The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-04-21
TARIFFS AND WAGES'
Protection of No Benefit to the
 American Worker
FALLAcIoUs IDEA EXPLODED.

High Protection and Low Wages Pre-
 vail In the Cotton Industry-Manu-
 lecturers Make 16 Per Cent and Pa,
 Employees S7.5o Week.
 Many good people think that it is
 the protectionist policy that keeps
 American wages high. The workman
 himself generally thinks so. He votes
 for a high tariff to enable his employ
 CT to make high profits so that his
 employer can pay him high wages.
 He knows as a consumer he will have
 to pay high prices, but he thinks his
 high wages will more than offset that
 He should ds 8 little thinking. It is
 not the tariff that keeps the American
 wages high, assuming that they are
 high. It is Americas boundless nat
 ural opportunities that have kept them
 high, and this was true when there
 was no tariff or only a low tariff
 Where there are most natural re-
 sources of potential wealth and where
 men are relatively scarce wages will
 go up. Supply and demand settle that
 Instead of the tariff keeping Amer
 1caA wages high, 1t is the American
 standard of wages fixed by natural conditions that compels the tariff pro
 tected industries to pay high wages.
 The protected industries have to com pete with the nonprotected industries.
 and the latter employ many times
 more men than the former, so that it 4s the wages paid iu the larger group that determines the wages paid in the smaller group. Wide and farreaching as is our tariff system, it will be found that the number of people employed in our protected industries after all bears a small proportion to those en- pIoyed in the industries that are not protected. Professor J. Laurence Laughlin many years ago put the ra- do as not more than one to sixteen, and it is not likely to be more today.
 In La Fo1lette's Weekly, a true friend of the workers, though some times misguided. we recently read the statement that the tariff ''is tax to which the people have consented in order to maintain in this country high wages and high standard of living.' Another statement was that the tar in-enhanced prices charged by the manufactures were "a trust fund for the benefit of American labor" Else where in the paper 1t is forcibly shown how shamefully the trustees have abused this trust" For in- stance, according to the census of manufactures for 1905, 31o.45s cot ton mill operatives were paid $94s 4s377,- 696 in wages, an average of $3O4 for 1 each employee, or less than $6 per | week Bulletin 62 of the census of> flee shows that at the census for 1905 | the wages of POP, ,211 cotton mill opera l lives averaged only $7.71 per week for | men, $6.03 for women. "In the great l cotton mills of New England,'' says | La Follette's, .tthe average earnings of l all operatives was less than $7.5O per week.
 Now. before going any further let US ask this question: Is 1t the 50 per cent protection which cotton goods enjoy that enables the cotton manufacturers to pay these< magnificent wages? Let the reader think Of the wages paid in industries that have no protection at all and compare them with these wages and then ask himself if it can be true that it is the high tariff that keeps up the rate of wages in this He will see that it is not true. It is a monstrous delusion. The tariff protected manufacturers pay the wages which competition determines, and this competition comes from the industries, which, after all, are the great majority. The man. nfacturers pay no more than they can help, tariff or no tariff. Of course, there is no doubt of the ability of the cotton spinners to pay much higher wages than they do. La Follette's states on excellent authority that
 '@The average annual dividend paid by he mills of this group (of eighteen New England cotton mills) for the previous tight years, through good times and pad times, was nearly 16 per cent. Thirty mills of Fall River, Mass, paid or fourteen years dividends that aver lged S.29 per cent annually and in ad- lition accumulated a surplus equal to 2 per cent of their total capital.' If there were no tariff at all or only low tariff the cotton manufa cturers would be forced by competition to pay bout the same wages they are pay ng now. The tariff on goods is no to labor. A tariff on i'm 'orted labor might be- How the vorkman can still think that he is !. by admitting foreign labor rec and keeping out foreign goods is mystery. THOMAS SCANLON.