The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1910-11-03
FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION
IN ENGLAND AND THIS COUNTRY
Great Britain Pays Starvation Wages on Free Tad ,,a
United States Pays Much Higher Rate Ia
der Our Tia tiff Il

doubtful whether the United States
or Great Britain is more expensive.
From ny Investigations / ain In
cIined 10 believe that the tarfr on
wool is only Of little account 4 suIt
Of clothes contains about four pounds
Of wool. on which the duty il conzla-
eTably less than one dollar. There
fore 1t follows that i English
clothes are cheaper than American
clothes. the difference is due not 70
the duty on wool but 10 the greater
cheapness Of British labor.
\ few years ago the British Board
Of Trade made an investigation tato
the clothing trade. in which 1900
600 workers are employed and il
found that she average wage per
worker was 1915 per week. IN the
clothing trade unemployment extend
ing 70 several months - common.
Therefore the average real wages os
the workers in the clothing trade
comes in England 20 somewhat less
than three dollars per week.
II English clothes are cheaper than
American clothes their cheaDuess is
due, in the first place TO the under
payment Of labor and TO sweating.
1t il due, besides, to the little known
fact that English WOODEN clothes con-
sists largely Of material which is not
honest wool, but shoddy. Shoddy is
made from rags, and the demand for
rags is so enormous in England that
England uses not only her own rags
but imports besides an average of
900 tons of rags per year, which
are converted into shoddy Strange
enough, the bulk of these rags comes
from the United States, France, and
Germany, the three greatest protec-
zionist countries.
The cheapest American smoking
tobacco costs from to 7 cents per
ounce. The cheapest English smok-
ing tobacco costs from seven cents to
eight cents per ounce. The cheapest
American cigar costs five cents, the
cheapest English cigar costs four
cents.
The cheapness of free trade is en-
joyed not by the poor but by the
rich, because under free trade luxu-
ries are not as highly taxed as they
are in the United States, and be-
cause the lowness of English wages
makes personal service cheaper.
Hence, hotels are twice as dear in
America as in Great Britain, and the
London taxicab charges twenty cents
per mile for two people, while the
New York and Boston taxi-cabs cost
a dollar for the same distance. Free
trade benefits the rich consumer, but
not the poor worker.
A casual inspection of New York
Boston, and other towns suffices to
show how great is the prosperity of
the American working masses if COM
pared with those in Great Britain.
During my stay in this country |
have seen only two people with brok-
en- boots. If one talks to an Ameri-
can typist, shop girl, waitress, SER
want girl, workingman, and even if
one talk to colored people engaged in
comparatively i'll paid work, one finds
that American teeth are very defec-
| tive, but that gold filings and gold
capped teeth are universal. The
| poverty of the English people is SO
great that not only among working
men, but among shop attendants,
| clerks, mattresses, etc, one finds hOr-
ribly decayed sets of teeth without
any evidence of stopping, because
the people are too poor to keep their
teeth in order
While the American shop attend
| ants, mattresses, and servant girls
are sturdy and we'll set up, anemia,
| which is due to under-feeding, is al
most universal among English girls
of the same class
l have compared the investiga-
tions made several years ago by the
American Department of Commerce
in Washington and by the British
Board of Trade into the cost of liv-
ing of the working classes.
From these Investigations it ap-
pears that the average working class
family in the United States consumes
between eight hundred and nine hun
dred pounds of meat per year, while
the average British working class
family consumes twice the quantity
of bread which is consumed by the
American family of similar position.
Among the British working people d
diet consisting almost exclusively Of
bread, tea, treacle, and lard, with an
occasional herring, is common.
British unskilled laborers in the
engineering trades, the building
trades, and many other trades, earn
from $3.50 to $500 per week. With
such lamentably low earnings they
cannot afford to buy sufficient food
to maintain their bodily health.
Wages are still worse when we
turn from the towns to the country.
According to the official investiga-
tons made by the British Govern
ment a few years ago, Irish agricul-