The Tucson citizen., 1902-09-24
EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT

literature of high protection is running
over with the most convincing
proofs of the degraded condition, rel
atively and absolutely of the skilled
toilers of the older countries, and of
the condition of affiuence and easy
leisure attending the lives of the pro
tected" workers in our own happy
land
Time has brought some disillusion
with it in this direction, both to Amer
lean workingmen and those WHO in
politics accepted for the time the fall
lacies of protectionism. The indus
trial infants are very much in evidence
today, and are grown to proportions
exceeding even the fondest hopes of
those through whose fostering care.
they were called into being at the ex-
pense of the legitimate development of
American industrial life. But there
are still those who, even in this day,
wish to revive the pitiful story of the
''pauper labor of Europe"
The most recent instance of this kind
is furnished through Mr.. Andrew Nc
Nally, of the well-known concern of
Rand, McNally & Co., of Chicago. Mr..
McNally has just returned from a trip
to Europe, and on his return pro-
ceeded to assure his countrymen of
the approaching downfall of England,
of the starved and generally degraded
condition of the English workingman
and, by contrast, of the glorious con-
dition of the laborer of this free land.
There is glimpse of Mr.. McNally's
vision of the misery of the life of the
British workingman to be gained from
the following sentences taken from his
interview now current in the Republi-
can papers. He says:
CAS- for the workingmen, they are a
half-starved, half-paid lot of men.
stood at a street corner one evening
when thousands of men were passing
from the mills | watched them care
fully and | did not see one cheerful
face.
"They were sullen and tired and dis
couraged. They had a half-fed look
and they appeared to be overworked.
Not one of them cracked a joke, and
there was no talking back and forth
as the men do here. They were ab-
solutely hopeless.
"It stands to reason that a man can
not do good work when he is underfed,
and that is the condition half the men
are in. Living is high and they can
not buy much food with their small in
comes"
1t is generally accepted as true that
the British workingman is better paid
and generally better circumstanced in
worldly affairs than his continental
European brother. Accepting Mr..
McNally's touching picture of the con-
ditiol of the British workers as cor
rect, one may we'll ask what must be
the situation of the German Dutch.
French or Belgian workingman.
against whose cheap labor the Brit
isher has been for some time past
clamoring for "protection?" And if
such is the condition of the labor in
Britain how does it happen that there
is not general exodus of skilled Brit!
ish and other European mechanics to
this favored land of ours?
The name of Andrew McNally does
not suggest any disposition to reveal
subjects of English concern from the
standpoint of pure altruism, of course.
| Yet Mr.. McNally is business man OF
recognized standing How we are to
reconcile his views of the social state
of the skilled British mechanic with
the indisputable fact that England is
the greatest industrial and commercial
power in the world of today does not
probably give him any concern. But
before he succeeds in finding genera
acceptance of his view of the relative
situations in life of the skilled worker
of Europe and his brother in the
United States, he will find it necessary
to show, either that the former is abou
to join his lot to that of the latter, ol
else that he is totally blind to the i'm
provement in his own and his family!
condition which would result on tn,
OUTLAY Nf tha small sl1uo paoacca yvv II
secure them shipping by steerage to al
American port.
-O--
The rannrted nlan of inf al.sA To &c