Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-12-17
Approximation Of Southern Comp. .ition.

Observation-Disclosures Hs1S d pIOuiciH VI SeAiHs
completely to solve in devising means
for meeting Southern competition.
Until recently it has been said that the
Northern manufacturer by making 4
finer line of goods would encounter nc
practical difficulty from Southern conf
petition. But the Arkwright Club does
not appear to take that sanguine view
of the situation. Indeed one might
naturally infer from the report of the
clubs deliberations at it's meeting that
it may me cheaper for Northern manu-
facturers to abandon their plants and
all move South where labor is so con-
tented, skillful, cheap and long work
ing, and where for generations to come
it is to continue in it's present state Of
contentment. One might infer that
human nature is different in that part
Of the world, also that the climate
which has heretofore not been found
stimulating to industry, is just what is
that the necessities of life, the fuel, the
food and the clothes are not so costly
in the South as in the North, or rather
not so much of them is required, SO tina.
all other things being equal why Should
not all sorts of enterprise seek field
there? But all things are not equal.
If we may judge from the past,
though this view of it seems to have
been overlooked by the Arkwright
Club.
Probably wages in some lines
have got to go somewhat lower for a
time at least. Otherwise there would
hardly be proposition on the part of
the cotton manufacturers of Fall River
Cheap labor has always been a drag
upon those who would raise the stand
ard. The cheap labor of India has
been more of a burden lately on the
English cotton mill operative than is
generally known on this side the water.
The prospect of Oriental labor doomed
with forbidding aspect on our Western
horizon before the Exclusion act and
does now whenever the proposition Of
throwing down all tariff barriers is
advanced. But this cheap labor in the
South is. located where tariff cannot
reach it. Nothing can reach it save
the restlessness and ambition of the
human race under proper conditions to
accept the notion that the laborer
of the South is at the same time thor
oughly efficient. capable of doing the
best of work and of remaining con-
tented on wages not in keeping with his
wants and the maintenance of his self
respect. If all the Southern cotton
mills were to enter upon the work
undertaken by one of the largest in
Alabama, the manufacture of cottOns
for the Oriental market, we should not
mind their competition at home, but
they are not as the conditions at Fall
River afford ample evidence. Is it
supposable, then, that the labor or
ganizers are to leave the Southern
which has been picturedto us? On the
contrary the agitation has already be-
gun. These statements made by one of
the speakers before the Arkwright
Club show that:
There is decided opposition on the
part of manufacturers in the South to
any restrictive labor legislation what
ever, and the alertness with which they
combine to oppose and discourage it is
worthy of attention.
when South Carolina passed it's H.
hour law, the manufacturers in the
Piedmont section decided that some
thing must be done to make the new
law unpopular with their employees
Accordingly, a reduction in their pay
was made by charging rent for their
houses. which, up to that time, had
been furnished without charge The
result was that this year, when a bill
was introduced in the Legislature pro-
posing to further reduce the hours of
labor, remonStrances were sent in by
the operatives themselves, Directing to
such legislation, because they had
found by experience that it reduced
their pay"
1t appears that the shrewd manufac-
turers who went South with their cot
ton mills, some of them have mills in
the North, had in view the cheapness
Of the labor, and up to this time despite
the cheapness they found did not until
recently force the Northern manufac-
turer to reduce wages. Before this
was brought about they had been
forced to resort to efforts to prejudice
their employees against labor organiza-
ton. They succeeded that time it
seems. but are they to continue to do
so right along? At the very time the
Arkwright Club was in session the
American Federation of Labor in ses-
sion at Nashville was considering the
textile situation in the South and voted
to aid the strike in Atlanta Tmmadi-