogni-
zing the profitable field afforded for in
vestments and factories
Japan is now only exporting cheap silk
fabrics and handkerchiefs, but it is be-
lieyed that 1t will soon become, owing to
the low cost of labor, a more serious COM
petitor in our markets than any other
country.
The committee recommends the imposi-
tion Of duties on competing goods equiva-
lent to the difference of cost and distri-
button. An argument for this policy is
that it will accomplish double purpose
the collection OF revenue to support the
government and the placing of competi
tion In our markets on the basis of our
higher wages
The Gold and Silver Standards.
AS to whether the fact that one Dol
lar of this country or the silver purchased
by this dollar will exchange for nearly
two Japanese Yen (dolors) gives the man.
ufacturer OF cotton for example, in Japan
an Advantage additional to that caused
by the conditions already discussed in the
markets of this country, Mr. Dingley
says: Clearly the manufacturer in
Japan is in this respect at disadvantage
for his cotton comes largely from the U.
s., and he must pay not only the freight,
but additional charges for the risks of
the fluctuations of each and resulting
from the fact that Japan does not have
the monetary standard or the commercial
world. He obtains no advantage by the
sale of his goods in the terms of a more
valuable currency but on the contrary
loses something by this brokerage The
only way in which he can obtain any
advantage must be through the failure of
the wages of labor In Japan to rise as
much as the ven has depended in It's
relative value to gold since 1873 while
wages In the q. S. since 1873 have doubled
as estimated in silver and have even
risen 10 per cent as estimated in gold
INN f0 mi f11
are % per cent higher in purchasing
power than a quarted of century ago
The labor cost of production in Japan has
largely diminished, while the lagor cost
of production In the United States has
been increased except as counteracted by
a large ues of labor saving devices 1t
is claimed. however, notwithstanding
that the wages of the Japanese labor
have not raised as much as the yen
Japan has been deprecated as compored
with gold, yet that his wages will still
buy as many Japanese products as they
would % years ago. Yet, it is evident
that so far as the japanese people con-
sumo foreign products their own products
or in their own money as they would pay
if they were not on a silver basis--a fact
which clearly diminishes the purchasing
power Of Japanese wages one-half, so
far as the Japanese consume foreign
products
The report continues: Silver standard
countries like Japan and Mexico, in which
it is claimed that the prices of domestic
same as in 1S73.are put to disadvantage
in their trade with foreign countries on
a gold standard in that the latter countries
are able to use silver. which costs nearly
SO per cent less than it did in 1873. in pay
ment for the products of silver standard
countries, practically paying only half as
much in their money for products of sill
yer standard countries as they paid in 1879,
products estimated in silver remain the
while the silver standard countries pay,
or at least paid in 1892, eighty-five per-
cent more in silver and only fifteen per-
cent less in gold for the products Of gold
standard countries than they did in 1873.
The advantages in foreign trade of an
identical money standard are shown, and
in considering the probabilities of enlist
ing the manufacturing countries of Eu-
rope in an international agreement ror
fixed coinage ratio between gold and sill
yer, it is said that the leading European
countries. especially Great Britain. must
be the first to feel the competition of Jap
an and other Oriental countries.