The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1896-06-13
Looking Toward the Orient.

Some Instructive information has been
embodied in the report which the ways
and means committee recently made on
the menace to American manufacturers
by the threatened invasion of the cheap
products of Oriental labor. The report
does not reflect the scoiIing opinion Of
the free trade press that no apprehen-
sion is justifable in this direction. On
the contrary, it broadly intimates that
the danger from this source is likely
soon to become serious, and that it can
only be met and averted by consider
able elevation Of the tariff duties on
Oriental imports.
Taking Japan as the Oriental country
from whose industries competition is
most to he feared, the report points out
that while wages i'm Japan are almost
incredibly low, ranging among factory
operatives from to 20 cents a day, the
hours of work average twelve day and
the quality of the work performed is fair
If not good. Already 61 cotton mills
with over 100000 spindles have been es-
tablished in Japan by European capt.
talists masking behind figurehead ma
tive companies; and since the European
manufacturer can go into Japan with
gold capital and practically double it
by an exchange into silver, afterward
reaping the benefit of the low cost Of
Japanese labor, the committee is moved
| to predict that the rapid introduction
of machinery into Japan will, within a
few years, make japanese factory pro-
ducts, especially fine cottons, silks, and
! here is an important element in produc-
| tion, more serious competitor in our
| Britain, France and Germany have
! been, simply for the reason that Japan
ese wages are lower than European
wages, and Japanese labor likely soon
to become as effective with machinery
as European labor is
The committee reports that it knows
no remedy for this probable coming
competition except the imposition of
duties on competing imports equivalent
to the difference of cost and distribu
tion. Bimetallists, however, argue that
| the rehabilitation of silver would so
far to solve the problem by doubling
the value of the Japanese wage and
thus lessening the chance of the inun-
dation of our market by Japanese goods
selling. even after the payment of a high
tariff, at prices with which our own
producers could not by reason Of high
wages compete. The report in tenta-
tive way gives some recognition to this
argument when, in considering the pro-
liabilities OF enlistinS the manufacture
ing countries of Europe in an interna-
tional agreement for fixed coinage
ratio between gold and silver, it points
out that the leading European coun-
tries, especially Great Britain, must be
the first to feel the competition of the
renascent Orient.
From these premises the manifest
conclusion is that whatever may be the
ultimate disposition of the silver issue,
the question Of vital immediate concern
in this country is a restoration of the
tariff system to protective basis. BY
means of a high tariff we can secure our
markets against Oriental cheap-labor
competition no matter what our money
standard may be. The blow of that
competition, in such contingency,
would fall almost wholly on Europe,
and perhaps ultimately be the means of
bringing the gold-standard nations Of
that hitherto naughty continent to our
door with an appeal for us to help them
establish what we formerly have vain
ly asked them to help us establish,
| namely, international bimetallism.
The base ball enthusiasts of Scranton
should not conclude too soon that this
city will never be properly represented
on the professional diamond, The pres-