Bisbee daily review., 1909-09-21
DID REPUBLICAN PARTY KEEP
 ITS PLEDGES?
What Is the Actual Differece in the Labor Cost of Manu- fracture " At Home and Abroad
Ry Clyde H. Tavener.

Dg SAg II. ! 4dfNAtCA"
 MANCHESTER, ENGLAND. Aug. 22,--what is the actual difference in the labor cost of manufacture tat home and abroad?" Did the Repub- lican party kep it's platform promise of rivision of the tariff on the basis of equalization of that difference. plus the reasonable profit for home man ufacturers?
 When the cotton schedule was be ing debated in the Senate. no one, of the protectionists produced data to show the foreign labor cost in the production of cotton manufactures. When the Democratic members of Congress endeavored to find informa- ton on the subject, they found it was not to be had in all Washington. That is why the writer has travelled all the long way to Manchester to secure light as to what the employees in the cotton mills here really re ceiye.
 am writing now from the center of the greatest cotton manufacturing district in the world, and against the products of which section the abnor- mally high American tariff rates are aimed.
 It is important to know what the labor cost in the foreign production of cotton goods is, because cotton manufactures is one of the most highly protected industries in Amer ica Senator Aldrich characterized the cotton schedul as the key" to the American system of protection.
 The New England cotton manu- factures, whom blind Senator Gore showed to be making profits as high as 67 per cent. cry that they must have high protection because they pay their workmen so much higher wages than the cotton manufacturers of England. Is this plea based on truth or only sham?
 Here are the facts: The census of 1905 shows that the wages of the average employe in the cotton manu- facturing industry in the United States is s3O4 a year, s25.S3 month, s5.S5 a week, 97 cents a day. This astonishingly low average is due to the large number of children and women, and foreigners, on the pay rolls.
 In Englind the annual wage of the average employe is s2S3.2S; monthly wage s19.45; weekly wage s4.4S; daily wage 74 cents. These figures are from the official report of the British board of trade, based on the census of 1906. The method of obtaining the averages was by dividing the amount paid in wages by the cotton manufacturers of Great Britain by the total number of employees, includ- ing men, women and boy and girl workers
 The average per cent of tariff rate fixed by the Payne-Aldrich law on cotton products is in excess of 40 per cent. An attempt to justify this amount of protection by the actual difference in the cost of production at home and abroad would be ri dicuIous. Even if English workmen received no wages whatever. the new rates on cotton goods would still be excessive.
 Senator Owen of Oklahoma, during the debate on the cotton schedule as originally reported by the Senate fl. nance committee. aptly explained the hopelessness of justification of the new rates in few words, as follows:
 Granting that foreign goods have no labor cost whatever, 26 per cent is the maximum schedule to protect the American workman in the cotton manufacturing industry, because 2 per cent represents the labor cost 1T America of cotton manufactures.
 'And if the labor cost abroad is ont half the labor cost in the United States. the rate required to proven the foreign manufactures from hay ing the advantage in cheaper labo would be 26 per cent, the Americal labor cost, less 13 per cent, tn European labor cost, or a net rate O 13 per cent
 "Yet," declared Sentor Owen, tn average per cent of tarih rate ike by the Senate bill on cotton product is 47.14 per cent"
 The wages of the workmen in tn cotton manufacturing industry England are increasing. For all tn textile industries combined the boar of trade report shows the percentag increase in average full-time earning to be 20 per cent for men and 22 pc cent for women. This increase for the 20-year period between 1Ss and 1906, and under free trade.
 In the United States in the sam number of years. wages have increai ed 3.s per cent in dollars, but hay decreased in proportion to the il creased output of American workme which has been due to new machil cry. The United States commissions of labor reports that in the America
 Try Murine Eye kennedy for Re