Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1896-06-10

fering Money Standards ON the situation
Outlook for Adjournmept.
WASHINGTON, June Chairman Ding
ley, of the house ways and means commit
tee, has made a report on the menace to
American manufactures by the threat
ened invasion of the cheap products of
Oriental labor and the effect of the differ
ence of exchange between gold standard
and silver standard countries upon United
States manufactures and agriculture,
these questions having been Investigated
by the committee. The report says the
sudden awakening of Japan from the
Oriental slumber of centuries is being fol-
lowed by an equally rapid westernizing of
her methods Of industry; that while the
Japanese do not have the inventive faculty
of Americans-or even of Europeans-their
initiative faculties are wonderful. Their
standard of living would be regarded as
practical starvation by the workmen of the
United States and hours Of labor average
twelve a day.
European Capital Invested in Mills.
Such skilled workmen as blacksmiths,
carpenters, masons, compositOrs, tailOrs,
and plasterers receive in japanese cities
only from 26 to 80 cents, and factory oper-
atives to 20 cents per day in our money,
and not quite double those sums in Japan
csc silver money, while farm hands receive
sl.4i per month. Europeans and Ameri-
cans, says Dingley, are recognizing the
profitable field afforded for investments in
fnctnriaS md ho o6
mills, controlled ostensibly by japanese
companies but promoted by Europeans,
and several small silk factories are in
operation, with something over half a
million spindles. Japan is making most
OF the cotton goods required to supply the
narrow wants of her own people, and is be-
ginning to export cheap silk fabrics and
handkerchiefs.
The Outlook for the Future.
"Whilc your committee has not found
that any articles of importance made in
Japan-Outside of cheap silks, handker-
chiefs, mattings, rugs, ctc-have as yet
invaded the markets of the United States,
it is probable that the rapid introduction
of machinery into Japan will within a
few years make japanese factory pro-
ducts, and probably fine cottons, silks
and other articles in which the labor cost
here is an important element in produc-
tion, more serious competitor in our
markets than the products of Great Brit
ain, France and Germany have been, sim
ply for the reason that japanese wages are
lower than European wages, and Japa-
nese labor is likely soon to become as ef-
fective with machinery as European
labor is.
Only Two Remedies for the Trouble,
"This result will be-counteracted some
what by the inevitable tendency of con-
tact with civilization to improve the
standard of living and consequently the
wages of the Japanese wOrkmen." Ac-
cOrding to Dingley the competition will
differ not in kind but in degree from
European competition. The committee
reports that it knows no remedy outside
of the absolute prohibition enforced
against convict labor goods, except the
imposition of duties on competing goods
equivalent to the difference of cost and
distribution. An argument for this policy
is made, it being said to accomplish a
double purpose, the collection of revenue
to support the government and the placing
of competition in our markets on the
basis of our higher wages