The Washington times., 1911-08-07
WAGES AND TARIFF, CAN
ADIAN AND AMERICAN.

The correspondent of Canadian tory
newspaper is examining labor and wage
conditions in this country, and sending
home a Macedonian call to the plair
people to vote against reciprocity be
cause the wage scale in the United
States is far lower than that OF
Canada!
How familiar to us, who have long
been sustained in our high protection
ideals by the confidence that if We
lowered duties wages must 60 down
too!
"Pauper wages of the United States
constitute the bugbear on whose ac-
count Canadians are summoned to de-
feat Laurier and ratification.
We have just been through the same
thing here. 1t has been demonstrated
repeatedly that wages in Canada are
far lower than here; that American
wages must tend to scale down toward
the Canadian level if approximate free
trade shall be established.
1t will not do to say that either
side is entirely wrong. In the studies
of the lumber, paper, and pulp indus
tries, n has been shown pretty con-
clusively that the labor costs in these
industries are higher in Canada than
here.
In the wheat regions of northwest
Canada labor is slightly more costly
than in the wheat States this side of
the line.
But what does it prove? Simply some
elemental truths about the relations of
wages to the labor supply. Farm labor
costs more in Alberta wheat fields than
in North Dakota wheat fields; ergo,
Canadians are asked to believe the
tariff is protecting Canadian labor.
But farm labor in our own north
western wheat country is more costly
than in other sections of the States.
Certainly the tariff is not responsible
for the very wide and striking varia-
tions between sections of the United
States.
Farm labor in older parts of Canada
is rather cheaper than in adjacent parts
of the United States. The supply is
larger there than in the northwestern
provinces.
The EXTREMIST variations, however,
between comparable parts of Canada
and the United States, are insignificant
compared with the widest variations in
wages between different parts of the
United States, with which the tariff
could not possibly have any relation.
Wheat is raised in Maryland with
labor that costs about one half as
much per month as the labor that
raises wheat in North Dakota.
Does the tariff do that? Certainly
not.
The buncombe in all this wage argu-
ment may possibly mislead the Ca
nadians; but somehow we doubt it.
The British tradition in favor of COM
mercial freedom and opportunity is
deep grounded, and it will not be sub
merged under an engulfment of bad
statistics and worse argument.
Canada has in mind that, reciprocity
or no reciprocity, she is going to keep
right on existing as the neighbor and
closest commercial intimate of the
United States. She wants to develop. |
Will her development be hindered, or
will it be hastened, by entrance into
the closest commercial fellowship?
Illinois has about as many people as
Canada. 1t was a wilderness when
eastern Canada was highly developed |
Our trans-Alleghanean empire has
developed because it was
part of the great free-trade system of
our union. Canada did not enjoy that
She wants it now.
In letting her have it, will we lose
from our own store of ad-
vantages?
The answer is plain. Did we lose
by permitting Illinois, Ohio,
Indiana, Iowa, the whole West, to be
developed just as Canada would now
develop if given opportunity?