The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1903-12-05
TONS OF LITERATURE
" PEDDLED: IN ENGLAND
BRITISH TRACT MILLS GRINDING
OUT NATTER.
Leaflets With Flarins Heads and Big
Type to Catch the Attention of the
Weary MISUNDERSTANDING Effort
Being Made to Make Britain a Pro-
tected Country-Workers Are for
Free Trade.

London, England, Dec. 3.-There is a
deal of white paper being used in the
United Kingdom, just now, and not a
little of it comes before the public in
the shape of ''protection' and free
trade tracts. Over in Birmingham
there has been collected great fund to
buttress Chamberlain in his contention
that free trade has been failure, and
to insure the workingmen that tax on
food will result in wages high enough
not only to pay the tax, but to leave
something over, to say nothing of
steadier employment through providing
the English market with English made
goods.
But the free traders are not idle. Ev-
cry cooperative company with any cap
ital and a printing plant, has gone into
the business of printing free trade
tracts, in big type, and with flaming
headlines, some of which in their start
lingness put to blush the "yellow'' jour
nails of your own country. There lies
before me one of these tracts. 1t is
headed Protection? Perhaps! But what
kind?" that you may understand the
trend of the free trade argument, give
it you entire.
Sir Robert Griffin, our greatest auth
ority on national finance, tells us that
our national income has reached G1, $780,
100000 per annun. That does not look
as though free trade had damaged us
much.
But" Mr.. Balfour says, 'the for
eigner is sending too much produce on
to our markets and we must raise prices
iv,H 41
To make life better for the working
| classes by increasing the cost Of living;
to make trade better by raising the cost
Of British products-that is Mr.. Bal
four's proposal.
= It reminds one Of the old joke of feed
ing the dog, with his own tail.
But our industrious classes need pro-
tection-though not against the foreign
| workman. Why is that in spite of our
| enormous national wealth, we still want
| good houses, sufficient wages, old-age
pensions, steady employment-and can
|; not get them? Somebody gets that
wealth who o<shouldn't:
|sstsZ.W ny sit til at this country which has
been s. kong the work. kshopz zof the world, ).
fksta Il Isl Dssa stti1.E
cheap Imports I: heap imports really
| help us to produce our own goods,
| cheaply.
This is the reason the British work.
man has load on his back. The Brit
| ish landlord class is wealthier, more
powerful. and mere exacting, than the
i landlords of any other country. Labor
! creates wealth and as wealth is created,
| land increases in value. That value
| goes to individuals who are of no social
| use. But they enjoy an annual income
| from other peoples labor or about
2370,000,000.
| Then here is a little table of great
| interest in showing how the foreigner
manages to send steel products into this
| country more cheaply than we can sup
ply them ourselves. It shows the min
ing rents and royalties paid in various
| countries on iron and steel.
France. Germany. England
| s. d. S. d. s. d..
pig iron per ton...0 s 0 6
Ship steel per toni 11z 1 0 5 8
Steel rails per ton.0 IL 0 Sk s
! How can British labor bear these ex-
! orb1tant mining rents and royalties and
still compete successfully with the less
heavily burdened foreigner?
! Also in Germany and Belgium rail-
ways are run by the state, and the cost
of freight is low. Here railways are
| run in the interest shareholders,
| freight rates are high-sometimes
double the continental rates, and the
Industrial needs of the nation are hard
| lys considerable little, indeed, are they
considered, that foreign made goods are
| carried cheaper than homemade goods.
| In the shape of interest on capital
| and similar payments, we pay annually
! about e450,000,000. Thus more than
nalf Of four national income is taken by
classes WHO, according to Mr.. Chamber
| lain, "Toil not; neither do they spin."
We need protection but it must be pro-
! lection against the classes and interests
which are subscribing to Mr.. Balfours s
campaign fund and the Birmingham
! Tariff League, The landlords, the in