Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1897-02-12


due to monopolies of one sort and an
other, trusts and others. The principle
of the scythe and the rake is true ia re-
gard to a thousand things, and the mon
opolies are, as rule and as a whole,
very great public blessings Rutland
Herald.
THE FIRST QUESTION.
Our estimable contemporary, the New
York Tribune, says:
"The first question for the extra SEES
sion of congress to consider, when it
meets IN March, is whether the desired
relief of the treasury, of trade and of in
dustries shall come fully this year or in
1898. The settled and solid prosperity
for which the country longs cannot
fully arrive, as painful experience has
taught, until the labor of the country is
fully employed az fair wages. so that
the millions are enabled to buy freely.
But that cannot come until excessive
competition with cheaper foreign labor
has ceased to deprive American works
of half the American markets in some
branches, and in others to depress
prices and wages toward the foreign
level. Lawmakers can bring about the
result at once, or by mistaken Judgment
may fix things so that American mar
lets shallIbe occupied during nearly the
whole year 1897 as largely as they have
been with foreign products"
The Tribune's statement expresses
only half truth. 1t is true, for in
stance, that there can be no real, no
settled prosperity until the labor of
the country is fully employed at fair
wages, but it is not true that by mere
ly excluding or by largely decreasing
the products of foreign cheap labor by
the imposition of prohbltory or high
duties on imports, while admitting
cheap foreign labor itself practically
without restriction, excessive compe-
tition' will be removed from our mark
cts and cease to depress wages. No
tariff, high or low, can effect that Oh.
iect so long as our immigration laws are
what they are, an invitation and an al
lurement to all the cheap foreign labor
of Europe to come here and compete
with the labor of the United States, and
thus lower throughout our industries
the fair wage rate. The products OF
alien cheap labor have no such depress.
ing effect upon wages as actual alien
cheap labor. Nothing is palmer or more
certain than if the fair American wage
standard is to be maintained the imm
be revised.
The accuracy of this contention is ir
refutably proved by the wages paid in
nearly all our great industries. Oul
factories swarm with the representative:
of foreign cheap labor; our iron anC
steel works are overrun by them; OuI
mining districts are filled with them
The unskilled labor of many parts OF
the country is not American; it is Rus
sian, Polish, Hungarian, Italian in large
part, and it is paid disgracetully low
a wholly un-American wage. The Nc
Kinley tariff did not increase the wage.
of this class; the Wilson tariff did moi
decrease it, and no tariff will change il
ore way or another so long as its rank;
are reinforced monthly by tens of thous
ands of recruits from the cheap labor
fields of the Old World. The competi
tlon in our labor markets Of the product.
of foreign cheap labor is insignificant
compared with that of foreign cheaI
! labor itself, which enters every indus
trial market in the country and under
bids the fair American wage. The presi
dent of the Midvale steel works in hi
communication to the ways and means
committee frankly conceded that wages
were not affected by the tariff schedules
but by the law of demand and supply
If anyone should dispute this statement
: he will find the evidence to support it il
the fact that as a rule having few ex
J ceptions the higher wages are paid, no
in the protected, but in the non.pro
/ tected trades. 1t is not the factory op
erative, but the mechanic, who receives
the higher wage and even his fair com
, pensatlon is seriously threatened by thu
| crowds of mechanics that swarm owe
the Canadian border in the spring anC
return in the winter, and that come by
J the thousands yearly from England
..