The Irish standard., 1910-05-28

cent to 100 per cent Before this raise
in duties, cotton mills made as high
as &c per cent year, according to the
Review of Reviews.
No reduction has been made upon
the wool tariff, although everyone
Knows that this rate is extortionate
and is Il cruel wrong to the common
people Of the country.
1t is also noteworthy that the in
crease in cotton and the heavy duties
on wool is upon poor goods to be worn
by poor people. These people are
busy ten hours a day in plants and
mills earning livelihood for the sup
port Of their wives and children. They
neither read nor understand the tar
them if they did.
1t is difficult to note an instance
where any great reduction has been
made upon necessities used by ordi-
nary people, who constitute a great
portion of the population.
Why then, should it be a matter of
amazement that the people should be
bitterly disappointed in this bill?
Tho Price of Living.
Real protection should permit a
high standard of living, that will Gre
ate people we'll nourished, and,
therefore, fit fo vote
This last measure, on the contrary,
cuts directly at the root of the living
standard.
The price of living has gone up
from 20 per cent to IS per cent in the
last ten years, while wages remain
practically the same. Mems and boys
clothing, women's and children's cloth
ing, will remain where they were, or,
perhaps, they will 90 higher through
the insidious wording of this bill.
Even in the present period Of pros
perity, working people are finding it
difficult to make stationary wages
meet the continued increase in the
cost OF living.
Already the great middle classes of
the country who draw salaries or have
small means are suffering cruelty from
the increase in the cost of living that
compels them to cut down the stand
ard Of life, get cheaper homes and
pay less rent. Rent must also re-
main high in proportion to wages, as
the cost of lumber and nails and sim
liar articles remain the same or goes
higher.
What, then, are to be the exact eco
nomic and industrial results of this
measure?
The manufacturer, already rich,
adds to the accommodations which he
does not need and possibly leaves a
great fortune to undermine and de-
stroy the children he leaves behind.
What of the millions of American
mechanics and working people who
have kept the party in power, think
Ing they were supporting the tradi-
tons Of Lincoln and the elder Amer
leans who first builded the party upon
the basis of strictly moral issues?
These people earn from So to 81 a
day, and on this they support a wife
and an average family of three chill
dren, who are hereafter supposed to
continue tho 1jfa 1f ho NH
wages of an ordinary working man do
not average more than $500 a year.
This is sum not large for many an
American woman to spend upon
single dress, and she may wear this
dress but once.
When the working man gets around
shortly to buy his shoddy wooden
clothes he is liable to find the same
advanced; the poor grade cotton
clothing worn by his children will like
wise see the same advance. When his
wife takes the weekly wage to market
to buy dozen different household
things, she will now find that she
must scrimp and scheme and bargain
to keep the family whole.
Why?
To preserve the solidarity of a great
party that has been betrayed in the
house of its friends.
Prosperity and the People.
We talk loudly of the crude and bald
material prosperity which is said to
exist in the United States, and is cur
rently measured by the gigantic for
tunes accumulated by the few. This
prosperity is neither morally nor mem
tally great in many of it's aspects.
Every man who studies the condi-
tons of his country today knows that
the conditions prevailing among dense
foreign populations in Pennsylvania,
New England, and our large cities are
little or no better than they are
abroad. He knows that poverty and
ignorance and the decay of morals in